Dear all,

As ever I have been listening in on the 'nobody understands us' lament
followed by the 'I'm proud to wear sandals' defense with a growing
sense of depressing deja vu.

It would seem to me that the archive profession currently stands at a
crossroads in its future and at a time when we should be debating
exactly what role (if any) our profession will have in the modern world
all we can do is discuss whether or not we should be wearing ties.

The archive profession as a whole has so far failed to grasp the
significance of the paradigm shift our society has experienced over the
last 20 years or so. We seem quite happy to make use of the
opportunities offered by the IT revolution whilst conveniently
overlooking that it falls within our professional remit to manage its
consequences. After all, if the appraisal of sources, classification
of information and management of its longterm storage are not issues
for archivists, who are they for?

Many archivists would probably answer 'records managers' at this point,
and they would be right to a point. Records Managers have so far been
in the digital preservation frontline thanks to their
'current/semi-current records' remit but it doesn't take a genius to
work out that (very soon) some of those same digital records will
become digital archives and require 'permament' preservation. Now
perhaps the archive profession is content for others to continue to
tackle these issues even when they become 'digital archives'. A fair
enough stance, but surely one which will see it become increasingly
marginalised as time goes on and people begin to realise that archives
up and down the country have wonderful historical collections which
stretch back from the middle ages but which unfortunately stop c.1980.

Digital preservation is a huge issue and one which the media is quite
happy to engage in in a serious and informed manner (as with the
recently launch of the Digital Preservation Coalition). The number of
vendors offering enterprise-wide electronic records management systems
is steadily growing as companies realise the huge market potential, but
these systems are only the first stage in the process. Clearly there
will be a similar need for digital archive tools or systems to actually
help preserve this stuff. Archivists need to be out there and talking
to people like IBM, like Microsoft and getting a coherent and consistent
message across as to what our user requirements are - and yes, shock
horror, that might mean wearing a suit and tie.

I appreciate that having stuck my head above the parapet (especially on
a Friday) I should prepare myself for the inevitable flack. Before you
start taking aim, I would just like to clarify that I am not
downplaying the other aspects of an archivst's role, nor denegrating
the excellent work that we all do in terms of making our history
accessible to our public. I am simply saying that unless we start to
address some of these issues in a meaningful way the archive profession
risks becoming a part of the history that until now it has watched over.

Steve Bailey


----------------------
Steve Bailey,
Electronic Records Manager
Joint Information Systems Committee
Tel: 07092 302850
Email: [log in to unmask]

Please note that these views are my own views and do not necessarily
represent those of my employer