Elizabeth Shepherd

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.

Why are records in the public sector organizational assets

Purpose – Aims to explore ways in which records support the mandate and activities of public sector bodies in the UK, in particular compliance with legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act 2000.Design/methodology/approach – Focusing on high profile public enquiries as a trigger for examining the value of records in answering questions of public interest, the article goes on to report on recent research into FOI and records and to comment on the broad legislative and regulatory framework for records management.Findings – The article concludes that records are an essential element in the accountability of government, in the maintenance of transparent democracies, in the provision of access by citizens to information and in the effective formulation and execution of policies.Originality/value – Brings together thinking about the organizational value of records in theoretical terms with specific high profile examples of public enquiries and recent legislation.

How has the implementation of the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 affected archives and records management services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider what the impact of the first six months of the Freedom of Information Act has been on archives and records management services in UK public services. The UK Freedom of Information Act was passed in 2000 and came into full operation on 1 January 2005. It gives people, regardless of nationality, a right to be told whether public bodies hold information and to be provided with that information. Similar legislation exists in over 50 countries including the USA, Canada, Australia and Ireland.Design/methodology/approach – The project undertook interviews with four case study organisations: University College London, the Metropolitan Police, Peterborough City Council and Soham Village College. Using the Department for Constitutional Affairs Model Action Plan, the researchers examined leadership and policy, training and awareness, information and records management, customers and stakeholders and systems and procedures.Findings – The research showed that the four...

Freedom of Information, Right to Access Information, Open Data: Who is at the Table?

Many national governments have adopted the idea of the ‘right to access information’ (RTI) or ‘freedom of information’ (FOI) as an essential element of the rights of citizens to freedom of opinion and expression, human rights, trust in public discourse and transparent, accountable and open government. Over 100 countries worldwide have introduced access to information legislation: 50+ in Europe; a dozen in Africa; 20 in the Americas and Caribbean; more than 15 in Asia and the Pacific; and two in the Middle East (Banisar, 2014). This article will provide an overview of access to information legislation and focus on the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 as a case example. It will discuss the impact of the UK FOI Act on public authorities, with particular attention to records management implications, drawing on research undertaken by University College London. In the final section, it will reflect on relationships between access to information and open government data. If governments are moving to more openness, what implications might this have for those charged with implementing FOI and RTI policies, including for records management professionals?

Developing a new academic discipline : UCL's contribution to the research and teaching of archives and records management

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to examine the historical development of archives and records management education in universities in England and review the state of research and teaching in the discipline in 2005.Design/methodology/approach – Using a framework that draws on sociological attributes, the main text provides a historical analysis derived from primary and secondary sources, together with a brief overview of current educational provision for the discipline.Findings – The article finds that graduate education in archives and records management has developed in the UK over a period of 60 years (1947‐2005) and is well established, with seven Masters‐level programmes offered across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, in a variety of learning modes (full‐ and part‐time, open learning, face‐to‐face) and from different perspectives and contexts (history, information science, digital preservation). The university research community in the discipline has developed more recently and needs to...

Are ISO 15489-1:2001 and ISAD(G) compatible? Part 1

Part 1 of this article presents a provisional set of metadata elements for the implementation of ISO 15489‐1:2001 Information and Documentation – Records Management. In Part 2 the elements are mapped to the General International Standard Archival Description (2nd edition, 2000) (ISAD(G)) to establish the extent to which the two standards are compatible and the degree to which ISO 15489‐1 metadata can be transferred directly from a current records management system to an archival description system. Metadata systematically captured during the current life of the record and transferred to an archive with the record should simplify the process of archival description and prevent the loss of context. The mapping reveals a large degree of correlation between the metadata that should be captured as part of a records management system to satisfy ISO 15489‐1, and the information required to compile an ISAD(G) compliant archival description. Most of the compatible information comes from the Description Area of ISO 15489‐1 metadata elements rather than the management area. Five out of the six mandatory elements for ISAD(G) interoperability, i.e. reference code, title, dates, extent and creator, are present in the ISO 15489‐1 metadata element set, albeit often in an abbreviated form. This is encouraging and perhaps not very surprising, since senior records and archives professionals were involved in the drafting of both standards.

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...

An "Academic" Dilemma: The Tale of Archives and Records Management.

This article discusses the development of academic research in the archives and records management field. It is argued that the field has faced a dilemma between educating graduates for work in a professional domain and developing robust research methods and frameworks for the emerging academic discipline. The article reports on some projects which have developed research frameworks and networks in the UK and internationally and considers some future directions for archives and records management research. In the light of the Research Assessment Exercise 2008, and in preparation for the Research Excellence Framework 2014, this is a good time to take stock of the progress made in this sub field of LIS and map its future strategic direction.

Partnerships in professional education: a study in archives and records management

The theme of the 1990s is partnership. Government policies and organisational structures encourage collaboration. This trend is reflected in the archives and records management profession. This paper is a study of partnership projects between higher education institutions and four types of partner: employers; professional bodies; a charity; and other higher education institutions. The focus of the study is professional education and training in archives and records management. The paper concludes that a complex environment requires a flexible response and that a small discipline needs to develop partnerships to enable all involved to respond swiftly to change. Collaboration rather than competition must be the basis for future survival and success.