n.the activities performed in archives, especially relative to their administrationKesner 1978, 27But as Douglas Bakken, himself an early participant in Cornell’s SPINDEX project, has suggested, the SPINDEX program grew out of an era of easily obtainable Federal money and of general enthusiasm for the prospects of the computer’s role in archival management.Washburn 1978, 141As Wilfred Smith, the Dominion Archivist, has noted, the criteria problem (what to select) is the greatest issue in archival management and is the area where there is the least expertise and developed knowledge.Jackson 1979, 155After spending time learning the necessary details about archival management with members of the Manuscript Division of the Public Archives of Canada, a system was established involving a mixture of techniques that best suited the needs of the Métis Association.Ritzenthaler, Munoff, and Long 1984, 7As will be discussed throughout the manual, archival management of photographic collections requires developing broad integrated systems to manage unique materials.Leary 1989, 110The audio-visual archivist as records manager can and should encourage the use of archival materials and processes to create archival records, promote filing schemes that separate significant materials from the trivial, encourage necessary weeding of sprawling files, and encourage proper preservation practices—all of which will lessen the burden of archival management.Kurtz 1989, 243The discussion that follows should foster an appreciation for the role of administrative excellence in archival management.Yuqing 1991, 212Although both China and the United States have adopted quite similar approaches to records acquisition, arrangement, description, preservation, and access, their different social systems have led to some variations in archival management.Bearman 1993a, 680A framework of guidelines for archival management of corporate electronic records was in the earliest stages of being articulated in 1989, but it has since been very much more fully elaborated and can now serve as a basis for practical action to ensure that electronic information systems create and maintain records.Bearman and Duff 1996, 276Requirements related to ensuring evidence are grounded in the social and legal definition of evidence documented in law, professional best practices, and standards. Those related to archival management reflect business activities of archives and specific business processes. . . . Where the ISAD framework calls for data beyond what has been defined as crucial to ensuring evidence, we believe we can identify how that data relates either to perceived needs of retrieval or the requirements for archival management of records according to current business practices.Schellenberg 1996, viiiMoreover, those in charge of substantial enterprises, both governmental and non-official, are becoming aware of the efficiency and economy which flow from good records management and of its close relationship in turn to archival management.Schellenberg 1996, 113In the first of its chapters I shall discuss the essential conditions of archival management, while in succeeding chapters I shall discuss how public records should be appraised, arranged, preserved, described, published, and serviced. ¶ In referring to essential conditions I have in mind (1) the nature of modern archives which determines the nature of the activities in the field of archival management, (2) the nature of the archival activities themselves, (3) the nature of the authority required by the archivist if he is to carry on his proper activities, and (4) the nature of the institution that is responsible for archival activities.Hackbart-Dean and de Catanzaro 2002, 125The issues associated with obtaining collections of quality, planning priorities for processing, determining levels of arrangement and description, establishing standards and procedures for processing, and working with “living” (or continuously growing) collections all assume fundamental importance for successful archival management.MacNeil 2005b, 334, fn. 36Although the discussion that follows focuses on the archival management of government records containing personal information, the policies and practices it recommends may be extended by analogy to the archival management of private records.Miller 2008, 89At a Congressional Papers Forum held before the SAA annual conference in Washington, D.C., participants discuss the emergence of congressional research centers and the desirability of concentrating multiple collections in institutions with supporting resources for effective archival management, reference services, and outreach initiatives.Millar 2010, 32As a result of this need to cope with constant change, the Australians devised a ‘series system’ of archival management, which focused less on which department created the records and more on the functions and activities represented in the documents.Ritzenthaler 2010, 7The challenge of archives preservation is most fully met in institutions that emphasize the interdependence of sound archival management with sound preservation programs and practices.Gilliland 2014a, 58Leland was persuaded against the application of bibliographically oriented manuscript approaches to archival management.McCracken 2015, 182This community-based approach to archival management has aided the development of the SRSC and enabled the SRSC’s programming to be trusted and welcomed among Indigenous communities in Canada.Buchanan et al. 2017, 283Given the definition of management proposed by the American Management Association, “getting things done through and with people,” we would offer the following modification to define archival management: “getting things done through and with resources, including people.”Searcy 2017, 154Daniel Santamaria’s Extensible Processing for Archives and Special Collections