A workshop presented by the Society of Archivists, Ireland, and UCD AD and directed by Richard J. Cox, Professor of Archival Studies at the School of Information Studies, University of Pittsburgh, USA.

Tuesday, 21 May 2002

Workshop Review
Kate Manning
Printed in SoA, Ireland Newsletter (Summer 2002) and SoA newsletter, ARC (September 2002)

On 21 May, Richard J. Cox, Professor of Archival Studies at the School of Information Studies, University of Pittsburgh gave a full day workshop on appraisal entitled "Archival Appraisal Practice in a New Millennium" in the Archives Department of University College, Dublin. 

The workshop focused on the increasing need for considered archival appraisal in the face of escalating changes in electronic communications and record-keeping systems. Professor Cox emphasised that archival appraisal is the most critical task of the archivist and that the process used by the archivist in determining continuing value affects all other archival functions, as well as impacting on individual, organisational, and societal memory.

Prof. Richard Cox in UCDA

The workshop began with a definition of appraisal, and an overview of modern archival appraisal literature and research. Traditional approaches to archival appraisal were reviewed and part of this review raised the issues of evidence versus information, what is it we are trying to achieve when we appraise and what are the issues in modern records-keeping systems that make traditional approaches to appraisal inadequate.

Cox advocates the need for archivists to recognise that concentrating on the needs of particular groups of researchers is not necessarily the best way to make appraisal decisions. The appraisal process involves not just thinking about historical issues, but also about the value of records for accountability and evidence and it is here that most of our critical decisions must be made. Many of the challenges to established approaches to appraisal stem from the need for archivists to think strategically about what Cox called "the never-ending complaint: too many records, too few archivists." In order to respond in a coherent and effective way to the challenges of appraisal in the modern era of record-keeping, we have to concentrate on understanding record-keeping systems, the changing nature of organisations, multiculturalism and the fragmentation of society, public accountability, and social and cultural memory. He also pointed out that the public perception of appraisal is not a very well informed one and is often misleading, to wit Nicholson Baker's recent book, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. There has been a huge amount of coverage of Baker's book on both sides of the Atlantic and two things are clear from the debate thus far: firstly, that appraisal is not a well-understood subject outside of the archives/museum/library worlds (and not very well defined within those worlds) and secondly, that archives are often understood as objects (interesting, old things, artefacts) not records (accountability and evidence).

In offering potential solutions to the problems he raised, Cox continued to stress a point about which he has written widely: that archivists need to understand the power we have as records professionals (we are not simply custodians), we need to consider our role as the keepers of warrant and to develop our role as policy makers. He posits a seven-part approach to developing an reasoned, successful appraisal strategy:

To finish, Cox discussed recent and emerging appraisal concepts: documentation strategies, macro-appraisal approaches, the warrant for record-keeping and distributed custody.