REPORT ON THE SOCIETY AND ARCHIVES SURVEY

Below is additional background information concerning the "good news stories" discussed in Section 4 of the main report.

1. Australia State Records Authority of New South Wales ('State Records'): Survey of Records Producers

Hi Rick

I've just completed your survey -- congratulations on taking the initiative to do this with such tight time constraints.

I wanted to provide a little more background about something I mentioned in the survey, which is relevant to the topic.

My organisation has recently commissioned qualitative research into the attitudes of chief executives of NSW public sector bodies to records, recordkeeping and records management. There was also some exploration of their perceptions of State Records.

Because chief executives have specific obligations under our State records legislation and their commitment is clearly crucial to achieving good performance in recordkeeping and records management in their organizations and across the sector, we wanted to know more about their attitudes and perceptions, so that we can develop strategies to engage with them better.

The research was conducted by a market research firm using interviews and focus groups, and covered about 50 chief executives (out of a total of 400) from a sample of public sector bodies, including State Government agencies, public trading enterprises, local government bodies, universities and public health authorities. The bodies ranged from large departments with many thousands of staff to micro-agencies with only a few staff.

Unfortunately I can't give you much detail about the results of the research -- the researchers gave a presentation on the initial findings only on Wednesday and we don't expect a written report until the end of November. But some overall impressions may help:

******

Chief executives generally appreciate the value of recordkeeping in relation to accountability and the ability to track decisions, but also associate it with bureaucracy, burdensome regulation and traditional views of filing and archives=storage.

Some don't see the value of recordkeeping and/or don't connect it with core business.

There's an overall commitment to the need for recordkeeping, but it competes for other priorities and there's a lack of appreciation of real business benefits.

Most chief executives consider themselves committed to recordkeeping, but they want it all made easier and the value demonstrated.

They see their responsibilities in relation to recordkeeping as relating to enhanced organisational performance, rather than conformance with regulation.

Recordkeeping is seen as less important than finance, HR and PR, and is recognised as receiving less of chief executives' attention.

******

I'll be happy to share the results of the research when we them in a more definitive form. We will be sending a summary to the chief executives in any case, along with our proposed response, so we won't be keeping the results secret.

While we commissioned the research for good business reasons, we're excited about it professionally because we're not aware of a public records authority doing this before and believe that it will add to professional knowledge.

I hope this background might be of interest for what you're doing at CITRA.

With very best wishes

David

David Roberts
Director
State Records

State Records Authority of New South Wales ('State Records')
Phone (02) 8276 5654 Fax (02) 8276 5626
International: Phone +61 2 8276 5654 Fax +61 2 8276 5626
Postal address: PO Box R625 Royal Exchange SYDNEY NSW 1225 AUSTRALIA
World Wide Web: http://www.records.nsw.gov.au

I know you must be very busy finalising this and so apologise for giving you more information. Please ignore if you can't use it....

I focused in my email on our recent chief executives attitude research because it's very current and, as I noted, an exploration of new territory for us. Reading the exec summary of your report, though, prompted me to look at market research we commissioned in late 2000 on community perceptions of archives and of State Records and our collection. The findings on perceptions of archives might challenge some of the pessimistic views of archivists and records managers, as reported in your survey.

This was a telephone survey of a little over 300 adults, carefully sampled to provide a good cross-section of demographic sub-groups. For the question on perceptions of archives, which is probably the most relevant to your survey and the CITRA theme, respondents were read a list of adjectives, including positive and negative, that may describe government archives. They were asked to nominate the words they felt described archives in general.

Our market research firm commented: "State Records can use a confident communication style in the knowledge that the broad community sees archives in very positive ways. The main negative connotations to be countered are those of being old-fashioned, boring and inaccessible."

These and other results from that survey provided us with a basis for a renewed marketing effort that we started earlier this year to capture the community's imagination and build new audiences, focusing on a program of innovative exhibitions, events and a flagship magazine.

Finally, for amusement only, I enclose the text of my "Director's Letter" for the second (August) issue of the new magazine, which addressed the question of what society expects of archivists. I'll pop a hard copy in the post.

The following information was received by one of the Survey respondents in the “Others” section of Question 8 (No other information was received on this case):

Others who have done a significant job of promoting use of archival records and thereby promoting archival collections generally has been the City of Montreal. With its recent project to refurbish the canals in the Lachine Canal and the other "urban development" projects that have taken place around the Canal, a tremendous amount of information is out there about its history -- particularly on-site, with commemorative plagues, and explanatory signage that gives indications of where the city has been and where it is going -- excellent model for the promotion of local history using a range of archival evidence.

