Andrew Flinn

Community histories, community archives : Some opportunities and challenges

This article will examine the community archive movement, exploring its roots, its variety and present developments. It will identify the possible impact on the national archival heritage, particularly on the many gaps and absences in that contemporary heritage, of community archive materials and examine some of the opportunities and challenges that these initiatives present to the mainstream profession.

New frameworks for community engagement in the archive sector: from handing over to handing on

This article uses ethnographic research methods to explore the various forms of engagement between mainstream publicly‐funded archives in the UK and independent ‘community archives’. Shifts in the understanding of the role of archives in society, combined with pressure from historically marginalised groups for greater visibility for their histories, have led mainstream organisations to develop more flexible working practices. These practices cover custodial arrangements, collections policy, curation and dissemination, training and consultancy. The most successful allow communities to combine the retention of control over their material with provision for its long‐term preservation. Where once community‐based groups were under pressure to hand over their archives, now the emphasis is on the handing on of knowledge to future generations and the sharing of expertise between organisations. However, working with community archives also presents challenges to dominant professional assumptions and practices and archivists need to be more sensitive to the motivations and experiences of their community‐based partners.

Information governance, records management and freedom of information: a study of local government authorities in England

In many democratic states political rhetoric gives weight to increasing public participation in and understanding of the political process; (re)-establishing public trust in government decision making; increasing transparency, openness, and accountability of public authorities; and, ultimately, improving government decision-making on behalf of citizens. Access to the public record and freedom of information (FOI) are mechanisms which help to facilitate the accountability of public authorities. Many jurisdictions have introduced legislation related to these mechanisms, and the UK government is no exception with its enactment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2000. University College London (UCL) ran a research project over 12 months in 2008–2009, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The research project examined what the impact of the UK FOIA had been on records management services in public authorities, especially local government. This article reports on some of the findings of the study. It considers how FOI compliance and records management functions are organized in local government and the role of information governance which is emerging as an umbrella for such functions. It draws some conclusions about the contributions that records management services make to the ability of local authorities to comply with the FOIA and identifies some ways in which user experience may be affected by the management of records.

Independent Community Archives and Community-Generated Content ‘Writing, Saving and Sharing our Histories’

This article examines recent developments in community archives and histories, and in particular the impact of technologies that encourage individuals to create and/or share their own historical content. Concomitantly, more archives and heritage institutions are experimenting with allowing their ‘communities of users’ to submit commentary and content to collection descriptions and catalogues. Some have seen such community histories and user content as challenging notions of professionalism and the authority of the ‘expert’ voice, and this article will seek to explore the ways in which this might be the case. However, the article will also argue that, technology aside, these challenges are not fundamentally new but that they reside firmly in the traditions of history from below, oral history, History Workshop and many other attempts to give recognition to less privileged voices. Ultimately, such material is surely an opportunity for archivists and historians to broaden the range of the sources that their work draws upon; whether they make use of these opportunities depends largely on their interests and the focus of their studies or collections.

The Impact of Freedom of Information on Records Management and Record Use in Local Government: A Literature Review

In 2008–2009, a research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, was run by the Department of Information Studies at University College London (UCL). It examined the impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 on records management services in public authorities, especially in local government. The project considered the inter-relationship between records management and freedom of information, and examined the cooperation and partnerships needed in order to maximise the benefits of freedom of information. A part of the first phase of the research was an extensive literature review: this article introduces the literature on freedom of information and records management, focusing on the UK. It suggests that while there were significant preparations by some public authorities for the full implementation of the Act in 2005, perhaps the necessary culture change and strategic leadership did not follow. There are, as yet, few studies of the user experience of freedom of information, and this is certainly an area needing further study.

Freedom of Information and records management in local government: help or hindrance?

Research into the impact of the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 on records management services in public authorities, especially in local government was carried out by the Department of Information Studies at UCL in 2008- 2009, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project considered the inter-relationship between records management and freedom of information, and examined the co-operation and partnerships needed in order to maximise the benefits of freedom of information. The first phase of the research was an extensive literature review, focusing on freedom of information and records management in the UK. This was followed by qualitative research using semi-structured interviews to gather rich data from council officials responsible for the provision of records management, information governance and freedom of information functions, complemented by interviews with requestors, to provide an outsiders perspective. The article reports on the position of records management in local government prior to 2000s drawing on the literature, outlines the research findings on FOI and records management policy and practice in local government, and concludes by considering the perspective of requestors and users of the FOIA as engaged citizens.

Records Management in English Local Government: the effect of freedom of information

Purpose – University College London (UCL) ran a research project over 12 months in 2008‐2009, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, which examined what the impact of the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 had been on records management services in local government. This paper aims to report on some of the findings of the study, with a focus on the practical records management issues.Design/methodology/approach – The research considered the three perspectives of records managers: institutional FOI; policy managers; and FOI requestors and user communities. Following an extensive literature review, qualitative research methods were used to gather data, specifically semi‐structured interviewing of 27 individuals from 19 different institutions in London and the South East of England and with 11 requestors.Findings – The findings reported in this paper focus on records services in local government, in particular their organisational location and status, and aspects of the management of cu...

Oral History and the Hidden Histories project: towards histories of computing in the humanities

This article demonstrates that the history of computing in the humanities is an almost uncharted research topic. It argues that this oversight must be remedied as a matter of urgency so that the evolutionary model of progress that currently dominates the field can be countered. We describe the ‘Hidden Histories’ pilot project and explore the origins and practice of oral history; in the corresponding issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly, five oral history interviews that we carried out during the project are presented. We conclude that the selection of interviews presented here demonstrate that oral history is an important and productive methodology in such research. The five oral history interviews form primary sources, which can be used in the writing of a history of computing in the humanities; furthermore, they contain new information and interpretations, which cannot be gleaned from published scholarly articles, for example, information about the varied entry routes into the field that have existed and the interrelationship between myth and history in the narratives we create about the emergence of digital humanities.

Computation and the humanities: towards an oral history of digital humanities

This book looks at the application of computing to cultural heritage and how it is transforming how the human record can be transmitted and understood.

Funding archive services in England and Wales: institutional realities and professional perceptions

This article reports on two related pieces of collaborative research carried out by the International Centre for Archives and Records Management Research in the Department of Information Studies at University College London, The National Archives, and the National Council on Archives between 2007 and 2012, which together investigated how archives in England and Wales are funded and the perceptions of funders and fundraising amongst archivists. Both pieces of research aimed to establish the institutional realities of funding and the funding mix for archive services, identifying which funding sources and fundraising techniques are well embedded and which are underdeveloped within the sector. The research projects also considered professional perceptions about fundraising and funding, in particular about funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Although not linked originally, the findings of these two projects throw light on an under-researched area of funding of archive services, and so the results of both projects are presented in a single article. The article also outlines some further research and professional development needs; suggests a target for a more robust funding mix and also that fundraising skills should properly form a part of the professional competencies framework.