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6.1.
The planning process
6.2.
Planning for accommodation
6.3.
Planning for staffing
6.4.
Planning for equipment
6.5.
Budget planning
Archival institutions like any other institution must utilise the planning process. They need to formulate clear and concise plans covering the long term, medium term and short term period. Having formulated these plans they must introduce controls for monitoring and evaluating progress and for making the necessary adjustments. The plans of archival institutions should cover the main areas of acquisition, processing storage. preservation and provision of reference services.
Many archival institutions do not have any planning processes at all and they are doing no more than survive from day to day. The planning process requires that the objectives of the plan be clearly stated, that the methodology to be used be stated, that expected results or outputs be tabulated and quantified The resources necessary for the achievement of the plan should also be stated.
It has been emphasized over and over again that the process of acquisition should not start at the point that the record creating agencies telephone to say that they wish to deposit some records or at the point that a truck arrives with a load of records. The involvement of the archivist should extend to the beginnings of the generation of those records. Whether the archivist becomes involved in the actual management of current records or not he should nevertheless have some form of control or supervision over this process. The plan therefore should include a quantification of the anticipated records output and as a corollary the quantity of records expected to be deposited in the records institution. Such a quantification necessitates studying the organisational structures of the ministries and departments and forecasting increases or decreases in records generation capacities over given periods of time. This is obviously an involved exercise but unless this is done how could one ever plan and make provision for instance for sufficient Records Centre or Archives storage facilities as well as the manpower and infrastructural requirements. The assessment of the records generating capacities requires assessing the staffing positions in the ministries and departments, assessing the rate of usage of such commodities as paper, pens. registers, carbons, magnetic tapes and disks. Such figures are readily available in departments and all that is required is their collection and collation.
The importance of establishing this position cannot be over emphasised In a commercial situation, one cannot plan a production plant without investigating the market. To assume that the demand is there without any precise investigation can have disastrous consequences resulting for instance in the purchase and installation of a plant whose production capacity is so large that in one week it produces sufficient to cover a year' s consumption. Similarly with archival institutions requests for the allocation of more buildings and facilities should only be made against very precise forecasts of the needs. At the moment very few archival institutions have made this quantification and this explains why they are often unable to win their arguments for an allocation of larger resources. The result should be a quantification of the annual record output, of changing output patterns of expected output over a given medium or long term period. This will be measured and compared with existing facilities and the need to increase such facilities to cope with the record output.
The second step in the planning process is the quantification of the records handling practices in the ministries and departments. Such an analysis is necessary as a way of examining how records are being received and processed, how they are being used and stored, how they are being retired from active to semi-active use. By carrying out such an analysis it is possible to identify those areas where there are major records handling weaknesses, linking some of these to the efficiency of the administrative machinery and identifying the consequences in relation to the records that eventually become the archives Those who allocate budgetary resources often do not understand the need to improve the archives services During budget submission meetings, there is the example of an archivist who in failing to convince the Ministry of Finance officials decided on a new strategy for the following year. He took a photographer with him, visited various provincial centres, photographed records storerooms in absolute chaos, obtained photographs of records decimated by water, insects and rats, documented cases of records lost or unlocated and came back and made a slide presentation to the Finance officials who promptly saw and accepted the magnitude of the problem and allocated him the resources to open and provide archival services at provincial levels. This case is not unusual but illustrates very clearly the absolute necessity of systematic planning which in turn requires in-depth research and gathering of the relevant facts. For archival institutions therefore the point being made here is that to plan and to present convincing cases there is no substitute to a thorough diagnosis of the record creating patterns and systems of the records creating agencies. No educationist can formulate medium and long term plans without studying the population trends. the geographical spread and concentrations of the populations and thus assessing the educational need in the medium and long term. How many archival institutions have however carried out the research? How many of them have in their possession the organisation charts and structures of the records creating agencies? How many know the number of clerks employed in their records creating agencies? How many know the number of private secretaries in existence and how many even know with precision the categories of records being produced, or the quantities? In the end it is a question of bidding for a farce allocation of resources, of being denied such resources and feeling dejected and unrecognised. This is however not because archival services merit low or medium priority but because archival institutions have not been able to demonstrate why they should be given top priority.
Once the records creating patterns and forecasts have been made an examination of the Records Centre and archives facilities should then be made to establish in the first instance the position at that time and then to make comparisons over a given period of time. Annual reports of archival institutions are scattered with figures of quantities of archives accessioned, number of researchers consulting archival materials, number of archives consulted, visitors coming to the galleries and exhibitions, telephone and written inequities received and actioned and so forth. Quite often comparisons are made with the previous year but it is rare that such comparisons are made over a longer period to assess the situation over the last five or ten years or to postulate the likely trends over the next five or ten years. The existing infrastructure must then be linked and related to the record generating units by the way of establishing the adequacy or inadequacy of the existing archival resources and infrastructures and to show the resource needs in the medium and long term.
