Do the wrong people value our archives?
And who are the right people, and how do we introduce ourselves?
by Zoë D’Arcy
Abstract
Anybody working with an archival collection will recognise the intrinsic worth
of that collection. Made up of unique and usually irreplaceable items, an archive
has a worth that can be commercial, social and cultural. But ultimately, in a
world where we are all seeking funding to maintain to our valuable collections, it
is not people who work in the industry that have to be convinced of their worth.
Are the ways we are currently measuring the worth of our collections working
for us? Worth can be measured in so many ways – it can be monetary, or by the
size of a collection, or even the number of people who use the collection for their
research. Do any of these valuation methods accurately reflect the way in which
our key communities and stakeholders value our collections, and should they?
Once we’ve valued our collections, how should we communicate that value?
Who do we tell? To what use do we put those values?
This paper will look at some of these measures, and argue that worth can only be
communicated once you’ve established ‘relevance’. It looks at some ways in
which archives are proving their relevance, at some of the pitfalls, and some
interesting efforts to establish relevance in the digital age.
***
On 21 June 1920, Edward Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone of the Capitol
Building in Canberra. Placed at the summit of Kurrajong Hill, above the
Parliament House site, the Capitol Building would, as the Sydney Morning Herald
rather grandly stated ‘house the records of national achievement and the
archives of the nation’.1 The Capitol Building was part of Walter Burley Griffin’s
grand vision of a democratic city, which placed the citizens of Australia, and
their achievements, firmly above its politicians.
The day itself was cold, as June days in Canberra often are, and there was a bitter
wind blowing across the new city, or as the attending Argus reporter was
delighted to call it ‘various buildings dotted around barren stony hills’.2 Despite
this, it seems that around 5000 people came to witness the event, although it is
entirely possible they may have been there for their chance to see the Prince
rather than to witness the laying of the foundation stone for a national archive.
1
2
Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 1920
The Argus, 22 June 1920
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The Mercury, a Melbourne paper, in its story about the Prince’s visit, sounded a
cautionary note. ‘It does not necessarily follow that the building of the Capitol
will proceed immediately after the laying of the foundation stone’.3 In another
article written a few days after the ceremony, the paper went on to express its
disapproval of the choice of items buried beneath the foundation stone for
posterity:
…instead of the newspapers and the coins which in ordinary
circumstances would have been preserved with it, the Federal
Ministry has enclosed beneath the stone a list of the members of the
Federal Parliament. In their opinion that is apparently the one
feature of contemporary history worthy of permanent
preservation.4
And ultimately the cynical view of The Mercury was proved correct. Not only
were the plans for the Capitol Building shelved; when politicians finally placed a
building at the top of Kurrajong (now Capital) Hill, this is what they built.
They built Parliament House.
I’m telling you this story to illustrate a rather extreme clash of values when it
comes to the worth of archives. One the one hand, there is the vision of the
idealistic Walter Burley Griffin, who dreamt of building a city like no other, and
who wanted to demonstrate through town planning that politicians were
ultimately responsible to the citizens of Australia. To him, having a Capitol
Building that included an archive of national achievements above Parliament
House was the perfect way to demonstrate that point. On the other hand, we
have the combined visions of decades of politicians who felt that they were
obviously the most important people in Canberra (if not Australia) and that they
should have the building and the site to prove it.
Two extremes. Whereabouts would you place yourself in the argument? Which
building do you think should be placed on top of Capital Hill?
Interestingly, the principal architect of Parliament House, Aldo Giurgola, was
extremely aware of Walter Burley Griffin’s plan for an archive to be built on
Capital Hill. His compromise was to enable the people of Australia to walk over
Parliament House, so that symbolically they still were above Parliament. But the
dream of a national archive on Capital Hill was lost.5
3
The Mercury, 9 May 1920
The Mercury, 25 June 1920
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Lines that speak: Architectural drawings of Romaldo Giurgola exhibition catalogue
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2
At this conference, where we all recognise the intrinsic worth of an archive, we
have rather more sympathy for Griffin’s view of the world. Our values tell us
that the information held in an archive has a worth that can be symbolic,
commercial, evidential, social, historic or cultural. We recognise that archives
have an important role to play in the wider community. But ultimately, it is not
just us that should be convinced of their worth. It needs to be communicated out
to a much wider audience, in terms that they can not only recognise and
understand, but also agree with.