Date: 11/8/02 4:15:02 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: svanbo@ismennt.is
To: RICKBARRY@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Hi Rick.

About the Reykjavik Municipal Archives: Archives for the City of Reykjavik. Authority for records management of the City and preserves the archival documents. Employees 7, funding in 2002 USD 364,000. Reykjavik is a City with 120,000 of the 270,000 inhabitants of Iceland.

I started with doing surveys of our services in the reading room. Since 1998 we do surveys on regular basis of how well the public knows what kind of service we provide. We did this in Nov. 1998, Nov. 2000 and will repeat it again next week, with the same question and method. We got the Gallup International survey company to do the survey for us and the sample rate is about 2000 with a response rate of about 1200. People from all around Iceland are asked if they know what kind of service the Reykjavik Municipal Archives provide. If they say yes, they are asked to specify what is the main service. Of course the answers are broken down by age, sex, demographic, work etc.

The result has been very interesting for us. In 1998 about 20% of the population from the whole country said yes to the question if they knew what kind of service the Reykjavik Municipal Archives provides. We were quite happy with this result. However, people were also asked to specify the service offered. Too many people mentioned the preservation task, with replies like "They keep old documents", "This is the place to find old book", "They keep the documents of the city".

We started with more outreach in beginning of 1999 based on what was lacking in the knowledge. In 1999 we had four exhibitions, opened a website with some other archives in Europe (see www.euarchives.org ) explaining the richness of the collection and with scanned documents, we published a high quality book with other archives of Europe's cultural cities. We were frequent guests in the media all year, even in TV nightlife program!

The number of scholars visiting us stayed the same, but the visits of the public to get information increased. It was obvious that all our talk about right to access public information gave results.

The survey of Nov 2000 showed that we were on the right track. Now 25% more people from all over the country said they knew about our services. People started to be more to the point in the replies and indeed know more about the purpose of our work (not only preservation of documents, but to provide information for the citizens, you go there when you need information about your grades, about the history of the city, they have many interesting documents that you can look at, etc).

New were are eagerly waiting for the results of Nov. 2002, but the Gallup International Survey Company will do a survey for us Nov. 12-26.

We look at this as a way to see if we are on the right track in our work. Our duty is not only to preserve the information of the City of Reykjavik, but also to provide access to it to the citizens and to introduce the enormous work the city has been doing in the past.

Next exhibition will open Dec. 7th and be open until Feb. 2nd 2003. It will be about the wartime Reykjavik in the Second World War and the effect the arrival of the troops had on the city life. We will use city documents from the time, photographs of Reykjavik 1941-3, mainly from the American National Archives, wartime posters and war artifacts. All the texts of this exhibition will be both in Icelandic and English, as many tourists visit Iceland to observe Christmas and the New Year celebrations.

Vermont State Archivist, Gregory Sanford has communicated with the author on the Vermont State Archives “Continuing Issues” (CI) initiative the past year and recently in the context of the Society & Archives Survey. Professionals are familiar with the term “records of continuing value,” and its associated theory and practices. While this approach to recordkeeping is of growing interest to many professionals and institutions and formed the basis for the ISO 15489 International Standard on Records Management, the concepts would likely not be considered of much importance or interest to most lay persons. The Vermont State Archives, under the leadership of Gregory Sanford has coined the term “records of continuing issues” to catch the imagination of legislators, journalists and the general public and demonstrate the current value of archives from earlier times to contemporary public policy issues. A brief paper describing the project is accessible in the in the Guest Authors section of www.mybestdocs.com. Sanford supplied the below additional explanatory information on the Vermont State “continuing issues” project. Sanford supplied the following description of the CI program.

Rick: I had only a brief chance to review your initial summary, which you attached to an earlier e-mail. I think what you are attempting is absolutely fascinating. I attach some very superficial thoughts on my first read through of the draft.
Gregory
---------------

1. You begin your discussion by noting that society's perceptions of archives are, in truth, societies' perceptions. That is an essential point. Individual archives operate in different social settings, conditioned by different cultural experiences and assumptions. The response from an African archivist ("archives are seen as part of the agencies who limit access to information") nicely encapsulates that reality. Recognition of the different milieus in which we work underscores the truth that there is no single approach to changing perceptions. That is why your efforts to identify possible models from different social/cultural settings is important; it may ultimately provide a smorgasbord of choices from which the records community can select ideas that may work best within a particular environment.

