A Critique of the Records Continuum Model

Minor Thesis

for the

Masters of Information Management

(Archives and Records Management)

by

Mark Koerber

Supervisor

Dr. Diane Velasquez

School of Information technology & Mathematical Science

University of South Australia

Adelaide, S.A.

October 2017

i

Disclaimer

I declare that this dissertation does not incorporate without acknowledgment any material

previously submitted for a degree or diploma in any university, and that to the best of my

knowledge it does not contain any materials previously published or written by another

person except where the reference is made in the text.

Mark Koerber

October 2017

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Abstract

The Records Continuum Model has been a dominant theory in the Australian

archival discourse for the last twenty years. During this time the Model has only

received limited critical engagement. It is argued that the Model consists of broad

theoretical structures or components, and can be analysed further as a set of

theoretical propositions. Many of these propositions are examined, and it is found

that all of them can be regard as contentious. The lack of critical engagement with

the Records Continuum Model does not reflect its disputable nature within the

archival discourse. This dissertation seeks to address the lack of criticism by

offering a critique which focuses on those parts of the model which have not already

received critical attention.

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Contentspage

CHAPTER 1 Introduction 2

CHAPTER 2 A methodology for a critique of the records continuum model 12

CHAPTER 3 Literature review (Part one) Critical engagement with the records continuum in the archival literature

13

CHAPTER 4 Literature review (Part two) The problem of personal records

28

CHAPTER 5 A critical analysis of the theoretical propositions of the records continuum 39

CHAPTER 6 Discussion 56

CHAPTER 7 Conclusion 58

Reference list 59

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

A. What is the Records Continuum Model?

The Records Continuum Model is a theory about archives and records. Even though it is

commonly presented as a model, it is much more than that, and may also be referred to as the

records continuum theory. In this paper, “the records continuum” will be used as a shorthand

to refer to it as both a model and as a theory. Where necessary, locutions along the lines of

“the records continuum as a model”, “records continuum as a theory”, or “the records

continuum diagram” will be used to indicate which particular aspect of the records continuum

is being discussed.

How the records continuum should be best described is a challenge even for its proponents.

In his 2012 overview Piggott observes that the records continuum has been variously

characterised by its proponents as ‘a device, a tool, a paradigm, a theory, a metaphor, a

model, a logical model, a space/time model, a space/time construct and a method of thinking’

(Piggott 2012, p. 183). These shifting conceptions probably explains why there are no

comprehensive descriptions of the records continuum by anyone who is not a proponent or

supporter of it. (For a refreshingly readable summary of the records continuum by a

supporter, see Flynn 2001.)

Nevertheless, an attempt will be made to offer a description of the records continuum. The

approach taken here to this problem reflects a general thesis presented in this paper, that the

records continuum is a concatenation of various theoretical components. It will be argued that

not all of these components are appropriate for every kind of archive (and record), or are all

compatible with each other, or are even necessary to the overall concept of a records

continuum. The schema which dissects the records continuum model and theory into its

major theoretical components is set out as follows:

(i) The continuum

(ii) The record-keeping paradigm

(iii) The records continuum model diagram

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(iii) Structuration theory

(iv) The concept of ‘spacetime’

(v) Paradigm shift and a claim to universality

(vi) An aspiration toward the postmodern

Together these theoretical components form the overall conceptual framework of the records

continuum. Each of these theoretical components will be briefly described, its origins in the

archival discourse identified, and its current status within records continuum theory

discussed.

(i) The continuum

Proponents of the records continuum attribute to Ian MacLean and Peter Scott a kind of

‘proto-continuum’ (McKemmish, Upward & Reed 2010, p. 4449). The ‘proto-continuum’

was used by Maclean and Scott mainly as ‘a metaphor for expressing continuities between

the work of record managers and archivists’ (McKemmish 2001, p. 339). The metaphor of

the continuum is seen by proponents of the records continuum model as a precursor to their

conception of the continuum.

Another source for the continuum can be found in the criticisms of the life-cycle model. In

brief, the life-cycle model sees the life-span of a record as a progression through distinct

stages from creation to disposal. These stages are grouped into two phases: the first phase is

the active use of the record by the creating agency; the second phase comes into play after the

record has ceased to be of use to the creating agency (Atherton 1985, p. 44). The transition

from the first phase to the second can be described as crossing an “archival threshold”, where

records are transferred from the custody of the creating agency to the custody of an archive,

Record managers have professional responsibility for the first phase of records, while

archivists take over the responsibility once the records have been transferred across the

archival threshold.

Criticisms of the life-cycle model point to its apparent inadequacies with respect to digital

records. The stages of the life-cycle model are seen as not being separable in the case of

digital records, since activities can recur out of sequence. Atherton (1985, p. 47) puts it thus:

Creation, for example is an ongoing process rather than an event in time. The record

thus created is probably going to be altered a number of times during its

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administrative use. While most office automation systems may give the appearance

of emulating a paper system, the data certainly is not processed in the same fashion.

The data which constitutes a digital record is distributed throughout a computer system, so it

is difficult to envisage the record as passing through a series of distinct phases. Rather,

Atherton argues, the life-cycle should be replaced by interrelated stages which reflect ‘the

pattern of a continuum (Atherton 1985, p. 48). Like the ‘proto-continuum’, this continuum is

seen by Atherton as a continuous succession of record management and archival processes

(Atherton 1985, p. 51).

From these early “pre-Monash” notions of a continuum, the concept of the records continuum

model was developed. This conception of the records continuum sees all aspects of record

management and archival processes as being interrelated and intertwined. There are no

boundaries between these various aspects, for, as Upward puts it, a ‘continuum is a blurring

of point’ (Upward 2004, p. 45). The records continuum is bound up with the other key

features of RCM, such as ‘transactionality’ and the concept of ‘spacetime’. The continuum is,

of course, the defining feature of the records continuum model.

(ii) The record-keeping paradigm

This can be characterised as a conceptual framework, partly developed by David Bearman

(for an exposition, see Bearman 1994), which has had considerable influence on some

archival theorists (Cumming 2015, p. 321). Among these theorists can be included the

proponents of the records continuum. The phrase ‘record-keeping paradigm’ is taken from

Harris (2005, p. 161), and will continue to be employed in this paper to conveniently refer to

conceptions of records and archives which have to some extent been influenced by Bearman.

(This is despite some misgivings about the word ‘paradigm’, but it should be noted that its

use here is not intended to suggest that the record-keeping paradigm represents any kind of

“Kuhnian” paradigm shift.)

One of the key features of the record-keeping paradigm is its conception of records in terms

of function, evidence, and transaction, while emphasising context rather than content. In

records continuum theory these become functionality, ‘evidentiality’, ‘transactionality’ and

‘contextuality’ (McKemmish 2005, p. 14). The terms rendered here in scare-quotes are only

to be found in the RCM literature.

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Another key feature of the record-keeping paradigm is that it rejects the notion of an archival

threshold and advocates ‘post-custodialism’. The rejection of an archival threshold accords

with the records continuum and the rejection of the life-cycle model. ‘Post-custodialism’

designates an approach which de-emphasises physical custody by archives (Upward 1996, p.

274), especially with regard to digital records. Post-custodialism envisages that archives will

not necessarily be the final repositories of digital records, and that digital records can be

retained in the record-keeping systems in which they were created, in a distributed custody

approach.

The role of the archivist is also re-imagined in this post-custodial archival environment.

Instead of just dealing with records after they cross the archival threshold, archivists are seen

by the record-keeping paradigm as having more involvement with records’ creation. To

ensure that records have the necessary evidential values, captured in contextualising

metadata, which give them their long-term archival value, archivists will need to intervene

even before records are created. Since record-keeping systems need to also be archives,

archivists will have to be consulted so that archival values are included in the system’s

design. The active involvement of archivists in records creation has been called the

‘interventionist stance’ (Stapleton 2005, p. 39), and for convenience this locution will be used

in this paper to refer to this facet of the record-keeping paradigm.

Another feature of record-keeping paradigm is that it de-emphasises the physicality of

records. Instead records are defined by their ‘evidentiality’, ‘transactionality’ and

‘contextuality’, as indicated above. For the records continuum, this means a ‘focus on records

as logical rather than physical entities, regardless of whether they are in paper or electronic

form’ (Upward 1996, p. 276). The material aspects of records can be disregarded as these do

not confer records their ‘recordness’ (McKemmish 2001, p. 351), and ‘records as conceptual

constructs do not coincide with records as physical objects’ (McKemmish 1994, p. 200).

The final key feature of the record-keeping paradigm that will be considered here is the

promotion the merging of record-management and archival roles into the new profession of

‘recordkeepers’. The first uses of the term ‘recordkeeping’ (rather than ‘record keeping’ or

‘record-keeping’) by proponents of the records continuum can be traced at least as far back to

1994 (see McKemmish & Piggott 1994, Reed 1994, and McKemmish 1994). The term

‘recordkeepers’ does not find its way into the lexicon of the RCM literature until some ten

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years later (see Reed 2005a), though it appears that ‘recordkeeping professional’ continues to

be preferred.

The record-keeping paradigm continues to be integral to the records continuum model. The

promotion of post-custodialism has faded from view in the last ten years, perhaps in

recognition of the complexity of the issues involved with custody, distributed custody and

non-custody. On the hand, ‘evidentiality’, ‘contextuality’ and ‘transactionality’ remain as

some of the defining features of records continuum theory (McKemmish 2017, p. 141). The

interventionist stance still finds favour with proponents of the records continuum. The terms

‘recordkeeping’, and, to a lesser extent, ‘recordkeeper’ seem to have gained some currency in

the archival discourse within Australia.

(iii) The records continuum model diagram

The diagram used to illustrate the records continuum as a model is normally presented

graphically as a kind of ‘dartboard’ (Tough 2006, p. 5). Archival and related terms, along

with records continuum theory neologisms, are laid out on a pattern of four concentric circles,

and arranged along four orthogonal axes (see McKemmish, Upward & Reed 2010, p. 4450,

and McKemmish 2017, p. 138, for the most recent definitive versions of the diagram). This

complex graphical structure can be rendered more simply as a table, as the diagram actually

functions as kind of mind map (though it is not supposed to be hierarchical, and it does not

really delineate relationships). The table included below is based on the one Upward

presented when he decided that diagram had ‘largely exhausted its original paradigmatic

value’ (Upward 2005, p. 94).

Table 1.

Records continuu

m

Axes, or continua

↓

Dimensions

CAPTURE CAPTURE ORGANISE PLURALISE

Evidentiality Trace Evidence Corporate/individual memory

Collectivememory

Transactionality Transaction Activity Function Purpose

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Recordkeepingcontainers

(Archival)document

Record(s) Archive Archives

Identity Actor(s) Unit(s) Organisation Institution

(iii) Structuration theory

Giddens’s ‘structuration’ theory is a social theory which is utilised in the early records

continuum literature to broaden the theoretical scope of the records continuum (see especially

Upward 1997). Without going into it too much, Giddens uses the notion of ‘structuration’ to

relate social structure to individual action, where one brings about the other simultaneously as

they interact. Despite its prominence in the early expositions of the records continuum model

by Frank Upward, ‘structuration’ theory does not appear to receive much attention from its

other proponents. In the more recent records continuum literature ‘structuration’ theory only

receives a single passing mention, when it is noted that Upward ‘drew heavily’ on the social

theory of Giddens in his initial theorising (McKemmish 2017, p. 137).

Given that the importance of ‘structuration’ theory within records continuum theory appears

to have diminished, the theory and its relationship to the records continuum model will not

receive any more attention in this paper. Suffice it to say that the initial reliance on

‘structuration’ theory by Upward in his early exposition was possibly misplaced. Despite its

importance as a social theory, which addressed some theoretical problems within the field of

sociology, Giddens’s ‘structuration’ theory is not without its critics. Even before the records

continuum was fully articulated, ‘structuration’ theory was seen by many as ‘inapplicable in

empirical research’, and that its ‘abstract level, obscure concepts, and neologisms weaken its

fruitfulness’ (Kaspersen 2000, p. 163). As we shall see, these characterisations echo some

comments which have been applied to the records continuum model. Upward noted early on

that there was an increasing number of critiques of ‘structuration’ theory, but that he had ‘not

found time to read them in any depth’ (Upward 1997, p. 35). Some might say that was rather

a pity.

(iv) The concept of ‘spacetime’

The development of the concept of ‘spacetime’ within records continuum theory, along with

a critical examination of it, is dealt with at greater length below. For now, it just needs to be

pointed out that ‘spacetime’ is conceived by Upward as not just another way of saying ‘time

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and space’, but is a separate, distinct concept (Upward 2000, p. 119). The concept of

‘spacetime’ is inspired by Giddens’s notion of ‘time-space distanciation’, but the attribution

of the term ‘spacetime’ to Giddens by McKemmish, Upward and Reed (2010, p. 4454), and

again by McKemmish (2017, p. 137), is not actually correct.