Archives can’t be passive in the process. They need to actively identify their key
stakeholders and wider audiences, and assist them to recognise and agree with
the archives’ own assessment of their value and worth. But how do you calculate
and communicate value and worth in any meaningful way? There are many
models of calculating a dollar value for our heritage – it seems to be a necessary
evil to justify public spending on archival collections. In this paper I’m going to
argue while costing exercises need to happen, what archives need to
communicate is not worth, but relevance. Once the relevance of the archives is
recognised by our key stakeholders and audiences, then their belief in the worth
and value of our archives will follow.
But first, I’d like to explore a few ways in ways in which the worth of archives
are currently being calculated.
One way, arguably the accountant’s way, is by calculating a collection’s dollar
value. How much would it be worth if you sold it? By having a dollar figure
against a collection, you can give someone outside the organisation a scale of
measurement that can be easily understood. You often see art galleries make use
of dollar figures when they acquire a new important work of art. They publicise
the price they paid for it – and that can be a very powerful way of
communicating the value of a unique collection item. Especially in the face of
public dislike of the art – just think of the fuss caused in 1973 when the Whitlam
government bought Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles for US$2 million.
But archives wrestle with how to calculate that value. It is actually a really hard
problem to solve. How do you calculate the dollar amount of an archival
collection – when by its nature it is usually made up of unique items that are
important, but often have no market value? Surely the correct term for such a
collection should be, like the Mastercard advertisement, ‘Priceless’?
The National Archives of Australia only first formally calculated a monetary
value for its collection in 2000. To do so, it adopted the technique of classing
records according to two categories: ‘iconic’ and ‘non-iconic’.
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‘Iconic’ is used for records that are recognised to have a significant monetary
value in a commercial market. Items you could potentially sell at a Sotheby’s
auction. They have a specific value assigned to them based on that potential
market price.
‘Non-iconic’ is used for everything else – although the category is spilt further
along format lines. Paper files have different values to cartographic records,
which have a different value to photographs, and so on. They have a value
assigned to them on a ‘per metre’ basis that has been worked out by averaging
the independently assessed value of randomly chosen samples.
Currently in 2010, using this technique, the National Archives has a collection
that is valued at about $1.4 billion.
This is a large amount of money, and it ‘feels’ the right sort of figure for a
national collection that spans the country. However, when you start looking past
that one big figure, and at the individual records, you can start to see some of the
tensions that exist between monetary values and the heritage or cultural values.
For instance, one of the most valuable items that the National Archives holds is
one of its most unexpected – a moon rock.6
Gifted to the people of Australia by the US Government in 1970 in recognition of
Australia’s assistance with the 1969 moon landing, the item consists of a few
moon rock fragments set alongside an Australian flag that was on board Apollo
XI. Although not much to look at, this object has a recognised market value that
far outstrips the value of many other items in the collection that are arguably
much more important to the people of Australia.
Conversely, precious collection items that require special handling and display
conditions because of their heritage value, (not to mention they are delicate,
unique and irreplaceable objects) can often have a relatively low monetary value.
For instance, if a document deemed to be ‘non-iconic’ is selected to be displayed
in an exhibition, its value is worked out on a per-metre set rate. One document is
not very thick, and so when its value is calculated for insurance purposes, the
resulting dollar amount can seem to be at complete odds to the kind of care and
attention that needs to be lavished on it.