2. Following up on that thought, my archives' efforts to enhance institutional and public perceptions are adapted to our realities. We are a public archives in a state whose population is smaller than more than a dozen cities in our country. We are in a state capital with a population of 8,000 where it is almost impossible not to physically encounter government officials, reporters, and lobbyists. We work for an elected constitutional officer whose entire staff numbers under fifty. In other words, our setting provides endless opportunities for personal contact with policy and opinion makers. This simplifies our efforts to enhance a positive perception of our work; we only need to identify key players and attempt to build some level of personal contact that illustrates how we can be of service. The simple decision to have lunch occasionally in the statehouse cafeteria--to be visible and accessible--can have important consequences. Or reading the morning paper, seeing who is involved in an emerging issue and, armed with the certainty that we do have a positive institutional role, sending that person a record or record-based information germane to the issue can slowly build toward understanding, if not support.

3. Changing perceptions is not the same as fighting perceptions. It can be more like those martial arts that incorporate and redirect an opposing force. As several survey responses note, archives are inextricably intertwined with "history" in popular perceptions. Even if we wanted to, we would be hard pressed to change that perception. In our case we developed "histories" of processes within our institution that were currently part of the public dialogue and that had persisted across time. That did not change--it may even have strengthened--perceptions that we had something to do with history, but it provided "history" in a form that was directly utilitarian to the institution. It also changed one aspect of role from passive (hoping a historian might use our records to create an institutional tool) to active (creating that tool ourselves, strengthening our "ownership" of that tool). That goes back to the first point of selecting a variety of tools with which to leverage change. Many archivists and records managers have correctly attempted to gain a place at the IT table by applying our principles and perspectives to our institutions' implementation of new information technologies. That presence changes perceptions. It makes sense having provided informed opinion on how our institution might do something, to also expend some effort on why it should care to do so.

4. Several responses expressed, or at least noted, our less than favorable perceptions of archivists, record managers, historians, genealogists, record creators, and institutional managers. What does it say about our own self-perceptions that, when given the opportunity to reflect on how we are perceived, to note our negative perceptions of others. I can think of no better expression of a barrier to changing how we are perceived than responding to the question of who we are with, "I am not him."

Rick: The Archives is seen as offering a long view to current issues. That is the good news. The bad news is that fine line where the archivist, not the Archives becomes the story. Because I am often quotable--occasionally to my embarrassment--the focus moves from the records to me. That makes me very uncomfortable. Yet I don't know how to avoid the problem because reporters need quotes from people for their stories; they will use the Web site and other information we provide, but ultimately the nature of their story telling needs a person saying something. They call me. Another interesting lesson/observation learned working with reporters: even those who use the Web site don't like to share its existence with other reporters—

or the public for that matter. Instead they treat it as their own privileged source they can use for their own advantage).

The use of the archivist, rather than the archives touches on a criticism I anticipate: whether continuing issues is more public history than archival management. Should archivists move from arranging and preserving records to publicly interpreting them (one reason we try to include source documents is to partially address this and to keep the focus on the records). I can live with that concern because I don't see the value in such distinctions, but my guess is that it will be raised.

Which, in turn, touches on a fascinating issue within your survey. Is the issue how the public, or even traditional research audiences, perceive archives, or is it how a few key leaders and public opinion observers/makers view archives? For all the effort we put into continuing issues activities (the effort embraces much more than the Web site), my estimate is that I effectively work with fewer than ten (out of 150) house members and perhaps two or three (out of 30) senators. I really only have contact with three or four staff members within the Governor's Office. With the news media we primarily work only with those Montpelier reporters who cover government.

While I believe there is a "tipping point" where that limited, but essential, use will lead to broader awareness of the archives, given resource limitations the key is develop a core of important players who routinely think of the archives. And addressing the public historian issue, the goal is to then use that core to enhance support for better recordkeeping (such as being asked to talk to new legislators or to committee clerks) and better resources, including better legal authorities.

To seek widely held positive public perceptions is important, but chimerical if that is the primary goal. If nothing else seeking positive "public" awareness is too undefined a goal. If, however, reporters mention the archives in their reports, or public figures note historical context provided by the archives, then general public awareness will be raised.