The concept of ‘spacetime’ can be regarded as a defining feature of the records continuum,

despite most proponents usually avoiding the use of the term. For Upward, one of the

advantageous that RCM has over the pre-Monash continuum is that it has a ’theoretical view

of spacetime’ (Upward 2004, p. 56). Other proponents of the records continuum either ignore

the concept of ‘spacetime’ or merely allude to it in passing, and only then in the context of an

exposition of Upward’s ideas (see, for example, McKemmish 2017, p. 139). The

equivocation over the centrality of ‘spacetime’ is not helped by Upward reverting to the

locution ‘time/space’ in his diagram illustrating his notion of ‘archival time’ (Upward 2015,

p. 336), otherwise known as ‘All is archiving’ (Upward 2017, p. 206). Since it is not clear

what Upward means by these later notions, and that Upward recently wrote about ‘eddies in

the spacetime continuum’ (Upward 2017, p. 198), it is accepted in this paper that the concept

of ‘spacetime’ continues to have relevance to the records continuum.

(v) Paradigm shift and a claim to universality

More than twenty years ago it was argued by Cook that the bourgeoning of digital records

was not something which merely required a ‘technological adjustment’, but represented a

transformation of the archives and records profession (Cook, 1994, p. 306). This

transformation was, for Cook, ‘truly a ‘paradigm shift’’ (Cook 1994, p. 306). The idea was

therefore abroad in the archival literature when Upward overcame his ‘slightly cynical’

attitude and became a ‘full convert’ to RCM being just such a paradigm shift. (Upward 2000,

p. 128).

Upward’s claim is unequivocal, declaring that ‘the continuum is a fully-fledged paradigm

shift in which a worldview is being replaced’ (Upward 2000, p. 118). By ‘fully-fledged’

Upward means that the term ‘paradigm shift’ is not being used loosely or metaphorically, but

in the sense of ‘Kuhn’s conceptualisation’ (Upward 2000, p. 117). That the records

continuum represents a paradigm shift ‘in Kuhn’s sense’, and is a ‘new worldview’, is also

endorsed by McKemmish (McKemmish 2001, p. 333).

Along with the claim that the records continuum is a ‘worldview’ is the characterisation by

Upward and McKemmish (2001, p. 26) of the continuum as a metanarrative:

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The continuum has emerged in many ways of thought and has become a

metanarrative of its own, a possible counter to the angst of the petit recits, to

fragmentation and disarray.

The proponents of the records continuum argue that the ‘continuum approach’ is a ‘metaview

of reality’ which can help us move to a ‘world of multiple ways of knowing’, where it seems

differing points of view in the archival discourse can happily co-exist in some kind of holistic

postmodern ‘archival multiverse’ (Upward, McKemmish & Reed 2011, p. 200). Within this

‘archival multiverse’, it seems that ‘continuum thinking’ functions as a ‘form of

consciousness’ (Upward, McKemmish & Reed 2011, p. 200), which can resolve any

conceptual difficulties that critics may bring to bear on records continuum theory.

The universality of the records continuum is not only intellectual, but also practical. It can be

applied to ‘an analysis of recordkeeping practices in any period of history’ (Upward 1997, p.

31). By implication, this applicability would extend across all contemporary archival

practices and cultures as well.

The claim to universality has become one of the defining features of the records continuum,

in whatever form it may take, and continues to be promulgated by its proponents. The latest

form of the universality of the records continuum appears to be as a ‘metaview of reality’

functioning within an ‘archival multiverse’.

(vi) An aspiration to be postmodern

From its earliest inception the records continuum has been seen by its proponents as being in

accord with what is called here the “postmodern turn” in archival discourse. Upward

discussed the interpretation of ‘post’ in ‘post-custodial’ in terms of the writings of Jean-

Francois Lyotard (Upward 1996, p. 270). McKemmish, with a nod to Jacques Derrida, asks

whether records are ‘ever actual?’ (McKemmish 1994, p. 187). This postmodern perspective

on records as traces is articulated further by McKemmish (2005, p. 17) when she considers

the ‘contingent nature of recordkeeping’. Concomitant with this contingency, McKemmish

(2005, p. 20) sees that:

…the role of recordkeeping professionals becomes an active one of participation in

record and archive making processes, inscribing their traces on a record that is

always in a state of becoming.

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The notion that the record is always in a state, or process, of becoming not only has affinities

with postmodern thinking but also has affinities with the record-keeping paradigm. Since the

record is defined in the record-keeping paradigm by external qualities such as evidence,

transactions and context, captured in metadata, then the changes to that metadata keep the

record in a state of flux. There are other respects in which the record-keeping paradigm can

be seen as commensurate with the postmodern turn in archival discourse. (This probably

accounts for why some proponents of the postmodern turn in archival discourse are also

supporters of the record-keeping paradigm. An example of this was Terry Cook.) There are

also respects in which the record-keeping paradigm is incommensurate with the postmodern

turn, as we shall see below.

Distinctions, for example those between memory and evidence, or writing and ‘orality’, are

seen by McKemmish as ‘oppositions’ (McKemmish 2001, p. 359), which prevent archival

discourse from being inclusive of non-document forms of records, such as ‘literature, art,

artefacts, the built environment, landscape, dance, ceremonies and rituals’, as well as ‘orality’

(McKemmish 2005, p. 18). The continuum, in concert with postmodern thinking, is seen by

proponents of records continuum theory as an intellectual means of overcoming these

‘oppositions’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 111).

Proponents of the records continuum see it as being, at least in its origins, as an expression of

postmodern thought. They acknowledge that RCM has a ‘genetic connection’ with not just

Lyotard and Derrida, but also Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault (McKemmish, Upward &

Reed 2010, p. 4453). Postmodern thinking continues to exert some influence upon the records

continuum as some of its proponents seek to expand its reach into areas traditional neglected

in the archival discourse.

B. Why is a critique of the records continuum necessary?

This question needs to be set against the ambitious scope and claims to universality of the

records continuum, outlined in the account given above. Furthermore, the records continuum

model has received in the literature some generous accolades which, on the surface, would

attest to its importance in the archival discourse. Not all of this praise has come from its

proponents and supporters. There has been some wider positive recognition, even if it just

comes from those who have taken a more critical approach to the records continuum.

Cook, in particular, has been particularly fulsome in his assessment of the significance of the

records continuum, calling it the ‘world’s most inclusive model for archives’ (Cook 2000, p.

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16). By comparison, Brothman is somewhat equivocal, describing the records continuum as

‘plausible’ (Brothman 2011, p. 301), though he also argues that it would be a mistake to

underestimate its ‘conceptual brilliance’ (Brothman 2011, p. 300). The assessment of the

significance of the records continuum by Harris is rather more circumspect. After observing

that it is the ‘dominant’ archival theory within Australia, Harris goes on to describe the

records continuum model as a ‘juggernaut’ which has come to be an ‘overwhelming force to

which individuals and institutions have aligned themselves more or less willingly’ (Harris

2005, p. 161). Many of these positive assessments of the records continuum have come with

caveats, however, as they were often made in the context of a critique. Even Cook poses a

‘myriad of tough questions’ (Harris 2005, p. 167). There is a distinct impression that some of

the writers cited here have not necessarily come to praise Caesar, but to bury him.

Regardless of whether or not the accolades the records continuum has received are whole-

hearted, it can be agreed with Harris (2005) that there is no avoiding the theory, at least in the

Australian archival discourse. In light of this, and given the claim of being a paradigm shift,

RCM deserves some critical attention from the Australian archival community. Except for a

single exception (see Macpherson 2002, below) this has not been, on the whole, forthcoming.

This paper seeks to partially address this deficiency by offering a new critique of the records

continuum model.

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CHAPTER 2

A methodology for a critique of the records continuum model

The approach taken in this paper to arrive at a credible critique of the records continuum is

fairly straight-forward. The first step is a review of the previously published critiques of

RCM in the archival literature. The second step is the identification the gaps in the critical

literature. That is, it is determined which aspects of the records continuum have not been

subjected to any critical examination.

It is also determined that there is an aspect of the records continuum which warrants further

investigation of the relevant literature. There is a second part to the literature review which is

focussed on the problem posed by personal archives for records continuum theory.

From this research some general theses are developed. One is that the records continuum

model is composed of theoretical components, as outlined in the Introduction. In addition,

these components can be broken down further into constituent theoretical propositions. These

are critically examined individually, with particular attention to those aspects which have not

received any previous critical engagement in the archival literature. Through this critical

examination of the theoretical propositions of the records continuum model another thesis is

derived: that all these theoretical propositions are debatable within the archival discourse, and

can be regarded as contentious.

Another part of the approach taken in this critique is a consideration of how the records

continuum model has overlooked some important characteristics of digital records. This has

resulted in the records continuum holding theoretical positions which blind it to potentially

useful avenues of research.

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CHAPTER 3

Literature review (Part one)

Critical engagement with the records continuum in the archival literature

Despite the claims made about the importance and universality of the records continuum, it

has not received the attention in the archival literature that would be expected from a

‘paradigm shift’. This apparent lack of engagement has already drawn comment. For

instance, Reed notes that there has been an ‘interesting lack of engagement’ by archivists in

Australia (Reed 2005a, p. 178). Piggott (2012, p. 192) can only find around eight papers in

the international archival literature which engage directly with the records continuum, and

only a few of these can be said to constitute critiques. The lack of engagement in the archival

literature has not prevented RCM from becoming recognised as an established and significant

phenomenon, however. This recognition can be illustrated by that fact that the records

continuum model has entries in two encyclopedias which cover the information and archival

sciences (Bates & Maack 2010, Duranti & Franks 2015). It should be observed, however, that

nearly all of what has been written about the records continuum, including the

aforementioned encyclopedia entries, has been produced by its proponents or those

sympathetic to it.

Nonetheless, there are a handful of critiques directed at the records continuum to be found in

the literature. These are supplemented by some critical examinations of aspects of the

conceptual framework of the records continuum which has been specifically influenced by

Bearman’s notions of ‘record-keeping’ (Bearman 1993, p. 17). As already noted above,

Harris has called this Bearman-influenced conception of records and archives the ‘record-

keeping paradigm’ (Harris 2005, p. 161). While not setting out to be criticisms of the records

continuum itself, these critiques of Bearman’s ideas do make some reference to the records

continuum, and have cogency because of the extent to which the records continuum has

incorporated the record-keeping paradigm. As indicated earlier, it is a general thesis of this

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paper that the records continuum model can be considered to be composed of theoretical

components, and that the record-keeping paradigm is one of these major components.

A. Criticisms of the record-keeping paradigm which make reference to the records

continuum

The critiques of the record-keeping paradigm considered here, such as Cook (1997) and

Henry (1998), are nearly contemporaneous with the first published expositions of the records

continuum model by Upward (see Upward 1996 and Upward 1997). This is interesting in

light of one of the main argument of this paper, that every theoretical proposition of the

records continuum model is contentious and subject to alternative theoretical points of view.

For it shows that the records continuum has from its earliest days been promulgated in the

context of countervailing arguments which can be found in the archival literature.

Terry Cook qualifies his critique of aspects of Bearman’s record-keeping approach by stating

he is a supporter of the ‘overall paradigm’ (Cook 1997, p. 28). He finds difficulties, however,

with some of the key concepts of the record-keeping paradigm. Cook questions the record-

keeping focus on evidence and transaction in its conception of the record, seeing that it is ‘too

narrow’ to include the ‘historical and cultural purposes’ of archives (Cook 1997, p. 29).

Linda Henry in her critique also finds the record-keeping conception of record ‘too narrow’

(Henry 1998, p. 315). For both Cook and Henry, this too narrow a conception of records

leaves out personal archives. The record-keeping focus on the transactional nature of records

is, for Cook, not inclusive of all records, especially those created outside of formal record-

keeping systems (Cook 1997, p. 30). As we shall see, this is a recurrent difficulty for the

records continuum, with its emphasis on ‘evidential qualities’ (McKemmish 2017, p. 140)

and ‘transactionality’ as being integral to ‘recordness’, with ‘recordness’ being what makes a

record a record (McKemmish 2017, p. 141).

Cook retreats a little from the post-custodial position he earlier espoused (see Cook 1994)

when he chides the record-keeping paradigm for promoting post-custodialism as a ‘panacea’

for dealing with digital records (Cook 1997, p. 32). The record-keeping paradigm fails to take

into account the ‘significant custodial accomplishments’ (Cook 1997, p. 32) already achieved

with digital records at the time Cook was writing. For Cook, a non-custodial or a distributed

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custody approach to digital records can only be a partial solution. (Cook 1997, p. 32). Henry

shares with Cook a concern that post-custodialism overlooks the fact that creating agencies

have no real interest in maintaining archival records which are no longer of any immediate

use to it (Henry 1998, p. 320; Cook 1997, p. 32). Leaving archival digital records in the

custody of their creators ‘could easily lead to their destruction’ (Henry 1998, p. 320), whether

for economic reasons or even perhaps as a deliberate cover-up. Record creators can also be

‘record destroyers’ through their own self-interest (Cook 2000, p. 14). It is interesting to note

that Henry cites Cook as the foremost exponent of post-custodialism for digital records

(Henry 1998, p. 313), given the concerns shared by Henry and Cook.

