Information as evidence
Records and archives
The record
Records are documentary traces of activities;
they are produced in the context of carrying out
activities and are kept as evidence of the
activities.
Records in this definition are most easily
associated with the activities of governments,
corporations, and other institutions.
Slide 2
Evidence
The principle upon which traditional archives
rest is that records, preserved as the creating
entity made use of them, are the best evidence of
what the creating entity was doing.
Inherent in this conception is the importance of
context; the relationships between records, as
established via the creator’s activities, are as
much evidence as record contents.
Slide 3
Evidentiary principles:
respect des fonds
Respect des fonds involves keeping the records
of a single creator together.
The fonds encompasses all the records produced
by a creator.
Slide 4
Evidentiary principles:
provenance
The principle of provenance mandates that
records from one creator are not mixed with
another, and that records should be arranged as
the creator arranged them (original order).
Slide 5
The basis of “modern” archives
McNeil examines the basis for archival concepts of
evidence. The notion of universal cognitive competence,
as epitomized by Locke, indicates that any rational
person reviewing a sufficient body of evidence will
arrive at the same conclusion.
If we don’t agree, either we don’t have enough
evidence or one of us is wrong. Yay, the rule of law
triumphs!
Slide 6
Reliability and authenticity
A reliable record is “capable of standing for the facts
that it attests.”
An authentic record “is what it claims to be.”
In bureaucratic practice, a reliable record:
• Is created by reliable people and processes.
• Adheres to standards of completeness.
Slide 7
Postmodernity and archives
In “modern” thinking, reliable, authentic records
accurately reflect “what really happened.”
In postmodern thinking, records can only partially
reflect “what really happened.”
Slide 8
The mutable nature of
records in practice
Based on recordkeeping associated with the Jamaican
banking crisis of the 1990s, Victoria Lemieux contends that:
it is not realistic to expect that even the best practices will
ever result in the perfect preservation of some inviolate
intended meaning in records, and that the records will ever
be perfectly reliable and impartial evidence of either the
“facts” of a transaction or intended meaning. There are
simply too many diverse mediations affecting recordmaking and record-keeping over space and time in complex
organizations...”
Slide 9
The mutable nature of
records in practice
According to Lemieux, there is no single “record”
illuminating the truth. She suggests that
the important question becomes not “What is a record?”
but “how does this particular individual or group perceive
and understand a record?”
Slide 10