Archives and Recordkeeping

Theory into practice

Caroline Brown editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Facet Publishing

Published:23rd Nov '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Archives and Recordkeeping cover

This groundbreaking text demystifies archival and recordkeeping theory and its role in modern day practice.

The book's great strength is in articulating some of the core principles and issues that shape the discipline and the impact and relevance they have for the 21st century professional.

Using an accessible approach, it outlines and explores key literature and concepts and the role they can play in practice. Leading international thinkers and practitioners from the archives and records management world, Jeannette Bastian, Alan Bell, Anne Gilliland, Rachel Hardiman, Eric Ketelaar, Jennifer Meehan and Caroline Williams, consider the concepts and ideas behind the practicalities of archives and records management to draw out their importance and relevance.

Key topics covered include:

  • Concepts, roles and definitions of records and archives
  • Archival appraisal
  • Arrangement and description
  • Ethics for archivists and records managers
  • Archives, memories and identities
  • The impact of philosophy on archives and records management
  • Does technological change marginalize recordkeeping theory?

Readership: This is essential reading for students and educators in archives and recordkeeping and invaluable as a guide for practitioners who want to better understand and inform their day-to-day work. It is also a useful guide across related disciplines in the information sciences and humanities.

This book is a welcome reminder of what archivists like best: talk about archives. For those who originally studied archive theory 30 or more years ago, it is particularly striking how many sources there are now compared to the relatively few published sources available on archival theory then. The bringing together of past and current thinking in this way will hopefully encourage and inform existing and future debate. For more recently qualified archivists, the book is a welcome chance to revisit some of the theoretical thinking underpinning archive work, in the light of the issues they have faced in their professional experiences since leaving university. For those new to the profession or studying to qualify, the book will provide an overview of milestones of archival thinking, with references to further reading.

-- Archives and Records

...an excellent introduction to the many and varied strands of thought in recordkeeping. The thorough bibliographies provided by the authors will enable the reader to go on their own voyage of discovery.

-- Archives and Manuscripts

This book provides a synthesis and an overview of all theories concerning the management of documents and archives, which were developed during the last century to the present...I encourage both professionals and students to read this book to complement and cultivate their theoretical knowledge in document management and archives.

-- Alexandra Buthiaux * Érud

ISBN: 9781856048255

Dimensions: 234mm x 159mm x 16mm

Weight: 187g

224 pages