builds upon Weideman’s approach, situating the potential of accessioning in the context of holistic and iterative archival management, not just processing.Joffrion and Cloonan 2020, 161The legal and physical ownership of records has long been recognized as a fundamental principle of archival management.Sinn 2020, 169, fn. 4Our project team arranged and described the materials in the process of creating the Digital Archives and shared some basic archival practices and tools with the staff to use in their future archival management.Hernandez 2022, 43It follows that if an object is related to other materials through the archival bond, it can be considered a record and can appropriately be subject to archival management.the field and discipline committed to maintaining archivesHardenberg 1968, 7In 1829, two years before his early death put an end to his valuable contribution to archival management and archival science in the Netherlands, Dedel at the request of the Governor of the province of Utrecht took over the supervision of the provincial records.Alsberg 1978, 71The Council now comprises forty-three members, including representatives of archival institutions, government departments and other public bodies, as well as experts in different academic fields, such as history, political science, economics, and archival management, to assist the State Archivist in formulating policy and to approve the disposal of records no longer needed by the government.Worthy 1979, 81Professional meetings are probably the most important single means for raising the standards and improving the effectiveness of archival management.Smith, J., 1989, 330Phillips concluded that while the South had indeed made progress in organizing and preserving its historical materials, archival management in the region remained largely in its infancy.Schellenberg 1996, 135As modern conceptions of archival management gained acceptance, however, German archivists came to regard public records as evidence of organic growth and functioning, and accordingly they kept intact the various registries that reached the archival institutions.Wosh 2000, 274Some might claim that declining job placements for historians fueled NYU’s interest in archival management; and, in fact, a 1975 survey of history graduate students revealed that 53 of 178 respondents expressed interest in archival training, while 70 desired course work in historical society and museum administration.Posner 2006, xiiPosner saw the advantages of being able to prepare for fields such as preservation, archival management, and work with modern records in specialized preparatory courses given to a large extent by archivists, because he was accustomed to this at the Prussian archives.Jimerson 2009, 63Not only did archival management proceed along many separate lines of development, but there was also no common European pattern of progress.Jimerson 2009, 72In the generation following the French Revolution, archivists began to develop a coherent theory of archival management, based on the bureaucratic needs of the emerging national state and its administrators.Blouin and Rosenberg 2011, 39At the same time, when the cornerstone of the National Archives was finally laid in 1933, a model of archival management had essentially emerged in the United States, in which the archivist and the historian were seen as pursuing tasks that were professionally distinct but entirely consonant in purpose, each working closely with the other in the use and preservation of essential historical documentation.Bailleul-LeSuer 2019, 651At a time when work with such archival records was not considered research or archival management but rather clerical duties, two women—Penelope Fox for the Griffith Institute and Nora Scott for the Metropolitan Museum—undertook the massive and complex task of reconciling the photographic objects and documents that had been sent to each institution, ultimately transforming the Tutankhamun photographs from “archaeological records” to “archival artifacts.”Cunningham 2019, 661He portrays the era from the 1980s through the early 2000s as the archival age of ideas, when the established (and somewhat boring and predictable) craft of archival management was both unsettled and turbo-charged with hefty doses of theory (such as postmodernism, postcustodialism, continuum theory, and an explicit concern for social justice).Cline 2021, 61–62Archival citizenship is broadly defined to encompass all of the approaches and avenues evident in the work of archives, whether large or small institutions, professional associations, community archives, community partnerships and alliances, ad hoc archives, postcustodial arrangements, or any other creative or nontraditional approach to archival management.the educational curricula or formal training covering the theories and practices of archivyFant 1958a, 123The Director of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Christopher Crittenden, was one of the guest lecturers before the institute of historical and archival management at Cambridge, Mass., last summer.Quimby 1959, 104This course at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, will include, in a third year of specialized studies, work in archival management.Gersack 1961, 218The seminar is to consist of two main activities: (1) a three-week discussion of the most important problems that now confront archivists in South and Central America; and (2) meetings of working groups that will consider special problems in the field of archival management, including arrangement principles and techniques, standards of editing and transcription, microfilming, training, terminology, development of archival programs, and the production of a guide to Latin American historical sources.Gersack 1962a, 130As part of the regular academic program, an advanced curriculum in archival management and