6.2. Planning for accommodation
When the above has been done it will then be possible to formulate the short, medium and long term plan of the institution. The plan will comprise certain basic and central elements and requirements. The archival service can only work if it has the requisite premises. Without sufficient storage accommodation for instance it is not possible to continue to receive records and archives. In the responses to the questionnaires, thirty seven institutions indicated that they had suitable and adequate accommodation while another thirty four said they did not have. A significant number of archival institutions therefore are operating from inadequate and insufficient accommodation sometimes from premises that were never meant for archival storage. At the other end there are obviously those who have succeeded in this battle and have plenty of space. Whatever the situation however it is necessary to quantify the requirements for accommodation not just for the records and archives but for the staff and equipment and researchers. It is a well known fat that some institutions have succeeded in securing new archives accommodation but this has sometimes filled up or become inadequate even before it was used. Something will obviously have gone wrong with the planning.
The plan should specify the staffing that is required at various levels. The staff requirements should of course be closely linked to the work that needs to be done, to the quantities and types of records and archives to be received processed and serviced, to the support activities required such as typing' procurement, material management and cleaning. The problem at the moment is that such staffing requirements are made without empirical demonstrations of their necessity. How can one argue that an additional ten professional archivists are needed if one cannot quantify the output of each archivist and relate it to the anticipated rate of accessioning or deposit of records and archives. Without any models for relating the number of archivists to pare professional and support staff how can staff requirements be postulated. Without a mechanism for assessing average processing outputs for archival staff how can one be sure that processing backlogs are a result of too much archival material being accessioned and requiring processing and not the result of an inefficient processing system. It is not accidental for instance that some factories have adopted the production line. They have found that given a certain number of people and certain goods to be produced allowing each of these people to process the product from stat to finish is slower and more inefficient than putting these people in a production line and allowing each to do only a limited range of tasks within the total production process. In archival institutions the tendency is to assume that a fair day's work is being done. It is rare to find works and study officers being utilised or invited to come and analyse the records and archives processing, to identify and eliminate areas of inefficiency and to isolate ineffective performance by staff.
What is being argued for is that the formulation of plans by archival institutions should be used as an opportunity for reviewing the performance of the institution as a means of achieving efficiency and therefore making realistic bids for additional resources. Each institution must closely examine the manner in which current resources are being deployed and utilised.
Staff need to be trained to undertake archival work. It has for a long time been recognised that archival work is extremely specialised and that training facilities are not easily available. The training of certain service staff is relatively easy as training facilities are available at various institutions. Thus the secretaries, typists, accountants and receptionists can be recruited with qualifications in these areas and easily put on upgrading programmes.
Training archivists, records managers and technicians however poses more problems especially in developing countries where such facilities may be non-existent or may be found only at a regional level which in turn may create other problems such as the availability of foreign currency to send trainees to other countries. The plan however, must identify the overall training needs, the availability of training facilities, the recruitment and increase of the establishment and the financial resources required. These must then be phased into the plan, and phased over the plan period. Account should be taken of such factors as the wastage that will occur as trained staff resign and leave for greener pastures.
Any plan will also indicate the equipment requirements of the institution. Archival institutions need equipment at two levels. At one end they need equipment for routine administrative work in the offices and this includes typewriters, word processors, duplicators, photocopiers, telexes and telefaxs. It is interesting again to note how by and large archival institutions tend to lag behind other sectors in the adoption of office technologies. A very tiny sprinkling of institutions have telexes' for instance, let alone fax facilities. Word processors are being used but again it is to a very limited extent. Is it a question of failure to secure such facilities or is it that such facilities are not seen as essential to archival operations? It is difficult to provide an answer and yet one can for instance see how fax technologies can enhance the retrieval of documents for depositors, giving them instant visual access to documents stored a long distance away.
The second category of equipment required is that which is used for the handling of archives in one way or another. This equipment falls into three major groupings. In the first instance equipment is required for the conservation of archives. A primary duty of the archivist is the conservation and preservation of the archives to ensure that archives can survive for as long as is possible. As the archives are received into the repository they should be fumigated to kill any insects that may have infested them. It goes without saying that the storage area of the archives should have certain environmental controls to reduce or eliminate dust and dirt, protect records from direct sunlight, provide storage temperatures that have no major and frequent fluctuations and an atmosphere that is not too humid or too dry. A good storage environment prolongs the life of the archives but even so, there are other factors to be considered. Quite often, by the time that the archives reach the repository, they will have been badly damaged or will be in a fragile condition. Constant use by researchers can also lead to the degradation of the archives. For these and other reasons, therefore, it is necessary to provide facilities for the repair and reconditioning of the archives.
Archival institutions as a matter of routine normally have conservation laboratories in which damaged archives can be repaired and restored. Such laboratories need a lot of equipment ranging from hygrometers, pH metres, washing basins and drying racks to laminators and binding presses. The equipment requirements need to be identified and quantified, related to the increases in record accumulation forecast in the plan and to the conservation requirements.
