Archives 101

What is an archive?

Archives tend to be organised very differently from libraries. In a traditional library most objects are listed as individual, distinct, things. For example a book, a DVD, a journal article. Archives, on the other hand, very rarely if ever describe objects on their own. This is in part because the objects in archives tend to require a lot of context to be made sense of. This context tends to extend beyond who created the object and when (although this is of course very important) but the other objects it was created alongside and the objects it is kept with. Archives are also granular. A single sheet in a ledger of financial transactions is just as much a record as the entire ledger itself is.

Original Order

Unlike in a library where traditional books might be organised by the Dewey system with new books slotting in as required, Archivists try to retain the same order in records as their creator did. For example a photograph kept in a shoe box alongside keepsakes would not be taken out and filed in a section for photographs. Nor would the Archivist group the photograph based on what it depicts. The presence of the photograph in the shoe box adds context and helps us understand why and how the photograph was valued by its original owner.

So how do Archivists group things? How do they control their collections?

Provenance and Function

Archives tend to be grouped by provenance or function, sometimes both. Provenance refers to the creator(s) of the record. So, to take our shoe box example: that box would be grouped with other archival objects from the same person, organisation, or community. Contemporary thinking is now challenging traditional theories of provenance so that it more accurately represents not just those who actively created a record, but individuals and communities without whom the record wouldn’t exist. For example, while most prison records are created by prison officials, they would not exist without the prisoners themselves!

Another way to group archival objects is by the function they document. This approach is useful if the provenance entity has created a large volume of records or if records have been added to over time by multiple organisations. Archives and records can be seen as evidence. Evidence of decisions, activities, rights, and entitlements. A functional approach means you group the records based on what they are evidence of. So all records that provide evidence of spending would be grouped together. Keeping in mind functions are not themes. Functions are the things organisations, individuals or communities do.

Australian Archives

There are a number of layers of archival description and control in an Australian context. It is difficult to draw a distinct line between where description ends and control begins. When archivists speak about control they are generally referring to higher level models that indicate the structure of archival systems.

The example below is from the Public Records Office of Victoria (PROV) and is modelled. Each box is a distinct entity or web page.

(PROV 2018, p.4)

These models tend to allow for three levels of aggregation from the most broad to the most detailed (e.g. organisation, team, individual and function, activity, transaction).

More recent models tend to break down the record entity into instantiations – recognising that there maybe multiple versions of the same record. This can be seen in the 2021 Records in Context conceptual model below. This model also includes a mandate entity to outline the business or other rules that led to the creation of the records.

Conceptual control refers to how we think about the record. Because records do not exist in isolation but in context all archival descriptions of records include not just the one thing itself but the series or collection it is part of. The borders of where one record ends and another begins are fuzzy, any lines drawn are artificial and must be made explicit and justified. When looking at a record we have to choose how detailed we will be. Will we look at the fine print or the big picture? Or both? Imagine a sample under a microscope, as we zoom in we can see more details. When looking at the sample with the naked eye it isn’t possible to see the detailed component parts. This doesn’t mean they are not there or are a different “thing”. Similarly, when looking at the microscopic image we loose sight of the object as a distinct entity. There are three standard “settings” for the archival microscope – collection, series, and item. A collection is the highest level and consists of all the records, a series is a grouping of records often organised by provenance, an item is a subset of that series.

Physical control refers to how the physical or digital objects that make up an archive are managed. This tends to be via numbered boxes and rooms. The management of digital materials is far more complex and we will be writing more about it here in the future. You can read more about Digital Preservation in the Digital Preservation Coalitions online handbook here: https://www.dpconline.org/handbook

Sources and References

Expert Group in Archival Description. 2021. Records in Contexts: Conceptual Model. ed. International Council on Archives. ICA.

Hurley, C. 1995. Ambient Functions - Abandoned Children to Zoos. Archivaria, 40, 21-39.

PROV. 2018. Public Record Office Victoria Policy: Archival Control Model. Public Record Office of Victoria.