6
Moon fragments and Australian Apollo XI flag. NAA: A4061,1
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Are there other approaches to valuing the worth of archives? What about
moving away from just costing the collection, and trying to place a value on the
worth of the work an archive does? This is the sort of valuation that economists
attempt.
The National Archives has recently been involved in commissioning cost-benefit
analyses for a major digital project, where economists have attempted to value
the worth of that project in terms of the value it would potentially bring to the
Australian people.
What is a cost-benefit analysis? Essentially, it is a way of assessing the value of a
particular project. You calculate the benefit gained by the project (in dollar
figures), and then divide that figure by the costs of the project. Ideally, the
benefits should be considerably greater than the costs.
It is easy to identify the costs of keeping, and providing access to, an archive –
but how are benefits defined, much less translated into dollars? As with our
previous costing exercise, there are no any easy answers. Many different models
are put forward by economists and have been used over the years. No one
economic model is the ‘correct’ one. They are all based on different assumptions,
which in themselves are very interesting when you look at them closely.
In the digital project undertaken by the National Archives, there were two costbenefit analyses undertaken, each one by a different company. They both made
different assumptions, used different methodologies, and both came up with
different answers (although both studies supported the project going ahead).
However, one important area on which they shared common ground was how
they answered the question, ‘who stands to benefit from this project?’
If a business undertook a cost-benefit analysis of any project, you can safely
assume that the point of the project would be to benefit the business (and its
shareholders). Not so with the Archives’ project. Instead, a whole-of-society
approach was taken – the group of people who stood to gain from the project
were the people of Australia. All Australians? In both studies, this was actually
pared down to the people of Australia who used, or could potentially use, the
collection.
The first study measured current usage rates of digital collection items, and used
those figures to predict the potential use of the proposed digital project. It then
went on to calculate how much the potential user’s costs would be improved if
the project were carried out. As it turned out, the costs were improved a great
deal, which was good.
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The other cost-benefit study commissioned by the National Archives used a
different methodology, ‘contingent valuation’, to get around the focus only on
collection use. Contingent valuation considers the value gained by Australians in
three ways:



use value – the benefit you receive from directly experiencing the
collection
option value – the willingness to value the project on the basis that you
might make use of the collection in the future
non-use value – the perceived value of the collection just being in
existence.
Contingent valuation was originally developed for environmental economics,
but it does have a growing track record of being used for cultural economics.
This particular study assessed the monetary benefit of the project by conducting
a survey that just directly asked people what value they would place on helping
preserve, and then using an archival collection.
As with the first cost-benefit analysis, the study came back with extremely
positive results. It turned out the public would actually pay very high costs to
access archival collections. Which is very encouraging …
Both cost-benefit analyses were weighting towards usage – actual and potential –
of the archive. End-rate usage of the project equated to worth of the project,
assuming that only the people who make use of a new archival resource are
going to benefit from it. They ignored the administrative and accountability
benefits of keeping an archive. And the flipside of that approach is that if you
don’t use the collection as a result of the project, it is assumed that the work done
by the National Archives has no value to you. If no-one uses the collection as a
result of the project, it is assumed that the work done by the National Archives
has no value to anyone.
Perhaps this is self-evident? Or perhaps, when you are talking about a collection
which is being kept forever for the people of Australia, a little unrealistic? Does
an item in an archive only have value when it is accessed and used?
In some ways, it reminds me of Schrödinger’s Cat.
Schrödinger’s Cat was a theoretical example devised by scientist Erwin
Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate what he thought was ridiculous about quantum
mechanics (physics at a really amazingly small subatomic-scale), by applying the
theory to ordinary everyday-scale physics. In his example, you put a cat into box
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for an hour, where it was potentially exposed to poison gas. It would have
exactly a 50 per cent chance of survival. In the normal course of things, you
wouldn’t know until you opened the box whether the cat was alive or dead. But
it would have either died or survived during the course of the experiment.
