[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: A rose by any other name? I don't think so!



While both libraries and archives provide information, much understanding
about the differences can be gleaned from their developmental history.
The problems of administering information are intensified when comparing
public records archivists and librarians.  Training in history as compared
to training in information and library sciences also skews the approaches of
archivists and librarians by setting a perspective toward organization and
research that is inherently different.  The difficulty with museum curators
is also one of scope--they organize and describe at the item level, while
archivists ought to focus on the fond or record group, then the series.

 Other differences have to do with whether one focuses on function as
opposed to form, and function as opposed to any cataloging criteria.  One of
the greatest  challenges in achieving understanding  between the two
professions, I believe, is that of the role of organizational structure in
determining how a researcher might and should be able to look for
information.  Broad subject categorizations are helpful in research in
libraries, while it may actually serve to prevent good research in archives,
by allowing the researcher to ignore organizational function and structure
which would have given rise to the records, and where and how they were
created, stored and transferred from.

  A librarian or one with training only in library and information science
generally discounts the inherent role of organizational structure as a
condition of archival creation. Because this gives rise to concurrent needs
to guide toward dependent and adequate description, reference and research
in archives, the minimalization of this archival reality makes for a
qualitative difference in collections administered by librarians and
archivists, the reference help provided, and the intellectual control of the
information. My experience has been that librarians and archivists
experience great frustration with each other over failure to understand
this.  Similar to provenance, the organizational structure is determinative
in archives yet a library approach would be to undermine that structural
component and prefer to look at "aboutness" in both organization and
cataloging, as well as descriptors for research , and to provide reference
services that rely on this in addition to author, subject, and title.  Much
information embedded in archives will be ignored altogether, or lost for all
practical purposes using the "library approach." Generally, and depending on
the scope of the projects, research in archives is more demanding and
requires a higher level of skill on the part of the researcher than work in
published material because of the way the material is (and should be)
arranged.  To fail to arrange archives according to organizational
principles, and instead to describe using only the principles of
librarianship will undermine the potential inherent in the archives to
provide information to the researcher.


Archivists must create titles for their collections/fonds/record groups in
most instances, where librarians do not, and there are inherent differences
between published works and "papers" or archives.  Published works, while
usually not unique are  produced with organizational purpose behind them
which differs from that of archives.  They have an agenda.  "Papers" or
archives are created in the course of executing some  function and do not
necessarily have the identifiable bias or agenda  that one might identify in
published works in the way the information is organized. Papers at the item
level are unique (unless electronically or manually reproduced in this
modern age, as a convenience. The value of the original is different
informationally than that of the copies, unlike that with published works in
the library context, although, the  published item itself might have unique
artifactual value.  In addition, the relationship among papers within a
series or other organizational level provides unique information that
creates a further context for the information.  In addition, archives and
the information from them are useful in many ways beyond that which the
originator might have intended.  This is also not necessarily true of
published works, except in the artifactual sense.

In addition, there are differences between  public sector and private sector
archives, the management required of them and the regulations affecting them
which published materials either do not share, or except for some copyright
and ownership issues, do not deal with.  Public archives begin as public
records and are therefore subject to regulation in their various phases and
by various bodies.  Private papers, manuscripts and private repositories may
be exempt from this type of regulation, and  behave and handle their
archives in ways more similar to libraries, but still, this does not answer
some of the organizational, descriptive and research issues.

  These and other factors make the world of archival administration
potentially very different from that of librarianship.  To ignore the
differences is to minimize the important role each plays in the world of
information, and what we can learn from each other.

My 2 cents worth.

Elizabeth Fairfax

Island County Records and Information Services
 e-mail to asefairax@co.island.wa.us

 Thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

> ----------
> From:         W. Mark Ritchie[SMTP:ritchpat@SENTEX.NET]
> Reply To:     W. Mark Ritchie
> Sent:         Thursday, July 19, 2001 8:36 AM
> To:   ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
> Subject:      Re: A rose by any other name?  I don't think so!
>
> Very broadly speaking were all information specialists.  However that said
> there are significant differences between the type of information we
> handle and how that information is used.
>
> The concept of the archival bond is very foreign to librarians.
> I usually describe what a library would be like organized according
> provenance rather than subject.  All the books arranged by publisher, then
> by editor, then by author and finally by date.
>
> The other profession that has trouble understanding archives is that of
> museum curator.  They constantly treat archives as funny museums that
> collect paper and when they actually acquire archival materials they tend
> to treat the documents as artifacts.
>
> There is a definite problem here that goes back to the lack of competent
> training provided in library and museum graduate programs.
>
> --------------------------
>
> W. Mark Ritchie
> Heritage Resource Management Associates
> 228 Broken Oak Crescent
> Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
> N2N 1N7
>
> Phone: 519 745 5586
> Fax     : 519 745 3585
>
> Website: http://granite.sentex.net/~ritchpat/hrma.html
> ---------
> When does posterity start?
>
>
>
>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>