Ch03

Records and archives have been in existence since mankind acquired the ability to record information in writing. The earliest keeping of records and archives can be traced to the Ancient Civilisations when records of birth, property, law, money' tax and official and private transactions began to be kept to facilitate the conduct of government business, and for education, religion and family purposes. The medium on which this information was recorded differed from society to society as well as from age to age ranging from the clay tablets of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires of the third millennium to the wooden tablets that found their way into Greece, the papyrus scrolls of Egypt and the parchment and vellum of Medieval Europe.

The reasons why records and archives were kept were very much clear. To prove your right to the possession of a certain piece of land you needed title deeds; to determine the size of population being governed and therefore the taxes that should be collected you required records of birth and death; to enforce government laws and regulations it was necessary to keep a record of the laws, decrees and edicts. The keeping of records and archives was therefore not a luxury but a necessity on which depended one' s ability to continue to rule and to have rights and privileges. The records and archives were also preserved in order to prove the rights and privileges of those who were being governed. In Roman Egypt, for instance, every provincial capital had a central record office known as a demosia bibliotheke where officials were required to deposit certain records relating to census, tax, land and other official transactions. These record offices were open to the public who could come and inspect the records.

The growth and development of records and archives has however not been uniform throughout the world. As with most other things some societies gained certain capabilities earlier than others. In respect to records and archives those societies that developed their organisational structures earlier often developed comparative recording infrastructures to document their activities. The capability to keep records and archives was thus attained first by those societies that learnt to write and record. While these societies did not develop in isolation as is evidenced by the record keeping practices in Roman Egypt which had borrowed elements from the Roman and Asian Empires, nevertheless the nature of the records and archives ensured that to a large extent each society had its own record and archive keeping practices that were uniquely different from those of other societies.

This is not surprising for it is the essential and distinguishing nature of records and archives. Records and archives are the by-product of the activities of a particular entity. While their creation may be a deliberate and controlled activity they are however not created for their own sake in the way that someone writes a book or a story. They are the residue of certain transactions whose nature can differ so widely from governing to conducting business. manufacturing products, selling goods and managing money, materials and people. In all these activities records and archives are an essential element but not the primary reason for the undertaking of the activity. Since activities generate information, this information must be organised. and managed and it is this that has resulted in the rise and establishment of the discipline of records management and archives administration.

2.2. Records and archives

The distinctions that today we make between records and archives have not always existed nor can they be said to have universal applicability and acceptability. There is a wide varies' of views as to what constitutes information, records and archives. The word "archives" has its origins in ancient Greece where as "archeion" it was used to refer to government records belonging to an office. Usage has however changed over the centuries and it is nowadays generally used to designate a building or unit within a building where archives are stored, an agency or administrative unit responsible for administering archives and to refer to information that through various processes and qualifications has been identified as constituting archives.

It is however very difficult at times to distinguish between records and archives. In the United Kingdom and in several countries that at one time or other were under British colonial domination. records is used to refer to what in such countries as the United States would be known as archives. Thus in the United Kingdom the main institution in which central government archives are kept is known as the Public Records Office. In the United States on the other hand the comparative institution is known as the National Archives and Records Administration, and this is similar to many countries that have what are known as National Archives.

The differences that exist in terminology may seem trifle and artificial but in reality they have an important bearing on the way in which custodians of records and archives and of the archival institutions themselves view their role and responsibilities towards archives. They are differences that in the 1950' s and 1960' s separated the work and thinking of Hilary Jenkinson from that of Theodore Schellenberg. In chronological, historical and geographical terms they have come to mirror the differences in practice between the traditional archives school of thinking as represented by those with long traditions of record creation and keeping and those in more recently established societies that were created only in the last four or five centuries. They are differences that have determined the definition and scope of archival work and the activities and services that archivists can be expected to perform and provide. In many ways they are central and critical to the gap that now exists between the creators and users of records and archives and the custodians.

To understand the position in which archivists and archival institutions find themselves today it is necessary to briefly discuss the way in which archival practice has developed. The record keepers of Ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome did not make the finer distinctions that today are made. As records were created mechanisms for their retention were developed and the practices of records and archives keeping took firm root and eventually spread to other parts of the world. The developments that took place in Europe set the pace of records and archival practice from the period of the Dark Ages, the Barbarian Kingdoms with their dependence on clerics, the role of the monasteries, the carrying of charters by French kings from place to place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the development of registries, the rise of bureaucracies and the creation of archive schools at Ecole des Chartes and Marburg: all these were landmarks that set and established the broad parameters of records and archives keeping. The decisive event in the development of records and archives practices was however the French Revolution which led to the establishment of a central government archival institution, the enshrinement of the principle of the responsibility of Governments to look after archives and the right of public access to Government records.

In general, as archivists ended the nineteenth century and entered the twentieth, they had established a body of theory and practice to guide them in their activities. Their duties were broadly demarcated and understood, encompassing the acquisition, accessioning, arrangement, description and preservation of archives and the making available of these archives to scholars, researchers and others. The main preoccupation was with the records of central government and of various public institutions such as local authorities. Business archives existed and were often acquired and preserved together with the papers of individuals that were usually referred to as Historical Manuscripts but this was relatively subsidiary to the custodianship of governmental records and archives. Archival work was scholarly, calling for personnel with proven academic backgrounds and a strong sense of history. Archival work did not include involvement with records which were being created and which were in active and semi-active use. It encompassed the rendering of assistance to enable appraisal decisions to be made leading to the transfer of the archives to the archival institution. As records management gained momentum in the twentieth century and records managers began to appear on the scene theirs was seen as obviously a less noble calling which in no way could be compared with the role of archivists.

Clearly the preoccupation was with servicing the needs and requirements of the academic scholars and researchers. While the generators and creators of the records occasionally had need to consult the records and archives, this was on a very small scale. Little was it realised that if the records and archives were there to serve the needs of those who created them then their handling and management had to be related to these needs.

In this study records will be used to denote that information which is current and semi-current use while archives will refer to those records which through some appraisal mechanism have been identified as having a permanent and enduring value and therefore meriting permanent retention. It should be noted that archives are not synonymous with non-current records as the latter refers both to archives and to other records with shorter term value that will after a period of time be disposed of.

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