Perhaps it's because I've never worked in local government, that I have
a slightly different perspective from some of those represented in this
debate.  I'm still naïve enough to believe that records managers and
archivists (I'm both) are toilers in the same records vineyard.  I also
believe that the need to make archival appraisal decisions at the point
of creation or capture for electronic records means that the two
different points in the continuum (or lifecycle) represented by records
management and archives will come closer together.  Records management
needs an archival dimension for the benefit of current business and
archives will not survive in the future without the input of records
management to the effective historical filtration process.  Our European
colleagues do not recognise the distinction which they see as
essentially Anglo-Saxon.

The debate about 'arcane' skills is an old one.  In some cases these
skills are already options on the training courses.  From a resource
management point of view, any given office needs to have access to
reading skills for description and customer service purposes.  However,
the balance of material held has changed and will change further between
records which require interpretive skills and those which don't.
Increasingly too, employment opportunities are outside the local
government sector where these skills are even less in demand.  Training
everyone may be a waste of course time.  Perhaps they should become part
of a subsequent personal development programme or provided at the cost
of the employer who feels that they are necessary for their office.

More iconoclastically, perhaps, it should not be the responsibility of
the record office to interpret documents for users.  It should be up to
users to get the necessary skills to do it themselves.  Classes of the
type that Jan Hargreaves describes could be provided, for a fee, or
researchers could be put in touch with someone who can help them.


Peter Emmerson
Director
Emmerson Consulting Limited
47a Salisbury Road
Harpenden
Hertfordshire  AL5 5AR

Phone   01582 769842
Fax     01582 761740
E-mail  [log in to unmask]


This e-mail message and any files transmitted with it are confidential
and intended solely for the use of the addressee.  If you are not the
intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of it
is prohibited and may be unlawful.  If you have received this e-mail in
error, please delete it immediately and notify Emmerson Consulting by
return e-mail to the above address.

Emmerson Consulting Limited is registered in England No. 3607347.
Registered Office: Charter Court, Midland Road, Hemel Hempstead,
Hertfordshire HP2 5GE


-----Original Message-----
From: The UK mailing list for archivists, conservators and records
managers. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hargreaves,
Jan
Sent: 27 November 2002 13:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: appraisal

I'm glad Peter decided to get involved!

I'd been thinking that the Microsoft package was more likely to be for
personal use. Private individuals (unless they are archivists or Records
Managers!) are unlikely to have formal appraisal skills, but might have
an
eye to preserving their electronic documentation for posterity.
Therefore,
isn't a tool like MyLifeBits going to be helpful to us archivists when
it
comes to ensuring that relevant personal documents about, e.g. writers,
researchers, scientists, survive? Better than, as was cheekily suggested
at
Conference this year, doorstepping the grieving relatives at the funeral
tea
to make sure the deceased's hard drive is considered for the archives as
well as their notebooks and paper correspondence.

Peter's points about the timing and place of appraisal in the life cycle
of
records make me wonder whether we are cutting off our noses by
segregating
the teaching of Archive Administration and Records Management on the
Archive
courses. I'm an archivist through and through - I've never wanted to be
a
Records Manager - but I'm glad that we had a module on RM/Modern Records
Management on the course. Archivists need to be as aware of what happens
during the current and semi-current life of records as Records Managers
do
of what will happen to the records they manage once they cease to be
semi-current. Knowledge of what makes an archive could help Records
Managers
schedule and appraise the records in their care, and knowledge of the
progression of records through their life cycle could help Archivists
structure the catalogue when those records become archives (particularly
in
a Local Government context). Or should we stop cataloguing
hierarchically,
as this is also something that only means anything to us as a
profession? :P

Jan Hargreaves
Lancashire Record Office

27 Nov 2002