ConvergingViewpoints

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Tuesday evening, February 1, Geof Huth, Director of Government Records Services for the New York State Archives spoke on the topic of "What My Career Has Taught Me" as part of our MARA Guest Lecture Series at SJSU.  The stories he shared wtih SLIS students and their comments to me afterward are the inspiration for the title of this Blog, "ConvergingViewpoints."

As program coordinator for the Master's of Archives and Records Administration (MARA) degree offered through the School of Library & Information Science at SLIS, I was pleased when one of the students who had participated in the seminar shared this quote by Mr. Huth:

Geof Huth, Director
Governmenet Records Services
New York State Archives

The European archival tradition does not have the split between archives and records management that the American tradition does.  When you get right down to it, it's all about about managing records. Some you manage for a short time, some you manage for a longer time, others you manage permanently. But it's all about records.

 

 The MARA program was created with just such a philosophy in mind, it's all about the "records."  And records, by definition, can take a variety of forms. The full definition of a Federal record as presented in the Federal Records Act is:

"...all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the U.S. Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of the data in them." (44 U.S.C. 3301, Definition of Records)

 A similar definition is applicable, of course, to non-federal government records as well. And those records can be found in physical form in offices, records centers, special collections, archives, and museums.  They can, increasingly, be found online in digital format regardless of the physical location (if any) of the 'recordkeeper.' More than ever before, we all are involved in the creation, management, and disposition of records.  Challenges such as organization, description, discovery, and preservation face each one of us regardless of where we are employed.  And, if personal digital treasures are to be discovered in the future, even those of us who are not professional 'recordkeepers' must take an active role in appraising and preserving our digital creations. 


I'd be very interested to learn your views on the similarities and differences of various careers available related to 'recordkeeping.'  Feel free, also, to share information related to any of the issues affecting all of us, and I'll be sure to do the same.