Both Cook and Henry are troubled by the record-keeping paradigm belief that there should be

no professional distinction between archivists and record managers. For Henry this would

result in archivists taking over the roles of record managers, relinquishing their broader

cultural mission, and only serving the needs of record creators (Henry 1998, p. 319). Cook

also sees the ‘cultural and heritage dimensions’ of archives being undermined by the removal

of the distinction between archivists and record managers (Cook 2000, p. 14). Collecting

archivists would be further professionally side-lined, and, with a nod to Cunningham (1996),

would be ‘not just beyond the pale, but out in the cold’ (Cook 2000, p. 10). Despite

McKemmish’s earlier attempt to bring personal archives within the record-keeping

framework adopted by records continuum theory (see McKemmish 1996), Cook four years

later still thought that aspects of the records continuum need to be ‘reconsidered’ so it might

also include collecting archives and archivists who deal with manuscripts and personal papers

(Cook 2000, p. 10). While Cook suggested that adding a ‘fifth dimension’ to the records

continuum model might be a remedy (Cook 2000, p. 17), he should not have neglected here

his own criticisms of the record-keeping paradigm, which would have identified the real

source of the problems records continuum theory has with personal archives.

Henry does not accept the record-keeping paradigm view that the function of a record is the

only appraisal criterion, and that the content of records should not be considered (Henry

1998, p. 317). Rather than focussing on ‘recordness’ at record creation, appraisal of archival

value should consider the whole record, taking into account informational as well as

evidential values (Henry 1998, p. 315). This is an unreservedly Schellenbergian view, which

does not appear to acknowledge the impracticalities of evaluating the content of each and

every record. Cook would point out that functional appraisal and ‘macroappraisal research’

(Cook 1997, p. 33) are the methods available to archivists for surmounting these

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impracticalities. A functional and macroappraisal approach allows archivists to make

appraisal decisions about whole classes of records without having to examine each record

individually. Both Henry and Cook agree, however, that an exclusive focus on function

which completely discounts the content of records would be to ‘ignore the truth in records

themselves’ (Cook 1997, p. 34).

Furthermore, Cook would recommend that functional macroappraisal be validated by an

appraisal of selected ‘actual’ records (Cook 1997, p. 34). Even though whole classes of

records can be appraised en masse using a macroappraisal approach, it does not mean that the

contents of those records are of no interest whatsoever to the archivist. Cook also notes that

the record-keeping paradigm appears to shift all archival functions to the ‘front-end of the

record-keeping continuum’ (Cook 1997, p. 35). This for Cook, tips the balance toward

appraising records for their evidential value and away from appraising them for their cultural

and historical value (Cook 2000, p. 14). The implication here is that an archivist, or

‘recordkeeping professional’ as records continuum theory would have it, who is appraising

newly-created records which have an obvious and immediate value in meeting an

organisation’s current business needs, will be less inclined to take into consideration the

record’s value for posterity.

B. Criticisms of the record-keeping paradigm explicitly directed at the records continuum

For Glenn Dingwall (2010), having appraisal decisions being made at point of record creation

does not create the same difficulties as it does for Cook and Henry. This is because records

continuum theory sees appraisal as ‘a process which spans the entire length of the record’s

existence’ (Dingwall 2010, p. 151), not just something which happens once at the point of

creation. Dingwall does, however, question the role the records continuum assigns to the

continuous accrual of contextual metadata as a replacement for traditional archival

description. Contextual metadata would accrue within a record-keeping system, but this

would not also include the contextual metadata between record-keeping systems, whether

paper or digital (Dingwall 2010, p. 154). Cook makes a similar point in his critique of the

record-keeping paradigm, stating that ‘metadata-encapsulated record objects do not replace

archival description with its broader contextuality’ (Cook 1997, p. 30). Therefore, Dingwall

argues, the accrual of contextual metadata by records during their active use should not

preclude description after they are transferred from the record creator’s custody when they

are no longer active (Dingwall 2010, p. 154).

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Dingwall does seem here to be making an explicit rejection of one of the key theoretical

propositions of the records continuum model: that there is no archival threshold between

active records and archival records. Dingwall’s aim in this article is to simply compare the

records continuum with the life-cycle model, noting where the former improves upon or

performs better than the latter, particularly with regard to digital records. This does not

necessarily mean discarding every aspect of the life-cycle model (Dingwall 2010, p. 140).

Dingwall argues that we could perhaps view the records continuum model as ‘a set of ideas

that build on, rather than replace, those that exist in the life-cycle model’ (Dingwall 2010, p.

156). One idea that the records continuum model does not seem to have replaced for

Dingwall is the importance of archival description after records cease to be active. Archivists

not only describe the record-keeping systems in which the records were active, but also

describe the wider social and historical context of the record creators which employ those

systems (Cook 2000, p. 15). Can archivist also do this while records are still active within a

record-keeping system?

According to Dingwall there may be ethical problems with archivists intervening in the

collection of metadata that is not a direct product of the normal business use of records

(Dingwall 2010, p. 154). These ethical problems pertain to confidentiality and privacy, and

also to the ‘exercise of power’ (Dingwall 2010, p. 156). For Dingwall, re-envisioning

description and appraisal as continuous processes ‘expands the power’ of the archivist

(Dingwall 2010, p. 156). The archivists would not only decide which records are kept when

they are no longer active, but would also be deciding which records are kept while they are

still active, and furthermore would have a say in which records are created in the first place

(Dingwall 2010, p. 156). This point by Dingwall can be taken as a criticism of the

interventionist stance, which comes originally from the record-keeping paradigm. By making

this criticism Dingwall is thereby making a direct criticism of the records continuum. Similar

criticisms have been made of the interventionist stance of record-keeping paradigm. Henry

sees the intervention of archivists in records creation as usurping the role of the records

creator, and that this will make records ‘less genuine’ and ‘less authentic’ (Henry 1998, p.

319). Cook envisaged the opposite problem. Rather than expanding the power of archivists,

having them involved in records creation would see them ‘co-opted’ by the record creators

into serving their interests (Cook 2000, p. 14). Either way, the prospect of having archivists

involved in records creation is seen as problematical, not just for the record-keeping

paradigm but for RCM the records continuum as well.

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C. Criticisms of RCM from a postmodern perspective

This section looks at critiques which directly address the records continuum from an

avowedly postmodern perspective. Since Terry Cook was one of the leading advocates for the

postmodern turn in archival discourse (see especially Cook 2001), his critiques of the record-

keeping paradigm should also perhaps be considered ‘postmodern’. Indeed, Cook is clearly

arguing from a postmodern perspective when he states that ‘archives are dynamic, contested

sites of power in society and always have been’ (Cook 2000, p. 15). We have seen, however,

that Cook’s criticisms of the record-keeping paradigm share many points of contact with

those of Henry (1998), whose perspective is an unrepentantly Schellenbergian one, which

makes no reference at all to postmodernist thinking. The critiques considered in this section,

on the other hand, focus on how the records continuum sits within the postmodern turn in

archival discourse.

In his 2005 review of Archives: Recordkeeping in Society (see McKemmish et al. 2005),

Verne Harris provides us with some “taxonomic” terminology which informs his critique of

RCM, and helps us to understand the position records continuum theory occupies within the

broader archival discourse. The first term in Harris’s “taxonomy” is ‘record-keeping

paradigm’. He notes the various cognates of the term employed in Archives: Recordkeeping

in Society, which all use the construct ‘recordkeeping’ (Harris 2005, p. 161) The alternative

Harris uses is ‘record-keeping paradigm, and this term has already been used in this paper to

refer to the theoretical approach of Bearman and those influenced by his ideas. To re-iterate

briefly, the record-keeping paradigm conceives of records in terms of function, evidence, and

transaction; emphasises context to the exclusion of content; rejects the notions of an archival

threshold; advocates ‘post-custodialism’; and promotes the merging of record-management

and archival roles into the new profession of ‘recordkeeper’. Note that Harris avers the use of

‘recordkeeper’ in favour of the hyphenated ‘record-keeper’, as he sees the former as the

‘naturalisation of a construct’ (Harris 2005, p. 161). For the same reason, and to avoid any

unnecessary conceding of conceptual ground to the records continuum and the record-

keeping paradigm, the use of Harris’s locution will continue to be followed in this paper.

The term ‘continuum framework’ is used by Harris to refer to the records continuum

conceptual framework, which informs ‘continuum thinking’, loosely described as the

approaches influenced by the records continuum (Harris 2005, p. 161). This characterisation

of ‘continuum thinking’ is fine as it stands, however ‘continuum thinking’ is also deployed

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by proponents of the records continuum in ways which are not just consequential to it. The

concept of the continuum is also used by its proponents to attempt to resolve some of its

perceived theoretical difficulties. That is to say, ‘continuum thinking’ is not just something

which comes from the records continuum model, but is also seen by its proponents as a ‘way

of seeing’ (Cumming 2010, p. 41). This ‘way of seeing’, or even ‘form of consciousness’

(Upward, McKemmish & Reed 2011, p. 200), seems to be needed to make the records

continuum “intellectually possible” in the first place.

The third and last term in Harris’s “taxonomy” is ‘the recordmaking paradigm’ (Harris 2005,

p. 163). This rather idiosyncratic locution is used by Harris to refer to the postmodern turn in

archival discourse. Harris explicitly rejects the word ‘postmodern’ (Harris 2005, p. 162), but

those of us who are much more relaxed about it can happily use words such as ‘postmodern’

and ‘postmodernism’ without having any such qualms. The influence of the postmodern on

the records continuum is manifest in such notions as records always being in a process of

becoming, and the role of ‘recordkeepers’ in this process as being the ‘narrators of the record’

(Harris 2005, p. 162). As already been discussed above, proponents of the records continuum

want records continuum theory to be not only in accord with the postmodern turn in archival

discourse, but to also be an affirmative expression of it. This brings us to the crux of Harris’s

critique of the records continuum.

The main concern of Harris is to examine the degree to which the record-keeping paradigm

has been ‘integrated’ with its aspiration to be postmodern (Harris 2005, p. 164). The ideal

level of integration is that of ‘synthesis’ (Harris 2005, p. 165), which Harris finds is on the

whole lacking in Archives: Recordkeeping in Society. At the time of its publication Archives:

Recordkeeping in Society represented the most comprehensive articulation of the records

continuum. Therefore, the criticism by Harris that records continuum theory has not achieved

‘synthesis’ can be extended to the records continuum literature generally.

A specific example of this lack of ‘synthesis’ is seen when Harris considers the ’inherent

authority’ which Upward seems to give to the records continuum model (Harris 2005, p.

165). According to Harris, for Upward there is a ‘model itself’ which sits apart from any

specific readings of it. Whereas for Harris, there cannot be a ‘model itself’, only readings of it

(Harris 2005, p. 165). Of course, this is a thoroughly postmodern way of seeing things, while

Upward’s apparent claim of authority for the records continuum model is ‘difficult to

accommodate’ within this postmodern perspective (Harris 2005, p. 165).

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It is not easy to determine whether Harris’s criticism of Upward really hits the target, due to

Upward’s equivocations about how the records continuum model should be approached.

These equivocations can be rather bewildering. For example, in one passage asserts that

‘there is one model, but a myriad of responses to it’ (Upward 2004, p. 45). In the same

passage the model is described as ‘invariant’ while at the same time it ‘can operate as a

Rorschach test’ (Upward 2004, p. 45). Upward appears to be doing two contradictory things

at once, conferring an authority on the model while at the time sanctioning many readings of

it. If we incline to the latter reading (which is reflexively self-confirming, one might add)

then the model does not have an inherent authority and therefore can be read as one sees fit,

just like a Rorschach test. In which case Harris’s specific criticism of Upward does not really

apply.

There is broader application, however, for what Harris has called Upward’s ‘totalising mode’

(Harris 2005, p. 169). This ‘totalising mode’ can be seen as not just including the claiming of

authority for the records continuum model, but also the claims made about the universality of

the records continuum and its status as a metanarrative, as a ‘worldview’ (Upward 2000, p.

127) and as a ‘metaview of reality’ (Upward, McKemmish & Reed 2011, p. 200). This claim

to universality can also be regarded as being ‘difficult to accommodate’ within a postmodern

perspective.

