Doing Archival Appraisal in Canada. Results from a Postal Survey of Practitioners' Experience, Practices, and Opinions

  • Barbara Lazenby Craig

Résumé

This paper reports results of a self-administered postal survey of 450 Canadian archivists undertaken between 2003 and 2005. The survey of fifty-eight questions gathered information specifically about appraisal as a work process: how it is done by archivists in Canadian repositories; what resources they use; what problems and issues they have encountered; and in the light of experience, what tools, skills, and knowledge have proven to be important in doing this task. The paper reports the frequencies for eight sections of the survey. It situates the 313 responses (response rate of 70%) within their overall experience, institutional affiliation, and basic demography. The paper also discusses respondents’ opinions on the knowledge, education, and training needed to do appraisal, and assesses the sources for information they use and find useful. After reporting on the respondents’ approach to the task and the methods they use, the paper looks at the problems encountered in doing appraisal and discusses the ideas that archivists have about their accountability for decisions. Further analysis of data from the survey is proposed as the companion to the next phase of research on appraisal, interviewing archivists to explore ideas and issues in depth.

 

RÉSUMÉ
Ce texte présente les résultats d’un sondage auto-administré acheminé par la poste auprès de 450 archivistes canadiens entre 2003 et 2005. Le sondage qui comportait 58 questions a permis de compiler des données portant spécifiquement sur l’évaluation comme processus de travail : comment les archivistes effectuent l’évaluation dans des dépôts d’archives canadiens; de quelles ressources ils se servent; quels problèmes et questions ils ont rencontrés; et, à la lumière de leurs expériences, quels outils, capacités et connaissances ont été utiles à la réalisation de cette tâche. Le texte rapporte les fréquences pour huit sections du sondage. Il situe les 313 réponses (taux de réponse de 70 %) dans le contexte des expériences générales, des affiliations institutionnelles et des profils démographiques des répondants. Le texte présente aussi leurs opinions en ce qui concerne les connaissances, l’éducation et la formation nécessaires pour mener une évaluation, et il évalue les sources d’information dont ils se servent et qu’ils trouvent utiles. Après avoir fait le tour des approches des répondants pour accomplir cette tâche et des méthodes dont ils se servent, le texte examine les problèmes rencontrés en faisant l’évaluation, et il explore les idées que les archivistes ont au sujet de leur obligation de rendre des comptes pour leurs décisions. L’auteure propose une analyse plus poussée des données du sondage pendant la prochaine phase de recherche sur l’évaluation, alors que seront interviewés des archivistes dans le but d’explorer plus à fond leurs idées et leurs préoccupations.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Barbara Lazenby Craig
Barbara L. Craig is an associate professor of archives in the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto. She has a PhD in Archive Studies from the University of London, England. She has been vice-president and president of the Association of Canadian Archivists, senior associate and general editor of Archivaria, and the principal investigator in research projects that use survey and interview techniques to explore issues in the archival profession and to understand the views on archives that are held by user groups; this research has been published in The American Archivist, the Public Historian, and Archivaria. Her current research examines the impact of technologies on knowledge management in offices of the British Civil Service before 1960. In this area she has published research into the adoption of copying technologies before 1900 (The Archival Imagination: Essay in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor) and on the rethinking of formal knowledge and its practices between 1900 and 1950 (in Archival Science, vol. 2, nos. 1–2). Professor Craig also continues to pursue her interests in the form and genre of records in public offices in the nineteenth century, organizational records management before World War II, and early office technologies and their work ecologies. In 2003 she worked with Phil Eppard and Heather MacNeil to organize and mount the first international conference on the history of records and archives, known ever since as I-CHORA, which was held in Toronto. The best papers from that conference were published in Archivaria 60 (Fall 2005).
Publié-e
2008-04-15
Comment citer
Craig, Barbara Lazenby. 2008. « Doing Archival Appraisal in Canada. Results from a Postal Survey of Practitioners’ Experience, Practices, and Opinions ». Archivaria 64 (avril), 1-45. https://www.archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13145.
Numéro
Archivaria 64 (Fall 2007)
Rubrique
Articles

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work. They are required to sign the Agreement on Authors' Rights and Responsibilities that permits Archivaria to publish and disseminate the work in print and electronically. In the same agreement, authors are required to confirm that "the material submitted for publication in Archivaria, both in its paper and electronic versions, including reproductions of other works (e.g. photographs, maps, etc.) does not infringe upon any existing copyright." Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work and are able to publish their articles in institutional repositories or elsewhere as long as the piece is posted after its original appearance on archivaria.ca. Any reproduction within one year following the date of this agreement requires the permission of the General Editor.

Articles les plus lus du même(s) auteurs(s)

<< < 1 2 3 4 > >>