administration, with special emphasis on administrative history source materials in State and local government and in institutional and corporate jurisdictions, has been announced by the Department of History of the University of Denver.Gersack 1964b, 580Registration is limited to 100 persons—no more than 2 from the same institution—and no previous training in archival management is necessary.Berry 1977, 60The author began the handbook as a project in a course in archival management given by Professor Maurice F. Tauber at Columbia University.Millar 1999, 52It is critical to the success of an archival system that the archival community recognize and support all participants, whether or not they are paid, and whether or not they have undertaken formal studies in archival management.Wosh 2000, 275Students are required to select twenty-four credits in history, including a research seminar, and twenty credits in archival management.Wosh 2000, 281Archival management already has been recognized as a very appropriate field of concentration in a range of doctoral fields, such as those in history and information science, and it now serves precisely that purpose in a number of the most extensive graduate programs.the organizational entity or designated people within it having responsibility for direct oversight and administration of an archivesYuqing 1991, 211Due to the successful efforts of archivists and historians, archival management at the federal level in the United States is well developed and even holds a leading role internationally.Margry 1993, 77In addition, The Netherlands has a special, relatively new type of archival management for local government records, in the form of collectively managed regional municipal archives.Tussing 2007, 383–384Regarding other matters of archival management, Sickel praised the pope’s decision to have the Lateran Archives brought to the Vatican, against the wishes of the Lateran Archivist, because it improved archival organization (“it opened the way for the future, to regulate the archival system”); but he remained concerned about the poor care of materials: “In short, the conditions in the archives are very faulty and give scope and grounds for complaints against the current management.”Millar 2010, 45While the nature of a particular archival institution will influence the nature and scope of its holdings and operations, the central principle of accountable and trustworthy archival management must be to acquire, preserve and make available.Sanford 2011a, 55From my then-limited experience in archival management, I understood as well that mission statements, collection policies, processing decisions, and outreach choices—all determined or articulated by the archivist as a social and cultural mediator—affected how, or even if, records were preserved or researched, and how those records gained value in an ever-changing memory over time.Sanford 2011b, 234Initial steps included creating a mission statement and vision better aligned with a professional archival management while dropping activities, such as the conservation lab, that did not directly further that vision.Norling 2019, 144In contrast to the association of archival management with an archives programs’ basic needs and functions, archival leadership was often defined in terms of actions, with an emphasis on vision, change, and relationship building.adj.of or relating to archival managementConway 1986, 398Archival manuals breaking the sequence into its component parts reflect the conventional approach, as do archival management decisions that establish functional specializations.Shenk and Esposito 1995, 67–68We planned our syllabus so that each class or sometimes the entire week was devoted to one particular subject area, such as collection development, automation, processing, preservation, reference, outreach, donor agreements, legal issues and many more similar archival management topics.Duffy and Taylor 2005, 215Archival management activities, designed at the point of records creation and intended to ensure access in the future, often reflect these disagreements.Abbey 2012, 93It concludes with recommended strategies and resources that may be used to build a pragmatic framework for incorporating more affordable and socially responsible archival management practices into the profession.Abbey 2013, 144Similar to most repositories, at Penn State Harrisburg, the core elements that drive our archival management program are advocacy, outreach, and promotion.Marks 2015, 37Alternately, repository software platforms or archival management software may permit you to create and maintain a record of the PDI [Preservation Description Information] in relation to the object.Linn 2015, 101By the next year, however, it was apparent that this would be an expensive undertaking and that many of the colleges and universities with existing archival management programs were not interested in participating in an accreditation program.Bak 2016, 286–287Even as formerly paper or analog record types went digital, archival management techniques and tools also went digital, whether this meant that paper finding aids and file lists were now created using word-processing or spreadsheet software on a desktop computer and then printed, or whether it meant that the finding aids were themselves electronic documents, spreadsheets, or databases, accessed in real time in the reading room or, as the 1990s progressed, over the World Wide Web.Stoudt 2019, 140These duties should be included in all archival management position descriptions as they are critical to the preservation and security of the collections and the overall success of the institution.
Notes
Terms often used interchangeably for one or more of these senses include archival administration, archive administration, archive management, archives administration, and archives management.