Brien Brothman makes a similar criticism of the records continuum, also from a postmodern

perspective, when he notes the ‘boundless ambition’ (Brothman 2011, p. 300) of some of its

proponents as they try to ‘gesture toward something between a religious and scientific

cosmology’ (Brothman 2011, p. 299). These qualities would alone make records continuum

somewhat difficult to reconcile with postmodernism, but Brothman also observes that

Upward seems to ‘ask us to set aside the historical context’ of the theory which ‘sets limits on

its scientific pretentions’ (Brothman 2011, p. 300). For Brothman, this looks like special

pleading (p. 300). What the setting aside of the historical context amounts to is the

assumption, implicit to metanarratives, that they are beyond such historical limitations. As

noted elsewhere in this paper, proponents of the records continuum are more than willing to

characterise it as a metanarrative.

D. The records continuum and the importance of public access

It has been observed that ‘only a single Australian, Paul Macpherson, has publicly criticised

the continuum in any sustained way’ (Piggott 2012, p. 181). At the present time of writing

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this remains the case. Macpherson in his 2002 critique finds fault with the records continuum

model on the grounds that it appears to diminish the importance of public access to archives

(Macpherson 2002, p. 7). For Macpherson, this diminishment occurs because of how the

records continuum use of the record-keeping paradigm conception of the record implies a

‘disjunction between the business use of records and the cultural use of archives’

(Macpherson 2002, p. 6). The record-keeping notions of ‘evidentiality’ and ‘transactionality’

are not necessarily what is important for some ‘public end users’ (Macpherson 2002, p. 9), so

that in the realm of public access the concept of ‘recordness’ does not always apply to all

records. Macpherson sees this as creating a distinction between records proper, and ’archival

remnants’ (Macpherson 2002, p. 7) used for public access. This distinction means that that

the ‘archival remnants’, because they are not properly records as defined by the record-

keeping paradigm, cannot be part of the records continuum. Therefore, it follows for

Macpherson, the records continuum model diminishes the importance of public access.

Before exploring Macpherson’s criticism of the records continuum any further, it should

perhaps be pointed out that the life-cycle model has also been seen as not adequately dealing

with public access. Eidson (2004, p. 66) argues that ‘once archives accession records, they

generally drop out of the domain of the life cycle’. Public access, for Eidson, is not part of the

life cycle, but it is an ‘implied task of the model’ (Eidson 2004, p. 66). Similarly,

Macpherson recognises that ‘any disinterested reading’ (Macpherson 2002, p. 8) of records

continuum theory would concede that even though public access is not explicitly mentioned,

it is implied by the concept of ‘pluralising memory’ (Upward 1996, p. 281).

The problem, as seen by Macpherson, is that the ‘end users’ of records do not necessarily

value them for their ‘recordness’, but may instead value them for their informational content

(p. 9), which is not amenable to the record-keeping paradigm conception of records.

According to Macpherson, public access for cultural purposes would be to records which

have lost their ‘recordness’ as far as the ‘end users’ are concerned. These records would

become an ‘archival remnant’, and not actually be records as such, which means they cannot

be considered belonging to the records continuum. For Macpherson this constitutes a ‘life-

cycle disjunction between the business use of records and the cultural use of archival

remnants’, and therefore ‘the continuum is not a continuum’ (Macpherson 2002, p. 15).

The criticism which Macpherson circles around somewhat with his argument is at its core the

same as the criticism made by Cook (1997) and Henry (1998) with regard to the record-

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keeping paradigm having a problem with accommodating the cultural value of archives.

Macpherson essentially sees RCM having the same problem, with the additional unacceptable

consequence of diminishing of the importance of public access within the records continuum.

The source of this problem is an undue emphasis by some proponents of the records

continuum, as Macpherson sees it, on the conceptual framework of the record-keeping

paradigm. This seems to indicate that Macpherson does not consider the problem as being

inherent to the records continuum, but is rather a problem which is due to particular

expositions of it. This can be remedied, suggests Macpherson. There just needs to be a

recognition that ‘the reasons for keeping records are multifaceted’, and that other appraisal

‘schemata’, apart from functional analysis, may be used where appropriate (Macpherson

2002, p. 15). That is, we can use functional appraisal for business records, and another

appraisal method (not actually acceptable to the record-keeping paradigm) for records of

cultural value. For Macpherson, the disjunct between ‘recordness’ and ‘archival remnants’

can be avoided if the framework of the records continuum can be expanded beyond the

conceptual strictures imposed by the record-keeping paradigm. In other words, for the records

continuum to be truly a continuum, which incorporates the cultural value of archives that

comes with recognising the importance of public access, the conceptual framework of the

records continuum needs to be modified.

Would such an adjustment to the records continuum be acceptable to its proponents? Upward

(2004) in his reply to Macpherson does not address this aspect of his article, but instead

concerns himself with countering in detail other points made by Macpherson. There is

nothing in the records continuum literature to date which would suggest that its proponents

may be open to relaxing their strict adherence to the record-keeping paradigm. As may be

increasingly apparent, the relationship between the records continuum and the record-keeping

paradigm is a recurrent theme in this paper. This is because it is central to the thesis

developed here, and is key to any comprehensive critique of the records continuum model.

We shall be returning to the record-keeping paradigm again.

In the meantime, some attention should be given to Upward’s 2004 critical response to

Macpherson. The first thing that Upward wishes to establish is that ‘continuum theory, in its

spacetime conceptual base, opposes the concept of an end product’ (Upward 2004, p. 42).

What Upward is rejecting here is the notion that retained records inevitably become archives

in the custody of an archive, and his reference to a ‘spacetime conceptual base’ can be taken

to indicate that an ‘end product’ is not just a life-cycle concept but is also a pre-Monash

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continuum notion. That is, even though Macpherson sees himself as a proponent of

continuum thinking, for Upward it is the wrong kind of continuum. The pre-Monash

continuum can still include the concept of an end product as it has ‘no theoretical view of

spacetime’ (Upward 2004, p. 56). How this argument follows is not exactly made clear by

Upward. He describes the pre-Monash continuum as ‘containing only a continuous view of

the life of records when any practicing archivist knows there is a host of specific occurrences

that can interrupt that continuity’ (Upward 2004, p. 56). It is somewhat difficult to understand

what Upward is saying here. He seems to be suggesting that the records continuum concept

of ‘spacetime’ allows the continuum to have discrete events, or ‘specific occurrences’, which

may be interpreted as a kind of a miniature life-cycle, or what Upward calls ‘transaction

cycles’ (Upward 2004, p. 52). It is these ‘transaction cycles’ which make the continuum

recursive and re-iterative, and consequently non-linear. Regardless of how we may choose to

interpret what Upward is saying here, the upshot is that he differentiates the records

continuum conception of the continuum from Macpherson’s pre-Monash continuum thinking.

The latter Upward dismisses, somewhat contemptuously, as the ‘continuum theory you have

when you are not imbibing continuum theory’ (Upward 2004, p. 58).

As already noted, Macpherson concedes that public access to archives for cultural purposes,

what the records continuum model calls ‘pluralising’, can be accommodated within the

‘fourth dimension’ of the model (Macpherson 2002, p. 8). Of course, Upward is not satisfied

with this, and is critical of Macpherson for not realising that ‘pluralising’ is not confined to

the ‘fourth dimension,’ but can be active across all aspects of the model (Upward 2004, p.

47). This may be so, and Macpherson may concede this as well, but the critical problem for

Macpherson is not where public access may be included within the records continuum model.

Rather, the critical problem is that the record-keeping paradigm conception of records, in

terms of ‘transactionality’ and ‘evidentiality,’ does not fully reflect the values of every user

of an archive.

Upward’s response to this problem is to simply declare that ‘all information, even books and

journal articles, is transactional’ (Upward 2004, p. 50), and that ‘every use of a record is a

business use’ (Upward 2004, p. 51). Furthermore, all communication is some kind of

business transaction (Upward 2004, p. 50). Historians only access records for their evidence,

and ‘that is part of their business’ (Upward 2004, p. 51). Even though Upward recognises that

records ‘have information attributes’, it is their ‘evidential uses’, expanded from what was the

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record creators originally intended to include use as historical evidence, that gives records

archival value (Upward 2004, p. 51).

Now, all of what Upward has stated here can be considered moot. There has been no

argument advanced by Upward to show exactly how all information and all communication is

transactional in nature, or to show how looking for information can be subsumed under

looking for evidence. As it will be argued further (see chapter 5, below), many of the

theoretical propositions of the records continuum model are, at best, contentious.

E. An overview of the critical engagement with the records continuum

There is one final, if rather gentle, critique of the records continuum which should be

considered. Piggott presents an overview of RCM which is ‘part sympathetic, part critical’

(Piggott 2012, p. 175). After discussing the reception that the records continuum has received

in the archival literature, Piggott offers his own reservations regarding records continuum

theory. He notes that ‘archival science lacks a theory for a sociology of recordkeeping’, and

that the records continuum model is ‘not that theory’ (Piggott 2012, p. 188). It is doubtful that

this constitutes a cogent criticism of the records continuum. While it is true that proponents of

the records continuum cannot claim to provide a social theory for the entire history, and

cultural diversity, of human archival practices, the same can said of every other archival

theory. Proponents of the records continuum might like to claim that it has the universal

scope to encompass anything to do with archives and records, but when all is said and done,

it is an archival theory, not a sociological one. Piggott is asking too much of archival

theorising when he requires it to back up the ‘sweeping statements’ (Piggott 2012, p. 188)

sometimes made in archival discourse about the importance of archives and records to

society. That is a job for social theory, not archival science, while archivists should perhaps

desist from making such grand claims in the first place.

Having reviewed the critical engagement with the records continuum in the archival

literature, the question of why there has been such little engagement should perhaps be

addressed. One reason must surely have something to do with its rather opaque exposition.

Even supporters of the records continuum have had difficulties with understanding it. Piggott

has observed that many ‘well versed’ in the archival literature have struggled to comprehend

the records continuum literature, and admits to his own ‘self-doubts’ (Piggott 2012, p. 180).

Other writers who have engaged with the records continuum records continuum literature

have not been so gentle in their assessments of its exposition. Possibly because they have

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engaged with the records continuum more closely than almost anyone else, both Harris and

Brothman have been unreservedly critical of what Brothman has called Upward’s ‘dense

presentational style’ (Brothman 2011, p. 300). Harris finds that attempting to comprehend the

records continuum diagram is ‘made tortuous by the semantic fuzziness preferred by

Upward’ (Harris 2005, p. 167). Brothman is even more forthcoming, directly attributing the

‘limited influence’ of the records continuum to ‘Upward’s proneness to grandiloquent

rhetorical and intellectual turgidity’ (Brothman 2011, p. 300). Even supporters of the records

continuum can find Upward’s exposition to be ‘dense and sometimes hard to follow’ (Flynn

2001, p. 183).

These problems with the exposition of the records continuum are made even more difficult by

Upward’s apparent attitude that we should not be ‘overly concerned with defining terms’

(Upward 2004, p. 45). Upward advises us to ‘use your own understandings or a dictionary’,

and that will get us close enough to what he means (2004, p. 45). As Harris points out, terms

such as ‘evidentiality’, ‘recordkeeping containers’, ‘pluralise’ and ‘transactionality’ are not to

be found in the dictionary (Harris 2005, p. 166). (Anyone who has attempted the exercise can

verify this.) It is no good leaving the reader to rely on their ‘own understandings’, since

Upward has a ‘full set of implicit working definitions’ (Harris 2005, p. 166). Sometimes

Upward permits a more liberal interpretation of the records continuum model, for example

when we can treat it as a Rorschach test (Upward 2004, p. 45), sometimes he does not.

Piggott notes that critics should be wary about their readings of the records continuum model

and ‘imputing assumptions’ to it (Piggott 2012, p. 192). There is little wonder, then, that there

has been limited critical engagement with RCM in the archival literature.

F. The critical consensus

The critical engagement with RCM in the archival literature has tended to focus on two broad

aspects. Firstly, there are the criticisms directed at the record-keeping paradigm, a major

theoretical component of RCM (as argued above). These criticisms, by Cook (1997, Henry

1998) and, to a lesser extent, Macpherson (2002), have highlighted where the record-keeping

paradigm can be seen to be incommensurate with the cultural values of archives.

Secondly, there are those criticisms which tend to question RCM’s credentials as a

postmodern archival theory. Harris (2005) argues that there is an incongruence between the

record-keeping paradigm and the postmodern turn in archival discourse. Both Harris and

Brothman (2011) draw attention to the grand claims made by some proponents of RCM,

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which characterise it as a metanarrative with a propensity for a ‘totalising mode’. This

characteristic of RCM means that it is not exactly in accord with the spirit of postmodernism.

Using the critical schema proposed in this paper, it can be said that there is an incompatibility

here between two of the theoretical components of RCM: its claim to universality and its

aspiration to be postmodern.