PS. Just got an e-mail informing me that the Snelling Center on Government will be using one of our educational exercises (an offshoot of continuing issues) as part of next weeks orientation for new legislators. So new legislators will receive two introductions to the Archives: one of our continuing issues exercises (on the nature of representation) and my luncheon address to them on the second day of orientation. I attach the exercise to give you a flavor of another aspect of continuing issues. The exercise usually is accompanied by documents from throughout Vermont history—including from the recent civil unions debate--that underscore the continuing tensions between representatives as delegates or trustees.

Rick,

I want to bring you up to date on a use of archives for outreach purposes that SIA will be engaging in. We're mounting a small exhibition in the gallery of the Canadian Embassy, using photographs taken by the Smithsonian's 4th Secretary, Charles D. Walcott. Dr. Walcott was a paleontologist and geologist who used photography to document land formations and various terrain. His scientific need for photography resulted in some sweeping panoramas of mountain ranges, including the Canadian Rockies. We will be mounting a small selection of his images to show the intersection of science and art, and of course the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. The embassy thinks this a fine example of the rich texture of relationships that bind our two countries, and an opportunity to highlight a prominent American (Walcott discovered the Burgess Shale, one of the great paleontological finds of all time) whose work centered largely in Canada (the Burgess Shale is in British Columbia, for instance).

The exhibition won't open until late February or early March, 2004, but we're excited about it at SIA. Hope this is useful information for your survey.

Cheers,
Edie

Another excellent example of outreach to society that was not submitted to the author but rather was posted to a professional discussion list is one that

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:46:43 -0800
From: Anthony Reed <Anthony_Reed@NPS.GOV>
Subject: New England Archivists - Archives on the Road - call for venues and volunteers

The New England Archivists (NEA) Outreach Committee is looking for a little assistance. As part of the regular schedule of programs and speaking engagements, we've recently added a program dubbed "Archives on the Road", a take on the PBS series, Antiques Roadshow.

For those unfamiliar with the concept (knowing, however, that similar programs take place across the country), here is a brief summary of how the program works:

Archives on the Road (AoR) is an opportunity for people to come to a site (library, historical or genealogical society, senior / youth center, county fair) with their archivable objects (family papers, scrap books, diaries, letters, photographs) and have professionals explain their historical value and what kind of options are available to care for their objects. At a series of tabletop stations, these professionals will explain basic preservation / conservation techniques, what happens to materials that are donated to an institution, options for reformatting and optimal storage techniques. Additionally, lists of resources for those interested in finding vendors, freelance archivists, researchers, and consultants are made available, and samples of "acid burn", rusty metal fasteners, and pressure-sensitive tape are on hand (always a crowd pleaser, especially those old-fashioned paper-clips!).

Occasionally, an NEA outreach committee member will provide a brief introductory talk on the uses of archival materials and their care and storage, depending on the crowd and the venue. Often, questions of digitizing family photographs, care of newspaper-clipping scrapbooks or
methods of displaying old photographs come up. The questions are usually very "Archives 101" and often folks come, perhaps not with questions, but more to show off precious family treasures, offering us a great opportunity to educate and advocate for the materials, and for the industry. (The main difference between PBS' "Roadshow" and "Archives on the Road" is that the
archivists will not provide monetary values for any objects. However, information is made available about archival appraisers in the area; archivists also explain how a collection is donated, and what kind of institutions could be interested in specific items.)

The primary purpose is to help people better understand how to care for their treasures and how archives and archivists can help them preserve those items. Brief descriptions of some previous AoR events are available at the NEA website:

http://www.lib.umb.edu/newengarch/aboutNEA/ctts/roadprev.html

How can you help:
The Outreach Committee is always looking for new venues for this program. If you are interested in participating in this program by volunteering your time and/or volunteering your institution to host an event (New England-area institutions are obviously our primary outreach target;
institutions outside the region will be considered on a case-by-case basis), please contact Committee Chair, Jessica Steytler, Congregational Library, 14 Beacon St., Boston MA 02145, (617) 523-0470 ext 234, fax: 617-523-0491, jsteytler@14beacon.org.

Thank you for your time,

Anthony Reed, Archivist / NEA Outreach Committee member
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
Brookline, Massachusetts

"The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it."
William James, 1842-1910

Perception	Yes (%)	Don’t know (%)	No (%)
Useful	90	9	1
Valuable	89	8	3
Interesting	72	11	17
Comprehensive	55	33	12
Rule-bound	49	31	20
Up to date	47	40	13
Efficient	43	42	15
Inaccessible	34	34	32
Exciting	33	17	50
Boring	25	14	61
Old fashioned	20	15	65
Irrelevant	11	12	77
Waste of money	8	16	76

January 29, 2003*