Besides the conservation equipment there is need for reprographic equipment. Basically it is necessary to reproduce archives for one reason or another. Some archives are reproduced in order to provide researchers with copies of the documents. Reproduction is also done as a means of conservation or as a means of reducing the physical volume of the records or archives. A reprographic unit will therefore generally have equipment for reproducing maps and photographs, slides, films and for microphotography. It is necessary to have a fully equipped reprographic unit because the work of the unit is a crucial element in the work of the institution. Reprographic equipment. like all other technologies, is not standing still. The planning therefore must aim both at replacing equipment that has come to the end of its working life as well as to acquire new equipment in line with any new technological innovations. The acquisition of appropriate reprographic equipment with modern technological capabilities can enhance the decision-makers access to archives. And yet few institutions make use of Computer Assisted Retrieval systems, for instance, for their microfilm collections.
Archival institutions are gradualy automating. While indeed only eighteen out of sixty five institutions that responded to the question on automation had automated or were in the process of doing so, nevertheless this is an inescapable process especially since the records creating agencies themselves are automating. The nature of computer records is such that any institution that receives them must itself have a computing capacity. Archival institutions can also have several applications for computers. At one end they can use the computers to handle their finding aids and thus facilitate and speed up access to the records and archives. They can also input certain categories of documents so that such documents can be retrieved on-line by the depositors. The developments currently taking place with Image Management Systems will certainly have an impact and greatly increase access to information. Computers can however be used also to service the machine readable records that will have been deposited by the ministries and departments. There are very few countries, if any, in which computers are not being used in one way or another to carry out certain functions.
Machine readable records are similar to manual records in many respects but they also have very distinct differences. In terms of their archiving they are distinct in the way in which they can be erased. altered or amended. and in the way in which they need the provision of certain equipment in order to be accessed. As long as these records are being created their archiving and retention must be considered. The dangers of magnetic tares and disks being destroyed by fire or being accidentally erased are so real that the deposit of duplicate copies of the records in an archival institution is an absolute must. Such deposit will also provide the depositors with a measure of security and relief. Those drawing up plans must therefore in the first instance carry out a survey of computer applications in the ministries and departments to identify those areas that have been computerised, the types of records being generated, the computer equipment being used and the types of software. Even where machine readable records are already being received and stored. information technology is changing so rapidly that continual surveying is needed to ensure that the archives facilities remain at par with the changes in the record creating agencies. The plan must therefore consider the storage and processing facilities required and the provision of access.
The short, medium and long term plans of the archives are the ones that determine the financial resources that are required. If the plans have been well prepared, presenting in a clear, logical sequence, the position of the archival institution in relation to the agencies that it is servicing, showing the changes that are likely to be occurring in the plan period and justifying the resources that are required, it should be relatively easy to bid for and receive a larger allocation of the resources. No-one could guarantee that all that is requested is granted, for this rarely, if ever, happens but one would hope that the submissions would have taken account of this factor so that after the budget trimming, the allocated amounts are reasonably close to the actual requirements.
As plans are implemented they need to be monitored, controlled and adjusted periodically. The short term plan will relate to the coming financial year. As this progresses assessments are continually being made. The performance of the institution in that financial year and the achievement or non-achievement of certain programmes, determines adjustments that need to be made to the medium and long term plans. The medium term plans tend to cover a period of some three to five years. In formulating the median term plans the overriding consideration should be the assesser priorities and requirements of that given institution. In the Developing World however, where there are many constraints in terms of the resources available and especially the amount of foreign currency that can be secured it is useful to link the Medium Term Plan to the International Council on Archives Medium Term Plan. This makes it easy to plan as well as to review and monitor progress. It is essential also in that the plans for implementation through the ICA programmes, will usually have a regional and international involvement. While they may be for implementation by the archival institution, they may determine the programmes, and priorities of that institution, and make certain facilities available such as training workshops and certain equipment and resources as in cases where pilot projects are undertaken. The long term plans relate to longer periods and this can be done over a ten year period, for instance, or over fifteen years.
In presenting budgets it is extremely essential to justify them. It is necessary of course, to account for the expenditure of previous allocations. The point that has been made in terms of quantifying the production of the staff is equally, if not more valid in relation to the expenditure of financial resources. There must be systems for paying staff ordering supplies receiving goods, issuing stocks and charging for services rendered. Because many archival institutions are governmental agencies they tend to be caught in such bureaucratic regulations which require that their monies be voted by Parliament but that in return the income derived by them be receivable into the public coffers. This puts many institutions in a difficult position where, for instance, they can demonstrate very clearly that the demand for reprographic services is growing! that the income being received into revenue is higher than expenditure but where. because they do not directly recycle the income for the purchase of the required reprographic materials. they find that they are allocated insufficient resources to buy the required inputs. It can also become difficult as in cases where, for instance the telecommunications bill becomes high because written inquiries must be responded to and letters posted, where telephone inquiries have to be answered, where researchers without access to payphones have to use institutional phones and pay for them and yet the revenue that accrues goes into general revenue and is not taken into account when determining the allocations to be made on the telecommunications vote.
The basic elements of the budget should include salaries. allowances, travel and subsistence, capital expenditure and inputs required to maintain the various services. It is a matter of regret that many archivists do not make adequate provision for attendance at various forums and instead want to rely on all expenses paid offers. Such provisions should be made especially for regional gatherings.