Freedom as Access: Archives and Information Availability
Backstage passes, key cards, gate codes – all of these things give us access to something
that we might not normally see. When we go to the airport, our boarding pass allows us access
to the plane. Access can be as simple as holding the keys to the car or as complicated as trying
get in to see the President. Access, in the context of an archive, is somewhere between the two.
The chief mission of an archive is to preserve their collections in order to make them available
for public use. With that mission hanging over them, one would think that it would be easy to
access materials in an archive. There are websites with online search engines and completed
finding aids. There are even archives that put their entire photographic collection online. It
seems as though we are moving towards a world where materials are available for access by all.
However, is that information in a collection truly free to be accessed by all?
However, most institutions require a number of hoops be jumped through before a
researcher can even walk into a collections room. Access policies are instituted to limit who gets
in. When most scholars want to access a collection, they write to the archives and are often
made to fill out a research request form, listing the scope of their research and which particular
collections they want to look through. That request must be approved by the archivist, and then
arrangements must be made for an appointment. Once at the archive, the researcher may have to
fill out more forms limiting how he or she can go through the material and how much he can
access at any one time. There will be conditions on what materials the scholar may bring into
the room with them. There may also be additional policies on how to treat the collections,
particularly dealing with original order and handling of the documents. Even gaining access
does not necessarily mean that a scholar will be allowed to use the information found within.
Many archives reserve the right to deny permission without giving cause.
It is a part of our nature to want things to be open. As archivists, we want our collections
to be available to researchers as well as the general public. We want the freedom to open our
collections up through the internet and produce digital records that are available to all. Yet we
find that we are hampered by innumerable means in our continuing quest to increase access.
Freedom of information cannot be universal when people are involved. Donors, through their
concern for their reputations or privacy, make the decisions to restrict access to their materials
for any length of time they so desire. Archivists must then weigh the choice between accepting a
donation with restrictions and watching it go to another repository. These decisions create
tension between donors, archives and scholars (Panofsky and Moir, 2005). People who have
utilized records before they were donated may come up against new restrictions once they are
donated. The families of the original creators of the material may have significant reservations
about what is contained in the material and how things may be seen by outsiders. The decision
to put restrictions on the material may in fact be governed by fear.
While librarians may cry out for universal access to records, and the Freedom of
Information act allows people into the inner workings of the government, certain documents
remain under lock and key in archival settings, with little to no hope of seeing the light of day.
Government archives may have time limits on their papers, pushing an access date far into the
future. A donor may wish to keep sensitive records locked away in order to preserve a sense of
family honor or pride. We, as the caretakers, must try do what is right by the material we
manage. This often puts archives into direct conflict with the open door policy that they are
trying create.
What becomes increasingly apparent is that the opening of these doors can have truly
global ramifications. Archives may contain politically explosive material, as was the case in the
US army’s records concerning Ferdinand Marcos’ wartime record (Danielson, 1989).
Researchers used previously classified material to write a book countering the Philippine
president’s claims of heroism, which may have played a part in his defeat at the polls. Should
the archivists have stepped in and restricted the access of the scholars because it could have real
world implications? Does an archivist have the right to determine what information should be
free? In this case, the archives allowed the material to come to light, believing that access was
ultimately more important than any possible political results.
Yet, what rights do the creators have versus the current owners of the material? Do you
simply hand over your material and then let the new owners do what they want? This seems to
be a large problem with artistic works such as photographs. While an archive may own the
physical copy of the image, the rights to the image remain with artist. How then do archives
grant permission to researchers wanting to use those images in a scholarly work? Very often
they do it believing that “conventional ownership of the objects effectively grants exclusive
ownership of the ideas or knowledge they contain. So long as the owner prevents copies from
being made, and at the same time denies access, whatever is uniquely contained within the object
has been privatized (Sax, 2000).” Other archives deal with the copyright issues by working
exclusively with the artist to grant permission or not.
Sometimes situations also arise when material donated by one person affects the privacy
of another person. Some collections contain items that represent or produce information about
someone who has no idea that these materials have been donated (Gaudette, 2003). Does the
archive have the right to grant access to that material if the items may cause concern for someone
who had no intention of making their ideas public? The questions that arise from people when
their documents are released without prior knowledge can and should shape the policies
regarding access to the collections. However, these kind of decisions will generally be left up to
the archivists in lieu of rigidly worded restrictions placed on the documents by the donor in the
deed of gift.
There are new issues that archives must deal with as they enter into the digital era.
While the primary audience for an archival collection has been scholarly researchers, the new
medium of the internet allows anyone to read previously unknown materials that have been
digitized and placed in the public record by archives attempting to broaden their access policy.
The biggest problem that most of these archives have in determining what to put on the internet
comes not from collection concerns but from financial ones (Wallach, 2001). Freedom of
information is generally not free. Digitizing a collection takes a great deal of time and effort
from the staff as well as extensive equipment and training. A small archive may simply not have
the resources to put their collections online thus negating the conversation. A larger archive with
more funding must then deal with the conundrum of whether it is ethically or morally right to put
their materials out into the open.
All of things must be taken into account when we are defining what we mean by access
in an archive. Access, in the context of archival use, means allowing people to use the materials
in any given collection according to the documented policies of the collecting institution and
taking into account any conditions placed on the records by existing donor agreements or by
specific physical limitations. All of the restrictions give rise to the idea that the information is
not free. The only time that archival material is free is when it is in good condition without
donor restrictions. However, even then, access will be limited by the availability of staff to
monitor the collections and the money to open the doors. So, in a sense, archival information is
never truly free. While it would be nice to let it all be available to everyone all the time, the
demands of our profession create a inviolable standard that we must adhere to in order to protect
the materials in our care. Access is available, if you submit your forms two weeks in advance.
Reference List
Bingo, Steven. 2011. "Of Provenance and Privacy: Using Contextual Integrity to Define ThirdParty Privacy." The American Archivist 74 (2): 506-521.
Danielson, Elena S. 1989. "The Ethics of Access." American Archivist 52 (1): 52-62.
Gaudette, Marybeth. 2003. “Playing Fair With the Right to Privacy.” Archival Issues: Journal
of the Midwest Archives Conference 28, No. 1: 21-34.
Panofsky, Ruth and Michael Moir. 2005. “Halted by the Archive: The Impact of Excessive
Archival Restrictions on Scholars.” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 37, no. 1: 19-32.
Sax, Joseph L. 2000. “ Not so public: access to collections.” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books,
Manuscripts, & Cultural Heritage, 1, No. 2: 101-115.
Wallach, Ruth. 2001 "Does Cultural Heritage Information Want to Be Free? A Discourse on
Access," Art Documentation, v. 20 no. 2: 42-45.