Schrödinger’s example pointed out that if you applied quantum theory to the
scenario, the 50 per cent chance of survival means that the probability will not be
resolved until it has actually been observed. In layman’s terms, the cat would
actually be existing as a living cat and a dead cat until the box was opened and
you inspected it. By simply observing you actually affected the result, which
seems, as Schrödinger was attempting to point out with his example, ludicrous.
Are archives like Schrödinger’s Cat? Does their value depend entirely on being
observed by researchers? Are they potentially of enormous value or no value at
all until they have been looked at? Or do they have inherent value just by merely
existing?
In his famous quote about information just wanting to be free (while also
wanting to be expensive), American writer Stewart Brand noted, ‘The right
information in the right place just changes your life.’
Any archivist who has worked with the public has seen people experiencing this
moment. People, who have come in to do some research, or to see a display, and
who discover something special in the archive which provides them with a
‘Eureka’ moment.
If you have seen those moments, you will also have witnessed the
disappointment of researchers when they find that your archive does not have
the information they want.
I would be willing to bet money that when a researcher finds that magic
document, that life-changing piece of information, in your archive, they would
happily agree that your entire collection is worth any sum of money you’d care
to name. And, by the same token, a researcher who finds that your archive
doesn’t hold the information that they want, would happily agree that your
archive is a complete waste of space, time and money. Whereas the archive that
does hold the information they want has real value.
Value is complicated. It seems that it can be driven by government policy,
external market forces, and at the same time by intensely personal perspectives.
Like Schrödinger’s cat, capable of being both alive and dead at the same time, it
seems to be entirely possible that one document can either be enormously
valuable or not at all valuable, and that the value isn’t resolved until someone
actually looks at the document. Measuring it in any way seems to throw up
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tensions and contradictions. So at this point I’d like to stray a bit from the tangled
concept of value, and focus instead on relevance.
Why? To answer, let’s look back at the cost-benefit analysis where ‘contingent
valuation’ methodology was used. This was where people were asked to
consider what value they would place in using an archive now, or perhaps later –
or whether they thought there was value in it just being there for other people to
use. I would argue that the one thing that determines how people are going to
answer those questions is actually perceived relevance.
If the participants had not felt that the National Archives had any relevance to
them or to the wider community, then I feel sure that they wouldn’t have put
such high dollar figures against accessing the collection. It is interesting to note
that part of the survey time was spent informing participants of the National
Archives’ role and some of the items it holds in its collection.
What might make anyone feel that an archive is relevant? That the archive has an
important place within its community? What are you currently doing to
communicate the important role that your archive has for its audiences? I’m sure
that there are as many good answers to that question as there are people in the
audience. Programs with the public; with the people that contribute records to
the archives; with educators; with the media; with business partners; or making
the collection more available online. The options are endless. Part of the
challenge is to be open to innovative projects that might further establish the
archive’s role in the community. Another part is identifying who needs to be
persuaded of your relevance.
What I like about the concept of establishing relevance is that it is not done
through citing monetary worth – it is actually established through those
intangible values – symbolic, evidential, social, historic and cultural. Relevance
doesn’t limit the number of roles it is assumed you have in the community – in
fact it allows you to expand well beyond just being there for researchers.
Monetary worth becomes only one potential by-product of relevance – other byproducts could include increased usage of the collection, or increased
opportunities to be part of innovative initiatives, or gaining passionate advocates
for your archive.
It makes you wonder about how things could have turned out after the laying of
the foundation stone on that windy day back in 1920 if the wider community had
really been supporting the Capitol Building. If Walter Burley Griffin had been
better able to communicate his vision of an archive of national achievements… If
the crowd of 5000 had actually gathered because they passionately believed in
that vision, rather than just being there to see visiting Royalty… Then the
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politicians might not have been able to shelve the building as completely as they
did, before using the site for themselves.
It may be that ‘real value’ for an archive is being surrounded by a community
that understands how relevant that archive is to them.
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