The critique of RCM by Dingwall (2010) is more modest in scope than the other critiques

discussed above. Dingwall effectively makes two criticisms: he echoes concerns about the

interventionist stance; and he argues that RCM is not a complete replacement for the life-

cycle model, that there are aspects of the life-cycle which may need to be incorporated in a

continuum approach. These criticisms can be broadened and developed further, and some

attempt will be made in this paper to extend the arguments.

G. The aspects of the records continuum which have not been critiqued

There are aspects of the records continuum which have not been addressed by the critiques

reviewed above. Certain facets of the record-making paradigm have not been subjected to

criticism. For instance, the notion that records should be regarded as logical constructs rather

than physical entities is not touched upon. More can also be said about ‘evidentiality’,

‘transactionality’ and ‘contextuality’, as will be in Chapter 5, sections D, E and F.

Even though some facets of the universalism of the records continuum which have been

considered by the critiques reviewed, such as its characterisation as a metanarrative, there are

other facets which can also be subjected to criticism. Not least of these is the claim that the

records continuum represents a paradigm shift in the “Kuhnian” sense. A thorough

examination of this claim will be made in Chapter 5, section P.

Dingwall (2010) looks at the relationship between the records continuum and the life-cycle

model, but his critique does not go far enough. While the life-cycle clearly functions as a life

span model, this cannot be readily said of the records continuum model. Upward states that

the records continuum is ‘not a life model’, though he equivocates somewhat when he allows

(in parentheses) that ‘if one wishes or needs to do so, one can still talk of the lifespan of

records within the model’ (Upward 1996, p. 277). Exactly what are the implications of this is

examined in Chapter 5, section A.

Another aspect of the records continuum which has been neglected is the notion of the

mutability of the record that it is always in process of ‘becoming’. This notion will be looked

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at in Chapter 5, section K.

A significant theoretical component of the records continuum which has never been

examined critically is the concept of ‘spacetime’. This could be because those who have

engaged critically with RCM either cannot fathom the uncertainties concerning the centrality

of the concept, or perhaps cannot find a way of critically engaging with ‘spacetime’ on its

own terms. As indicated above, it is accepted in this paper that the concept of ‘spacetime’

continues to be bound up with the continuum, and as such it is still a defining feature of the

records continuum model. Therefore, a critique of the concept of ‘spacetime’ is attempted in

Chapter 5, section N.

The perceived incommensurability of the cultural values of archives with the record-keeping

paradigm can be of particular difficulty when personal archives are considered. Given that a

proponent of the records continuum has attempted to reconcile it with the peculiarities of

personal archives, it is worth examining the relevant literature. To this end, there is a second

part to the literature review which looks specifically at records continuum theory and its

problem with personal archives.

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CHAPTER 4

Literature review (Part two)

The problem of personal archives

In this chapter the doubts expressed by Cook (1997) and Henry (1998) regarding the capacity

of the record-keeping paradigm, and by extension the records continuum, to deal adequately

with personal archives are explored further. The critical discussion presented here, which

refers extensively to the archival literature, centres upon on the attempts by proponents of

RCM to bring personal archives within the ambit of the record-keeping paradigm.

A. Evidence of me

Sue McKemmish in her seminal 1996 paper ‘Evidence of me…’ discursively explores the

proposition that personal archives are a ‘kind of witnessing’, where witnessing is interpreted

as ‘evidencing’ and ‘memorialising’ (McKemmish 1996, p. 29). The role of the archivist in

bringing the diverse ‘cultures’ of personal archives within the ‘collective archives of society’

is also examined (McKemmish 1996, p. 29). The conceptual framework that McKemmish

employs throughout her discussion is that of the record-keeping paradigm, and it is this which

makes her paper of particular pertinence to a critique of the records continuum model. For

this purpose, ‘Evidence of me…’ represents an attempt to expand the scope of the record-

keeping paradigm, from which elements of the conceptual framework of RCM are derived, so

it might also encompass personal archives.

It is clear from the outset that McKemmish has placed her discussion within the framework

of the record-keeping paradigm. The deployment of concepts such as ‘the functionality of

personal archives’ and ‘personal recordkeeping’ (McKemmish 1996, p. 29) indicate a desire

by McKemmish to bring personal archives in line with the systems orientated approach of the

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record-keeping paradigm. This is made explicit by McKemmish (1996, p. 30) in the

following passage:

Archivists can analyse what is happening in personal recordkeeping in much the same

way as they analyse corporate recordkeeping. Just as they can identify significant

business functions and activities and specify what records are captured as evidence of

those activities, so they can analyse socially assigned roles and related activities and

draw conclusions about what records individuals in their personal capacity capture as

evidence of those roles or relationships – ‘evidence of me’.

Furthermore, McKemmish states that individuals can be defined in terms of their

relationships with others (McKemmish 1996, p. 30). All of this makes it appear that personal

archives can be amenable to the record-keeping paradigm’s concept of ‘recordness’, that is,

records defined in terms of their functions, context, ‘evidentiality’ and ‘transactionality’. This

appearance, however, does not run very deep. Putting aside for the moment the

contentiousness of these record-keeping concepts (already discussed above), there is a more

immediate problem with this way of approaching personal archives. The key difficulty here

may be expressed as follows. The conceptual framework within which McKemmish is

working only allows us to consider the externalities of personal archives, and it is only these

externalities which make them of interest and value to us. On the other hand, many would

recognise that it is often the internalities of personal archives which are of more interest, or at

least of equal value, to us. The term ‘externalities’ here refers to those aspects of personal

archives which are relational in nature, and are congruent with the record-keeping concepts of

evidentiality, transactionality and so forth. Whereas the term ‘internalities’ refers to the

informational, and even the emotional, content which may be specific to a particular personal

archive. While externalities are concerned with functional and social aspects of personal

archives, internalities are concerned with those aspects which reflect what is actually

personal about them. Including the internal as well as the external allows for the possibility

that personal archives, and the individuals who create them, may just have emergent qualities

which are not fully circumscribed by social role, function, relationships or institutions.

Now, McKemmish might reply that the internalities of personal archives cannot be fully

understood without consideration of their ‘recordness’ and their context (McKemmish 1996,

p. 36). That is to say, the informational value of personal archives is ‘dependent on their

evidential value’ (McKemmish 1996, p. 36), and furthermore:

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Personal letters may inform us about many aspects of an individual’s life, but they

evidence first and foremost the relationship and interactions between the writer and

the recipient. The context for interpreting the information they contain is that

relationship, that interaction.

This approach to personal archives privileges externalities over internalities. It can be asked

whether anything is actually gained by doing so. Consider for example a collection of

personal letters, perhaps correspondence between a married couple. The letters may be used

as evidence to confirm that there was (or is) a relationship of marriage between the two

persons concerned, but a marriage certificate would also serve that purpose. If the only

remaining evidence for the marriage was the correspondence, then that evidence would surely

be contained within the content of the letters, and thus the evidential value would be

dependent on the informational content, not vice-versa. To take the example further, let us

imagine that the couple were scientists and that they were writing to each other about some

important theory or experiment they were collaborating on. Without reading the letters,

however, the correspondence might just appear to be an unremarkable exchange between two

married people. The record-keeping externalities would not necessarily inform us of the

significance of the letters. We would have to examine the content of the letters, their

internalities, to discover their significance. In this example, an archivist’s understanding of

‘recordness’, pace McKemmish, would not be the most important contribution to our

understanding of these personal archives. That is not to say that the externalities wouldn’t

contribute anything, at the very least we would have names, dates and places, but it would be

going too far to say that the value of the informational content would be entirely dependent

on them. What can we can say is that the internalities of personal archives are at least as

important as their externalities with regard to their archival value, and in some cases the

internalities may be considered to be of greater significance.

For McKemmish a personal a diary is an expression of internalised ‘rules’ and ‘protocols’

surrounding the ‘institutionalised’ practice of keeping a diary (McKemmish 1996, p. 38).

Looked at in this way, a diary is regarded as a ‘type of record-keeping system’ (McKemmish

1996, p. 38). This assumes, however, that the internalities of a personal archive, such as the

content of a diary, will tend to conform to the tropes and clichés of typical diary entries. What

is written in a diary, or in any other institutionalised written form such as a memoire or letter,

do not always follow the ‘rules’ or ‘protocols’ that typically accompany that form. In other

words, the form does not necessarily determine content. Between the covers of a diary may

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be something which by no stretch of the imagination could be deemed to be a type of record-

keeping system. It may be factually unreliable, or too chaotic, to be considered either record-

keeping or a system. The contents of a diary could even be complete fiction, while appearing

to be a diary of actual events. Only by examining the contents of a diary may it be determined

if we are dealing with some kind of record-keeping, and whether it is a system or not.

It is perhaps fortunate for those who keep personal archives, and who also value their

freedom of expression, that McKemmish does not see how archivists can play an

interventionist role in the creation of personal archives, as envisaged by the record-keeping

paradigm for corporate records (McKemmish 1996, p. 40). Rather, it is hoped by

McKemmish that good record-keeping practices in the corporate world will have some

influence on the creation of personal archives. One can well imagine someone like Salvador

Dali, or perhaps Noel Fielding, diligently trying to satisfy the functional requirements for

personal record-keeping, just because some ‘recordkeeping professionals’ think that it would

be a good idea.

Harris, in his 2001 critique of McKemmish’s paper, makes a similar observation about the

complexities of personal archives, comparing them to ‘an enchanted wilderness’ (Harris

2001, p. 19). McKemmish is seen by Harris as attempting to bring the informality of personal

archives into the framework of ‘recordkeeping functionality’ (Harris 2001, p. 15). There are

echoes of Cook’s (1998) criticisms of the record-keeping paradigm when Harris recommends

that we avoid the ‘functionality straightjacket’ and the ‘narrow conceptualisations of

‘recordness’ when dealing with personal archives (Harris 2001, p. 15).

It should perhaps be noted that Harris is at pains to place his critique within a justificatory

framework of Derridean deconstruction. This seen as a ‘way of reading’ or a ‘mode of

interrogation’ (Harris 2001, p. 10), while the observations already made in the above

discussion simply relied on the well-tried methods of rational discourse. The deconstructive

route taken by Harris does, however, lead to some other difficulties for McKemmish.

For Harris, a conception of ‘witnessing’ tied to notions of evidence and functionality is an

unnecessarily restricted understanding. It does not allow for other kinds of ‘witnessing’

which cannot be considered reliable evidence, or may even be in effect ‘dysfunctional’

(Harris 2001, p. 12). The point that Harris is making here is that the subjectivity of

‘witnessing’ is such that it cannot ‘submit’ to the requirements of formal record-keeping, it

can ‘only be squeezed into the claustrophobic space of recordkeeping functionality at a price’

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(Harris 2001, p. 12). Effectively what Harris has done here is to wrench the notion of

‘witnessing’ out of McKemmish’s conceptual grasp, so that it sits to some extent outside of

the framework of the record-keeping paradigm.

Harris also sees difficulties with how at the outset McKemmish appears to subsume memory

and ‘memorialising’ under ‘recordkeeping’ (Harris 2001, p. 15). Presumably this is a

problem because it does not allow for the possibility that the relationship might actually be

the other way around. After all, it seems intuitive that records and archives are kept as aide

memoires, initially as an adjunct to memory, and that memory can exist without records or

archives.

Another difficulty for Harris is the apparent conflation by McKemmish of ‘event’ and ‘trace’

(Harris 2001, p. 17). To be fair to McKemmish, this apparent conflation takes place entirely

within the context of a quotation taken from Tolstoy. For Harris, though, this does not

mitigate against a “deconstructive” reading, and so McKemmish’s quoting of Tolstoy here is

clearly tendentious. Harris (2001, p. 17) finds troubling implications coming from any kind of

tendency to conflate event and trace:

If ‘event’ and ‘trace’ are not ultimately separable, then ‘me’ separate from ‘my traces’

is not all of ‘me’. ‘My traces’ are not merely ‘evidence of me, they are part of who I

am. As much as I create ‘my traces’, they create ‘me’...

For Harris this is the beginning of a ‘vertiginous’ Derridian slippery slope (Harris 2001, p.

17), which thankfully he does not pursue much further. The point we can take from Harris

here is that McKemmish, by talking about events and traces in a “Tolstoyan” fashion,

inadvertently ‘opens a door’, and that there is for some a philosophical ‘imperative to walk

through that door’ (Harris 2001, p. 18). Whether or not one would agree with Harris about

there being any such imperative, there does appear be some kind of lesson which can be

drawn from his discussion of McKemmish’s use of a quote from Tolstoy. It would seem that

in archival discourse the employment of passages from literary sources, with their

metaphorical language and uncertain meaning, should perhaps be used with caution.

