The foregoing discussion of the archival literature indicates that providing contextual information about the content of archives is a fundamental role for archivists. The review has traced discussion in the literature that shows the
development of the idea that context is important. This thesis will support this idea by using selected case studies of the EIC, VOC, HBC and RAC Archives to trace
examples of development of practice which have contributed. The micro view of providing contextual information focuses on the arrangement, description and boundaries of archival custody, the macro view of providing contextual information focuses on the influence by the archivist on the archives which they select to produce such contextual information that is, which collections they decide to describe in detail and which they do not. Connecting the two views is the custodial history of the archives and the custodial phases that link the record-keeping activities of past custodians with the archival activities of current custodians. Implicit in this view is the observation that it takes more than one archivist’ s lifetime to complete the product
of description, because when one archivist hands over the custodianship to the next, they also hand over any ongoing projects of description.
Since the 1960s the archival literature has documented the control of records progressing from physical record control to intellectual control through
documentation. Rather than viewing the physical order as the only arrangement of the records, an intellectual arrangement order can be interpreted from the custodial documentation. Intellectual control allows for more than one way of describing the records.
Documentation to provide contextual information about the content of archives reflects the professional practices and ideas of the time when the records were arranged and the documentation was written. Professional practices and ideas of the time became embedded in the level of intellectual control over the records, and changes over time can be studied through investigating this documentation. By comparing the past involvement of archivists when they have arranged and documented an archival collection with the ideal of professional practices of their time, illustrates, not only how they arranged and documented, but also how their solutions became part of the professional archival practice of the times. With the archivist as facilitator of professional archival practice of the era, their archival practices became embedded in the arrangement and description of archives.
The Australian series system allows for the control of the record to be complemented by the control of the record’ s context through documentation. The series system developed as a record control system solution to the problem of records transfer in the second custodial phase which the Commonwealth Archives Office addressed through their archivists, particularly, Maclean and Scott. The latter’ s awareness of the need to coordinate the records management procedures with later archival
management procedures was also influenced by Maclean’ s opinion that records should be selected for disposal rather than selected for retention. He in turn was influenced by the American approach to management of modern government records during the 1950s, as well as Jenkinson’ s view of the evidential nature of archives. In that way, the professional archival practice and records management practice of Maclean and Scott’ s era as well as the organisational goals of the Commonwealth Archives Office, have influenced the Australian series system.
Describing the records in relation to their custodial phases provides a more comprehensive description of the records custodial history. If the context of the records is compromised in the first custodial phase, the task for the second and third phase custodians is more complex and time-consuming. Correct record-keeping procedures in the first phase provide the best basis for maintaining correct record-keeping procedures through the second and third phases.
The fundamental theme that arises from the archival literature discussed in this review is that records managers and archivists must cooperate to coordinate their record-keeping activities so as to gain the maximum benefit from their combined efforts, as advocated through continuum thinking. Redoing the same record-keeping procedure because initially the procedure was either not completed or not documented, wastes precious resources. It is essential for both records managers and archivists to recognise that sound records management procedures will allow the records to transfer smoothly into archival management procedures.
The distinction between the records management phase and archival management phase of the records is noteworthy when the custodianship of the records as having occurred in three phases is seriously considered. These custodial phases occur with all records surviving over time, regardless of which record control system or primary unit of arrangement has been used in the management of the collection of records.
In the particular scenario in which records have survived to their third custodial phase with only their “ shelf arrangement” and no accompanying documentation, the
investigative analysis that archivists must undertake needs to be careful and
thoughtful. An explanation of how the records were generated must be sought from an analysis of the arrangement in which the records have survived. This analysis has been described as “ archaeological archivology” (Horsman, 1999, p. 47) and advanced
“ reconstructive” work (Maclean, 1962, p. 140-145), the latter opining that a
collection of records in this particular scenario might have, borrowing the definitions from archaeologists, both a provenance, a place of origin, and a provenience, a place where found. In this scenario, the provenance of the records will have an influence on the description of the records and the provenience will provide evidence of the
custodial history of the records.
This last scenario, that is records with both provenance and provenience, describes the attributes of the variety of records to be described in chapters 4, 5 and 6. At the outset of this literature review, the ‘old company records’ of the East India Company (EIC), the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), the Royal African Company (RAC) and the Hudson’ s Bay Company (HBC) surviving from the seventeenth century are now managed by archivists of the British Library (EIC Archives), National Archives of The Netherlands (VOC Archives), The National Archives [formerly the Public Record Office] (RAC Archives) and Archives of Manitoba (HBC Archives) respectively. These ‘old company records’ are “ finite” collections of records having discernable custodial phases in their custodial history, however each collection has not had the same record-keeping treatment over their history. Comparisons of the
similarities and differences in record-keeping practices, particularly the archival practices applied in the third custodial phase, yield data that can be used to evaluate the influence these cases have had on the development of archival description.
The following chapters will explore four cases in which archivists have influenced and been influenced by ‘old company records’ through their archival activities of
arrangement and description, and the documentation of the custodial history.
Archival collections comprised of ‘old company records’ were selected for discussion because of their unique nature and, in particular, that successive organisational, bureaucratic and governmental repositories have kept these records.
Of particular interest in the chapters 4 and 5 will be the discussion on the archival activities of the four archival practitioners who carried out their activities prior to the publication of the 1898 Dutch Manual; the influence these four men, Danvers (EIC Archives) and De Jonge, Heeres and Colenbrander (on the VOC Archives), may have had on the development of archival practice at the end of the nineteenth century.
These pre-Manual archivists had experience with records that were not the “ stable”
records the archival literature (Cook, 1997a) has previously associated with pre-Manual archivists.
This thesis, and my paper (Holmes, 2006), presents the first discussion of the work of Danvers, De Jonge, Heeres and Colenbrander in relation to the development of archival practice at the end of the nineteenth century.