Week 05: Records and Evidence Part 1 (Private Study Week)

Tutorial Exercises

• What is it that makes a record special? What is the difference between a record and any other piece of information? Analyse and deconstruct any receipt or other record you have received (or created) in the last week against the characteristics of records outlined in the lecture notes and against AS4390.
  
• Consider the range of sources you use in your own research and compare with Kragh's schema (week 2).
  
• Is Bridget Goodwin's documentary Keen as Mustard a true and accurate record?
  
• Read and analyse the impact of the Evidence Act on Commonwealth recordkeeping.
  
• Look at a published history, of any vintage (recently published, a classic, even a work of 'faction' perhaps) and bring it along to class. What is the ratio of primary and secondary sources? What kind of sources are being used and how are they being cited?

Lab Exercise

• What can you find out about the University of Pittsburgh’s Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping project? In what ways does it fail to meet its own objectives?
  
• Comment on the Document Retention Policy practised by British-American Tobacco, as evidenced in the Rolah McCabe case last year. What was its purpose? Was it good ‘archival’ practice?
  
• Comment on the provenancial issues surrounding Stephen Glantz and the Tobacco Control Archives. Start at http://www.ucsf.edu/foundation/impact/archives/2000/07_tobacco.htm.
  

Review Questions

1. What do archivists mean by 'provenance'?
   
2. What are the characteristics of records (according to State Records New South Wales)? Express in your own words with examples. http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/publicsector/rk/rrk/rrk-01.htm
   
3. Give an example of information which would not be considered a record and explain why.
   

Conference Papers

• Goodwin, Bridget, 'Science Archives: Humanising and Popularising the Stories', in Working with Knowledge International Archives Conference, Australian Science Archives Project, Melbourne, 6-7 May 1998, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/asa/stama/conf/WWKbridget.htm.
• Learmont, Jenny, 'Creating "Living Records": An Epidemiological Case Study', in Working with Knowledge International Archives Conference, Melbourne, 6-7 May 1998, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/asa/stama/conf/WWKjenny.htm.

Reports

• The Pittsburgh Project, Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 18 September 1996, http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~nhprc/prog1.html.

Resources

• Pederson, Ann, Understanding Society Through its Records, with Wallace, Lesley. Grey-Smith, Sue. Wylie, David., Curtin University of Technology. John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, 2001-06-01, http://john.curtin.edu.au/society/index.html.
• Smith, Ailie and Gavan McCarthy, The Brown Family Guide to Records, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, 2002, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/guides/brow/brown.htm.

Resource Sections

• 'Records in Evidence: The Impact of the Evidence Act on Commonwealth Recordkeeping', 1998, http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/overview/evidence/records.html.
• State Records New South Wales, 'Records and Recordkeeping', in Government Recordkeeping Manual, 28 March 2000 edn, State Records New South Wales, Government of NSW, 28 March 2000, http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/publicsector/rk/rrk/rrk-01.htm.