No such display of caution is evident in the article published by Upward and McKemmish as

a reply to Harris. The article begins with a passage sourced from Proust which meditates on

the experience of being ‘in tune’. From there Upward and McKemmish proceed to wax

lyrical themselves about the ‘music of the infinite, the continuum’. McKemmish, as the

author of ‘Evidence of me…,’ is, apparently, ‘a composer who is in tune with the continuum’

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(Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 23). On the other hand, McKemmish and Upward find that

Harris does not hear the ‘music resonating in the text’ (Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 23).

They continue their metaphor to characterise Harris’s reading as being ‘at times discordant’

(Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 23). What all of this metaphorical language seems to come

down to is McKemmish and Upward effectively accusing Harris of not reading ‘Evidence of

me…’in the right way. If this is the case, then this would constitute some rather dubious and

unconvincing special pleading on the part of Upward and McKemmish. An author may

disagree with a reader’s way of reading their text, but that does not necessarily make it

‘wrong’, especially if that reading makes perfect sense to other readers.

Upward and McKemmish want us to accept the ‘continuum as metanarrative’ which gives

‘coherence’ to the stories in McKemmish’s original article (Upward & McKemmish 2001, p.

25). Note that McKemmish and Upward make this statement without any reservations,

despite being aware of Lyotard’s scepticism about the totalising worldview of metanarratives

(Lyotard 1984), and the postmodern preference for petits recits (Upward & McKemmish

2001, p. 25). Upward and McKemmish also do not appear to be aware of what is implied

here, if we do not accept the ‘continuum as metanarrative’ notion. It seems to follow that if

‘Evidence of me…’ is not understood as a metanarrative, then McKemmish’s article would

lack coherence. There is no reason to think that Harris, as a proponent of the postmodern turn

in archival discourse, would accept the ‘continuum as metanarrative’ notion. His main

criticism of the records continuum is that it attempts to use the conceptual framework of the

record-keeping paradigm to also encompass personal archives. One way to read this criticism

would be to interpret the attempt as incoherent.

In the end, the problem with ‘Evidence of me…’ remains McKemmish’s dogmatic adherence

to the record-keeping framework. Missing the ‘rhythms of the continuum in the text’

(Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 31) is neither here nor there. The evocation of ‘the

continuum’ by McKemmish and Upward almost looks like a shibboleth, the deployment of

which is intended to dissolve inconsistencies and erase conceptual difficulties. This

impression is reinforced when McKemmish and Upward contend that ‘the continuum takes

us beyond binary opposition’ (Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 32). The response by Upward

and McKemmish to the problem is, in effect, to deny that there is a problem. They cannot

seem to countenance any alternative way of looking at things, since ‘recordkeeping theory

provides some control over the lanes in which we can travel and over what we can and cannot

say as a profession’ (Upward & McKemmish 2001, p. 26). This suggests that if something is

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not within the conceptual framework of the records continuum, then it cannot even be part of

the archival discourse. In light of such comments, perhaps it is not the critics of the records

continuum who are not hearing what needs to heard, but rather those who are listening too

intently to the ‘music’ of the continuum.

B. The individual character of personal archives

The idea that personal archives have characteristics other than those which are recognised by

the record-keeping paradigm is developed further by Catherine Hobbs. Personal archives are

not just useful as evidence, or just about transactions, but also ‘contain traces of the

individual character’ of the creator of the records (Hobbs 2001, p. 126). Furthermore,

personal archives have a ‘distinct context’ which comes from the personal reasons for

creating the archive of the individual, and which is beyond the social or institutional contexts

in which the individual exists (Hobbs 2010, p. 213). Unlike McKemmish, who sees personal

archives inescapably tied to the formal conceptions of the record-keeping paradigm, Hobbs

sees personal archives as departing from such formal conceptions. For Hobbs there is an

‘intimacy’ in personal archives not to be found in record-keeping systems (Hobbs 2001, p.

127). Attempting to apply formal record-keeping concepts to personal archives loses sight of

what makes them different (Hobbs 2010, p. 220).

Hobbs argues that there is more to personal archives than just ‘evidence of me’. There is also

creativity, and ‘playing at self-representation, self-aggrandizement and self-memorialization’

(Hobbs 2001, p. 131), which can be ‘chaotic and idiosyncratic’ (p. 132). Researchers using

personal archives may not be looking for historical evidence about an individual, for this may

already be known, but may instead be looking for expressions of feelings, or a sense of

character (Hobbs 2010, p. 133). These qualities, peculiar to personal archives, may require us

to consider, as Hobbs suggests, ‘expression of character’ as an ‘appraisal value’ (Hobbs 2010,

p. 220; Hobbs 2001, p. 135).

It is clear that Hobbs wishes to move beyond a critique of the attempt to apply the record-

keeping paradigm to personal archives. Her aim is to broaden archival discourse to make

room for ‘the character and the interiority of the individual’, alongside their already

acknowledged ‘socially conditioned roles and behaviours’ (Hobbs 2010, p. 220). Hobbs

xxxvii

contrasts the approach of the records continuum, with its focus on transactionality and

evidence to the exclusion of other qualities (Hobbs 2010, p. 221), with her own approach,

which acknowledges the ‘anomalous behaviour in personal record-keeping and the

“wildness” in personal archives’ (Hobbs 2010, p. 221).

This approach of Hobbs is shared with Harris (and the position advanced in this paper), and

recognises that personal archives have qualities which distinguish them from records as

conceived by the record-making paradigm. McKemmish and Piggott, in their response to

Hobbs, find that this distinction creates ‘a binary opposition of the personal and corporate

archive’, which is an unacceptable ‘either/or’ view of archives and records (McKemmish &

Piggott 2013, p. 112). They, on the other hand, offer the records continuum as a ‘pluralistic

view, which challenges binary constructs and champions the inclusive concept of the

multiverse’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 112). McKemmish and Piggott invoke the

continuum shibboleth to claim that the records continuum encompasses both personal and

corporate records (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 113), and that the continuum represents a

‘liberation from binary mindsets’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 115).

McKemmish and Piggott put forward four arguments to counter the position of Hobbs that

autonomous individuals create personal archives to which formal record-keeping approaches

are inadequate and inappropriate (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 125). The arguments are

designed to meet the explicit rejection by Hobbs of the record-keeping paradigm and records

continuum theory (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 126).

The first argument begins with the statement that it is difficult to generalise about corporate

record-keeping, and about personal records, sufficiently to be able to elucidate their

differences (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 127). The suggestion here seems to be that there

will always be something which can be said about personal archives which can also be said

about formal record-keeping, and vice-versa, since there is ‘vast variation within personal

archives’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 127). What this argument amounts to is a simple

gainsaying of Hobbs. This is because it is Hobbs’s contention that there are things that can be

said about personal archives which cannot be said about corporate records. McKemmish and

Piggott are just denying that this is the case. It is precisely the variation in personal archives

which allows Hobbs to make her generalisation about personal archives. For Hobbs, personal

archives derive their character from the individual who created them. While it may be true

that some personal archives may have a formal character amenable to a record-keeping

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approach, Hobbs would say that this formal character is something which comes at least as

much from the system-loving individuals who created them, as from any socially-

conditioning about formal record-keeping. Just because there may be some overlap of

characteristics between the categories of personal archives and corporate records (and Hobbs

recognises that there is an overlap), it does not mean that there are some characteristics which

are not shared by both categories.

The second argument again attempts to undermine the distinction between personal archives

and corporate record-keeping. McKemmish and Piggott point out that ‘it is individuals who

perform recordkeeping in corporate settings’, and that these individuals often have

‘personalised’ their record-keeping activities (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 128). This

point overlooks, however, the fact that individuals within corporate settings are severely

constrained as to the extent they can personalise their record-keeping activities. In any case,

meeting the requirements of a formal record-keeping system would tend to iron out any

personal quirks, because that is exactly what a formal record-keeping system is designed to

do. Individuals in corporate settings are required to be interchangeable functionaries, so that

record-keeping practices do not vary each time a different individual occupies the same

position within the organisation.

With regard to the limited extent to which the individual may be able to personalise their

record-keeping activities in a corporate setting, these personalised activities would display the

distinct characteristics which mark them out as personal. That is, the personalised aspects of

record-keeping in a corporate setting would have some of the same qualities as purely

personal archives. This is what differentiates the personalised aspects from the formal aspects

of a record-keeping system. That is, it is exactly how we could tell that they are, in fact,

personalised. The distinction between the personal and corporate still applies even when

personalised record-keeping takes place in a corporate setting.

The presence of personalised record-keeping in a corporate setting has no bearing on the

question of whether or not personal archives have distinct qualities which distinguish them

from corporate records. Personal archives, created by individuals in a completely personal

setting, would still be beyond the conceptual reach of the record-keeping paradigm, as Hobbs

argues. The claim by McKemmish and Piggott that ‘there is just records and recordkeeping’

and that ‘anything more is detail’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 130) is just a bald re-

statement of the position of the record-keeping paradigm. Given the ‘vast variation’ within

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personal archives (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 127), Hobbs is entitled to argue that it is

precisely this variation which makes the detail crucial in distinguishing personal archives

from corporate record-keeping. The conclusion drawn by McKemmish and Piggott, that ‘a

strict dichotomy of the personal and the corporate is unsustainable’ (McKemmish & Piggott

2013, p. 130), can be rejected as being itself unstainable.

In the third argument the claim is made that the ‘binary constructs’ of ‘records/archives’ and

“personal archives/corporate records” has led to a failure to examine the ‘sense in which

personal archive is never just personal’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 140). This is an odd

claim to make, since McKemmish (1996) has proposed that the personal is ‘never just

personal’; albeit without supporting argument or any critical examination of the proposition.

Any failure would appear to be due to the theoretical presumptions of proponents of the

records continuum, rather than being due to any ‘binary constructs’. Hobbs also sees a failure

to examine, in that the ‘publicness’ of personal records has been presumed without any

proper exploration of the notion (Hobbs 2010, p. 220). She also questions the ‘certitude’

about the ‘evidentiary’ in personal archives, and whether an individual’s action ‘are ever

transactional’ (Hobbs 2010, p. 220). For McKemmish and Piggott there is a failure to

examine the non-personal nature personal archives, whereas for Hobbs there is a failure to

examine the non-public nature of personal archives. It seems that we are at an impasse, and

that perhaps the only way of settling the matter is research. Fortunately, this is something

which McKemmish and Piggott, and Hobbs on the other hand, can agree on. Building theory

from the ground up, as McKemmish and Piggott (2013, p. 142) appear to advocate, and

putting aside any inappropriate theoretical paradigm, as Hobbs would have it, may bring

archivists to a better understanding of personal archives.

There is, however, the fourth and final argument put forward by McKemmish and Piggott to

consider here. Apparently, before a research-based approach can get off the ground there

nonetheless a need for some theorizing first. McKemmish and Piggott (2013, p. 143) argue

that:

…liberation from binary opposition mindsets is an essential pre-requisite to

building the over-arching, inclusive, and unifying frameworks that are currently

absent, and to developing holistic approaches to appraisal, description, and

accessibility of personal and corporate archives…

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This looks like we are back with a grand theory approach, and McKemmish’s and Piggott’s

recognition that a grounded theory approach might be useful, particularly where is a ‘paucity’

of theorizing’ (McKemmish & Piggott 2013, p. 142) was just a passing fancy.

Hopefully, being ‘liberated from binary mindsets’ would not prevent us from making valid

distinctions when required in the development of any new conceptual frameworks. Not being

permitted to do so by a doctrinaire approach to continuum thinking would be a severe

intellectual handicap. Having an ‘opposition mindset’ might be seen as be undesirable, but of

course that depends on what the ‘mindset’ is opposing. Sometimes there are things which

should be opposed, or invite opposition. Flat-earthers probably complain a lot about

‘opposition mindsets’ (if they were inclined to use such language). Even in the archival

discourse there is always room for opposition to debatable ideas.

Furthermore, a rejection of a ready-made ‘unifying framework’, which assumes there are no

distinctions to be made between personal archives and corporate records, is not wrong simply

because it may be construed as a symptom of a ‘binary mindset’. In any case, to be trivial for

a moment, being ‘binary’ is not in itself a bad thing. After all, the binary is quite useful in

computing.

If it can be established, through research ultimately, that the record-keeping concepts of

‘evidentiality’, ‘contextuality’ and ‘transactionality’ are not always applicable or appropriate

to personal archives, then whatever kind of ‘mindset’ that supposedly represents is beside the

point. It is quite possible that a ‘unifying framework’ could be an impediment to research in

the area of personal archives, rather being an ‘essential prerequisite’.

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CHAPTER 5

A critical analysis of the theoretical propositions of the records continuum

In this chapter the main components of the records continuum model are broken down even

further and considered as theoretical propositions. Each of these theoretical propositions, or

concepts, of the records continuum, are critically examined. In addition, the degree to which

they can be considered debatable within the archival discourse is delineated. From this a

thesis about the contentiousness of the records continuum model can be developed. The

number of contentiousness theoretical propositions can be used to gauge the disputable nature

of the records continuum as an archival theory.

A. Records continuum versus life-cycle

The life-cycle model is, by definition, a life span model. It can be used to describe the life

history of a record from its creation to its destruction, or it being deposited in an archive. The

records continuum is not a life span model, as its proponents unequivocally state. Whether it

can be used as a life span model, when necessary, is doubtful. Attempts to use the records

continuum model to describe the life history of a record have not been convincing (see

section N below). In any case, the model is not designed to work that way.

Given that the records continuum is not a life span model, then it is difficult to see how it can

replace a model that is. Despite the perceived problems with the applicability of the life-cycle

model to digital records, it is a better place to start than the records continuum model, since

the latter simply cannot function that way. The solution to the problem which digital records

presents to the life-cycle model is not to reject it in favour of the records continuum model,

but to modify and adapt the life-cycle metaphor.

xlii

Making adjustments to the life-cycle model should not be difficult. After all, the life-cycle

model depicts an idealised case of a paper document in a typical bureaucratic setting. There is

scope for development here. More sophisticated versions of the life-cycle metaphor could

deal more readily with the intricacies involved with the life span of a digital record.

Recursive and reiterated processes can be incorporated into an updated version of the life-

cycle metaphor. Conceiving of a records continuum is not the only way that the notions of

“recursiveness” and “reiterativeness” may be employed in relation to record processes. The

linear and unidirectional aspects of the life-cycle can be replaced by a structure which is

perhaps networked and multidirectional. The result of this modification may be more of a

“records matrix” than a records life-cycle, but it would not be a records continuum.

B. The archival threshold

The archival threshold is normally conceived of as the physical transfer of custody of records

from a record keeping system to an archive. This notion of an archival threshold is rejected

by the records continuum model. A consequence of this rejection is that processes which

traditionally occur at the archival threshold, such as appraisal, need to be brought forward to

the point of records creation, if they are to occur at all.

Many concerns have been raised in the archival discourse about appraisal occurring when, or

even before, records are created. A typical concern is that archivists, or at least archival

values, are interfering with the primary function of the record, which is to meet the record

keeping needs of the creating organisation. Another concern is that the crossing of the

archival threshold is necessary for guaranteeing the authenticity of records (Duranti 1996, p.

244). Transferring records from the custody of the records creator to the custody of an

archive creates an ‘archival bond’, which ensures that the records creator no longer has any

influence on what happens to the record (Duranti 1997, p. 213).

Archival appraisal has always represented a watershed in the life of a record. It means that it

has been assessed with regard to its archival value, and if accessioned into an archive it

remains available for purposes other than those for which it was originally created. This can

include re-appraisal, but these are subordinate to the initial appraisal, as they would not be

able to occur if not for that initial appraisal.

Regarding appraisal as the significant watershed, rather than the physical transfer of custody,

would be in accord with the records continuum model. It does not, however, seem to be

consistent with the idea of an ‘archival bond’. This still requires a transfer of custody, so as to

xliii

negate the possibility of the record’s creator performing any further activity on it. This would

apply as much to digital records as it would to paper documents. As far as Duranti and her

supporters are concerned, there is still a need for the archival threshold.

C. Records as logical constructs

While there is recognition by some proponents of the records continuum that records are

physical objects, as well as being defined by the concepts of ‘evidentiality’, ‘transactionality’

and ‘contextuality’, records are nonetheless ‘a construct, always virtual’ (Reed 2005b, p.

106). The records continuum model focuses upon the externalities and the contingencies of

the record, which favour regarding records as logical constructs and overlooks their physical

aspect. What confers ‘recordness’ to records are their ‘transactional and contextual nature …

rather than physical characteristics’ (McKemmish 2005, p. 15). This applies particularly to

digital records, which appear ideally suited to being regarded as virtual constructs.

There is a problem, however, with even regarding digital records as purely logical constructs.

Digital records have a virtual document form, but also a material non-document form. This

latter consists in the bit-sequence instantiated in some physical medium, electronically or

optically (or by some other means known to science) manipulated within the hardware of a

computing device. The physical aspect of digital documents becomes particularly acute when

it comes to their long-term preservation, Bit-rot and the deterioration of the storage medium

attest to the ultimately material nature of digital records. Digital records are only partly

virtual, not completely virtual.

All types of records, not just digital records, can be said to have a material non-document

form. This material aspect of records is the province of archival diplomatics, which examines

the physical features of documents to determine their provenance and authenticity. As far as

diplomatics is concerned, the evidentiary and contextual qualities of records cannot be

divorced from their physicality. Regarding records as logical constructs limits our

understanding of how records and archives can provide information and evidence.

D. Transactionality

All kinds of human interaction are regarded as transactions by the proponents of records

continuum, and ‘transactionality’ is regarded as one of the defining features of the model

(McKemmish, Upward & Reed 2010, p. 4450). ‘Transactionality’ distinguishes records from

other kinds of information (Reed 2005b, p. 102).

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The obvious problem with this is that not all records can be regarded as being about

transactions. If someone keeps a meticulous log of events which they show to no-one and

destroy before they die, it is difficult to see the transactional aspect of this keeping of a

record. The alternative is to regard this secret log as not being a record, but this would be a

case of distorting our understanding of what a record is to fit the tendentious purposes of a

theory.

E. Evidentiality

Records can be regarded as having both informational and evidential values, as ‘two ends of a

pendulum’s path’ (Henry 1998, p. 315). The records continuum pushes that pendulum to the

evidentiary end of its path. There are uncertainties, however, concerning records as evidence,

or a kind of evidence. Yeo (1997, p. 325) suggest that we should instead regard records as

providing evidence, or that we can use them to obtain evidence.

The records continuum model sees evidentiary qualities as one of the things which confers

record their ‘recordness’, and differentiates them from other forms of information

(McKemmish 2005, p. 15). On the other hand, Yeo argues that evidence and information can

be seen as ‘just two of the many affordances that records provide’ (Yeo 1997, p. 331).

F. Contextuality

If there is a ‘pendulum’ in the archival in archival discourse between information and

evidence, then it can be also said to be a pendulum between content and context. The records

continuum pushes this pendulum towards context, emphasising its importance for

‘recordness’. Content is seen as being just information, which cannot impart any

‘recordness’.

The emphasis on context over content comes from the record-keeping paradigm, and was a

response to the impending avalanche of digital records, which made the appraisal of content

impractical, if not impossible. The record-keeping paradigm replaced the appraisal value of

informational content with evidential, transactional and other contextual qualities.

The problem with just appraising records on the basis of their context alone is that this does

not ensure that the information content in those records is of any archival value. As Boles and

Greene point out, just because ‘there are too many records does not mean there are enough

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records of the right kind’ (Boles & Greene 2001, p. 433). Given that only a proportion of the

total amount of records created are appraised as having continuing archival value, there is no

way of knowing that what has been selected contains the information that will be required in

the future. The only way to know is to refer to the content of the records, even if this is only a

check of a limited sample.

The emphasis on ‘contextuality’ at the expense of content ignores the possibility of

approaches to appraising content which get around the problem posed by the sheer quantity

of records. There is no compelling reason to not regard content as being equally important as

context.

G. The interventionist stance

It has already been observed that the rejection of the notion of an archival threshold results in

archival functions, such as appraisal, having to be moved to the “front end” of records

creation. This would have archivists intervening in records creation to ensure that there will

be records of continuing archival value. The interventionist stance is expanded even further

by some proponents of the records continuum, who envisage that ‘the role of recordkeeping

professionals becomes an active one of participation in record and archive making processes,

inscribing their own traces’ (McKemmish 2005, p. 20).

Much disquiet about the interventionist stance has been expressed in the archival literature.

For example, Moss (2008, p. 80) suggests it jeopardises the ‘fiduciary function’ of archives,

while Brothman (2002, p. 327) sees archivists ‘verging on describing what content needs to

be recorded’. At the very least, the interventionist stance can be regarded as controversial.

H. Post-custodialism

Aspects of the problems surrounding the notion of post-custodialism have already been

discussed in relation to the archival threshold. The contentiousness of rejecting the notion of

an archival threshold centres on the authenticating role of archival custody.

Another consideration is that the preservation of records, including digital records, usually

requires a transfer of custody to allow preservation strategies and techniques to be applied.

Long-term preservation of records is typically not a concern of the organisation which

originally created them.

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The contentiousness of the post-custodial or distributed custody position has been side-

stepped somewhat in Australia when the National Archives of Australia ‘changed their

minds’ about their post-custodial stance toward digital records (Tough 2006, p. 21). In

retrospect, the policy was more “pre-custodial” than post-custodial. This change of policy by

the NAA in the late 1990s possibly explains why proponents of the records continuum have

gone a bit quiet lately on the subject of post-custodialism.

I. The evolution of the diagram

The records continuum ‘dartboard’ has undergone some changes over the years. The first

significant change was the removal of the lines drawn along each of the four axes. These

suggested that the diagram consisted of four quadrants, with an implied coordinate system.

What these could possibly mean can only be a matter of speculation, so it is just as well that

the axes were deleted.

As already noted above, the diagram itself was at one time thought to be redundant. Indeed,

its more recent depiction in the records continuum literature seems to be more historical than

instructive. There are features of the diagram, though, which are also components of records

continuum theory. The most prominent of these are the ‘dimensions’. These are explained in

terms of what they represent, so that they function as a kind of conceptual grouping, as in a

mind map, but there is no explanation as to why they should be specifically called

‘dimensions’.

Perhaps the diagram ought not to be interpreted as an illustration of a model, but as a

graphical representation of a loose conceptual framework, a kind of “conceptual mud map”.

J. Recordkeeping professionals

McKemmish has observed that the use of ‘recordkeeping’ can lead to confusion with those

who do not subscribe to the records continuum understanding of the term (McKemmish 2001,

p. 337). In some jurisdictions “record keeping” and record-keeping” are applied only in

records management contexts. This is a much narrower conception than that of the records

continuum, which uses ‘recordkeeping’ to designate a unified professional practice which

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includes both archiving and records management processes. Hence the term ‘recordkeeping

professional’, and sometimes ‘recordkeeper’, are used to refer to this unified profession.

In this paper the locution “archives and records professional” has been preferred. This is

intended to indicate the recognition that archivists and record managers have more in

common professionally than what divides them, while also acknowledging that each have

specific roles which serve to differentiate them. An analogy can be made with the medical

profession. This can be thought of as a single profession, yet within it there are distinct

specialisations. The role performed by a neurologist is not the same as that performed by a

cardiothoracic surgeon, but they are both medical professionals. The relationship between

record managers and archivists can be thought of in the same way. Their distinct roles can be

recognised as specialisations within the one broad profession. There is no need for a

potentially confusing notion such as ‘recordkeeping professional’ which blurs these

distinctions.

K. The mutability of the record

The records continuum model regards records as being always in a ‘state of becoming’

(McKemmish 2005, p.20. What this means is that the externalities of a record, such as its

contextual metadata, are always subject to revision throughout its use, including its use as an

archival record. The internalities of a record, such as its informational content, remains static

and fixed, but these internalities do not give the record its ‘recordness’. In the ‘process of

becoming’ records are ‘both fixed and mutable’ (McKemmish 2005, p. 14).

Consider a PDF document. It has a date of creation included in its metadata. There is within

the body of the text in the PDF another date, which the author regards as the actual date of

creation. This was taken from the original handwritten notes upon which the document is

based. The PDF was printed from a Word document, which was transcribed from the

handwritten notes. The metadata of the Word document has its own date of creation. A copy

is made of the PDF, and this copy has yet another date of creation, which is also included in

the metadata of the original PDF.

Thus, we have ‘ever-broadening layers’ of contextual metadata, as the document continues on

its journey of ‘becoming’ (McKemmish 2005, p. 14). All this accumulation of metadata,

however, can be of lesser interest than the date to be found in the text of the PDF. This date is

a fixed piece of informational content. The meaning and significance of that date does not

alter with any changes to its contextual metadata. It is not in a state of ‘becoming’.

xlviii

If the date in the text of the PDF is what gives that document its value, and that is fixed and

static, then it just seems superfluous to regard that document as being in some way mutable

as well. The records continuum may see that mutability as essential to its ‘recordness’, but

the document is valued as a record because of what is fixed and static about it. It seems

debatable whether mutability has anything to do with why anything is valued as a record.

L. Archives as ‘collective memory’

The records continuum literature is replete with references to archives as ‘collective

memory’, or to archives functioning as ‘individual, group, or corporate memory’

(McKemmish 2005, p. 13). The comparison, however, does not move beyond a loose

analogy. The proponents of the records continuum do not elucidate how, exactly, archives

can function as ‘collective memory’. Such an elucidation is necessary, since it is far from

obvious as to how archives can be something like actual, human first-hand memory.

Hedstrom (2010, p. 163) argues that:

…the current state of archival science recognises a relationship between archives

and memory, but the terms and conditions of that relationship are not well

understood. Although recent archival science literature is replete with allusions and

references to social and collective memory, the appropriation of memory concepts

in archival science suffers from simplification and over-generalization.

The use of such notions as ‘collective memory’ in archival discourse has a superficial

rhetorical appeal, but the use is not accompanied with an examination of how archives can

actually function as some kind of memory. As Harris puts it, archival theory should be

‘claiming less, and delivering more’ (Harris 1997, p. 132).

Part of the problem with the use of the term ‘memory’ in archival discourse is that it assumes

that everyone has the same understanding of what memory is. The vast complexities and

uncertainties involved with the use of the term ‘memory’ are overlooked. Our imperfect

understanding of the concept of memory makes the comparison of archives to memory rather

tenuous, and merely metaphorical, for it is not clear as to exactly what archives are being

compared to. As Hedstrom argues, the concept of memory itself requires further investigation

before the relationship between archives and memory can be fully articulated (Hedstrom

2010, p. 170). Hedstrom also observes that the discussion in the archival literature concerning

the relationship between archives and ‘collective memory’ relies on an analogy ‘that does not

always hold up under scrutiny’ (Hedstrom 2010, p. 174). Piggott goes even further, arguing

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that the ‘memory analogy’ can only be an analogy, and asks ‘how could the putative

equivalence be meant literally?’ (Piggott 2005, p. 305).

One problem with those inclined to use the ‘archives are collective memory’ analogy is that

they seem to take the uncontroversial notion that archives (and records) can be regarded as a

type of aide memoire, an aid to memory, and then proceed to ignore the ‘aid’ part. Archives

may be considered as a prop to memory, and may be all that remains once memory has faded

or has otherwise failed, but this does not licence the assumption that archives can be

equivalent substitute for memory itself.

Consider the following example of the memory analogy at work. It is commonplace that

someone’s collection of personal photographs is referred to by them as their ‘memories’. This

is, usually, not meant to be taken literally. That person’s memory is, of course, certain brain

states inside their head. The photographs primarily function as an aide memoire (but can have

other functions, such as being used as evidence), and derive their immediately apparent

significance from a person’s first-hand memories about them. For someone who has lost their

memory, their collection of photographs still only functions as an aid to memory, not a

replacement for the memory itself. The faces in a photograph, and any names attached, would

lack any immediately apparent significance to someone who has no first-hand memory

concerning them. The amnesiac may be able to construct a narrative about the photographs

which makes some sense to them, but this would not constitute a restoration of their memory.

This example also illustrates the uncertainties which arise from the archive as memory

analogy. Would the photographs and their metadata be the ‘memory’, or would it be the

constructed narrative, or would it be both? If both, what happens if the photographs are

destroyed, or the narrative can no longer be recalled? The memory analogy may have some

rhetorical utility as a metaphor, but can cause some confusion if taken literally.

In any case, ‘collective memory’ cannot only be considered to be the archives. Even if

‘collective memory’ is simply used as a metaphor, it must also include other forms of aide

memoire and memorialising, such as ‘traditional practices, rituals, commemorations,’ as well

as ‘libraries, museums, memorials, historical sites’ (Hedstrom 2010, p. 176). There is more to

the collective preservation of traces of the past than just the archives.

M. Universality

The incompatibility of the claims of universality with the postmodern aspirations expressed

by the proponents of the records continuum has been much discussed already. There has been

l

some vague recognition by its proponents that this has created a problem for the records

continuum model, but the response appears rather confused and contradictory, as illustrated

by the following passage from McKemmish, Upward and Reed (2010, p. 4454):

Continuum philosophies … provide a single metanarrative, but never exclude other

metanarratives. This postmodern position … has been subject to inconclusive

debate in philosophy ever since. Indeed, the perpetually postmodern aspect of

continuum theory means that debate on it will always be inconclusive.

We can but only agree about the inconclusive debate. The passage raises yet again the

incompatibility problem, with the records continuum being both postmodern and a

metanarrative. It may be claimed that the continuum, by blurring distinctions, removes any

concerns about contradictions, but this is special pleading, with the continuum being evoked

as some kind of intellectual ‘get out of jail free card’.

N. Recordkeeping containers

The concept of ‘recordkeeping containers’ is one which appears unique to the records

continuum model, where ‘recordkeeping containers’ refers to ‘the objects we create in order

to store records’ (Upward 2005, p. 202). These objects include both archives and the records

themselves. In the latter case, this can perhaps be interpreted as the record, with its

accumulated metadata, being a kind of an “envelope’ which contains the informational

content of the record.

Records being thought of as ‘recordkeeping containers’ presents the possibility of the record

container being separated from the record content. There can be record containers which have

all the metadata one could want, but (due to poor record management practices possibly)

have no corresponding content or item in the system or repository. Similarly, there can be

content or items which have become bereft of all metadata and have therefore lost their

record container. Such a container-less record may be called an “estray”. The record

container without content would conceptually still be a record, according to the records

continuum model. The content without a record container would not conceptually be a record

for the records continuum. In both cases, these consequences of the records continuum

concept of ‘recordkeeping containers’ seem counter-intuitive and are debatable.

O. An aetiology of the concept of ‘spacetime’

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Unlike many of the theoretical components of the records continuum, the concept of

‘spacetime’ is a singular feature of its overall conceptual framework, and is unique in the

archival discourse. Given the uniqueness of the records continuum concept of ‘spacetime’,

scare-quotes will always be used to denote its singular, if not idiosyncratic, character. This

also serve to differentiate ‘spacetime’ from the concepts of Minkowski space-time in special

relativity and the curved space-time of general relativity (Taylor & Wheeler 1992), which are

something else entirely, as we shall see.

The concept of ‘spacetime’ took some time to emerge within the records continuum

literature. In the earliest, seminal exposition of the records continuum model there is only the

‘continuous’ continuum as a ’time/space’ construct (Upward 1996, p. 277). In the next

instalment of the exposition of the records continuum Upward is content with using the

locution ‘time and space’, as in, for example, ‘threading outwards in time and space’

(Upward 1997, p. 16), and ‘the deeper reaches of time and space’ (Upward 1997, p. 19). Then

Upward drops on us, out of nowhere, Giddens’s notion of ‘time-space distanciation’ (Upward

1997, p. 16). No explanation of Giddens’s concept is given at this point, but it is apparent that

Upward connects it with his idea of record-keeping processes ‘threading outwards’ (Upward

1997, p. 16). For the rest of this article, Upward continues to use ‘time and space’, but also on

occasion uses ‘time-space’ (Upward 1997, p. 27), which displays the influence of Gidden’s

notion of ‘time-space distanciation’.

The concept of ‘spacetime’, differentiated from ‘time and space’, first appears in an article

published in 2000, in which Upward proclaims that RCM ‘extends the concept of the

continuum beyond metaphor, representing the case for viewing it in its fuller spacetime

meanings as a worldview’ (Upward 2000, p. 115). It is made explicit by Upward that

‘spacetime’ is related, in his mind, to ‘Einstein-Minkowski spacetime’ (Upward 2000, p.

118). It is also clear that Upward wants ‘spacetime’ to mean something different from ‘space

and time’ (Upward 2000, p. 119). For instance, practitioners are urged by Upward to

understand that ‘records exist in spacetime, not space and time’ (Upward 2000, p. 119).

It does seem somewhat unreasonable to ask anyone who is not calculating Lorentz

transformations in Minkowski space-time, or using Einstein’s field equations, to not separate

time and space. There are an awful lot of things people can do in their professional life, up to

and including sending rockets to the Mars, without them having to think in terms of space-

time. It seems rather strange that archivists and record-managers are required by RCM to

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understand such an obscure and difficult concept as ‘spacetime’, when they are fine,

professionally speaking, without it.

In any case, it can be argued that Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’ cannot possibly be the

same as the scientific concept of space-time as used in relativity theory. Consider the

following passage by Upward (2000, p. 119):

Records no longer extant or moved elsewhere can still be observed in the place they

once occupied in spacetime through data about their life history or their connection

with events. Even if they cannot be observed, their place in spacetime is always

there.

It is generally agreed that an object which once existed in space-time always continues to

exist in space-time, even after it may have been annihilated. It still occupies the region of

space-time it occupied as a kind of space-time “worm”. That is, the existence of any object

(not just records) can be thought of a continuous string of occurrences in the fabric of space-

time, with its beginning at the “head” end, and its annihilation at the “tail” end. So Upward is

right if we interpret him as saying that objects (not just records) always have their place in

space-time. Not only the place, mind you, but also the object itself.

Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’ begins to depart from the scientific concept when we

consider his statement that records can be ‘observed’ in a place in space-time they once

occupied. Now, an object apparently at rest on the surface of the Earth can be thought of as

constantly moving through space-time. Not just through time, but through space as well. An

object sitting on the surface of the Earth at the equator is spinning about the Earth’s axis at

465 metres per second, while the Earth itself is going around the Sun at an average speed of

30,000 metres per second. The sun is orbiting the centre of the Milky Way at an average of

828,000,000 metres per second. The Milky Way is moving through the universe at some

mind-boggling velocity, while riding the expansion of space-time itself. Considering all of

this vertiginous movement through space-time, it is probably safe to say that an object that

once existed on the surface of the Earth, but no longer exists for us here and now, is also no

longer observable to us. It is lost somewhere in the unimaginably vast reaches of space-time,

never to be seen again by mere mortals. In view of all this cosmic scale, can records really be

said to be still observable in space-time when they cease to exist for us? Probably not. It

would appear, then, that being observable in space-time is not the same as Upward’s notion

of being ‘observable’ in ‘spacetime’.

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Upward, and records continuum theory generally, conceives of records not as physical

objects but as logical constructs. Obviously, physical objects exist in space-time. Can logical

constructs be also said to exist in space-time? Upward would say yes, but science would

probably say no. Physics is not in the business of studying logical constructs, but of studying

that which is observable and measurable (studying logical constructs is, rather, the business

of philosophy). General relativity, and space-time itself, may be described as logical

constructs, but these are logical constructs which, as scientific theories, have been empirically

confirmed, for example by observations of the perihelion precession of Mercury. There is no

such empirical confirmation of Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’.

Since ‘spacetime’ cannot partake of the scientific respectability of the ‘Einstein-Minkowski’

concept of space-time, and is only a logical construct within the records continuum

conceptual framework, it can be subjected to a separate critical analysis. The first thing which

can be said about ‘spacetime’ is that there is no compelling argument to accept its fusion of

time and space within the realm of archival discourse. The concept of ‘spacetime’ may be

inspired by Giddens’s notion of ‘time-space distanciation’, as Upward (2000, p. 121) makes

clear, but the two concepts are not the same. ‘Time-space distanciation’ is, briefly, about how

human actions and social institutions are bound together in time and space, and how

interactions may occur with the participants separated by space and time. For Giddens, ‘time

and space are at the very core of his social ontology’ (Kasperen 2000, p. 48), and yet this

does not require conceptually fusing them together into something like ‘spacetime’.

Furthermore, accepting Giddens’s ‘time-space distanciation’ (if one is so inclined) does not

provide grounds for also accepting Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’.

There seems to be a certain amount of redundancy about the concept of ‘spacetime’. For

example, consider the passage from Upward (2000, p. 119) quoted at length above. Where

the term ‘spacetime’ has been used, the phrase ‘time and space’ can be inserted instead

without significantly altering the meaning. This can be demonstrated thus:

Records no longer extant or moved elsewhere can still be observed in the place they

once occupied in time and space through data about their life history or their

connection with events. Even if they cannot be observed, their place in time and

space is always there.

There may be also be other viable substitutions for the use of the ‘spacetime’ term. It seems

that ‘history’ could also be substituted successfully for ‘spacetime’ and still the meaning will

liv

not be altered significantly. This also can be demonstrated:

Records no longer extant or moved elsewhere can still be observed in the place they

once occupied in history through data about their life history or their connection

with events. Even if they cannot be observed, their place in history is always there.

We could continue this exercise with various substitutions until the meaning begins to

become distorted. In any case, there are numerous other places in the records continuum

literature where ‘spacetime’ seems to be replaceable by the more pedestrian ‘time and space’,

or perhaps ‘history’, without doing any violence to the meaning of the text. If anything, we

seem to gain some clarity.

As already noted earlier, there is a tendency on the part of the other proponents to avoid the

use of the term ‘spacetime’, except when quoting Upward directly. There are times when

Upward himself appears to be moving away from ‘spacetime’, for example in this passage

(Upward, 2005, p. 88):

Changing notions of time which in the twentieth century have moved from

Minkowski’s four-dimensional view of the spacetime continuum towards multi-

dimensional approaches such as Bergsonian conceptualizations which can include

four dimensions of time...

Setting aside the (risible) image of Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking giving up

Minkowski space-time in favour of “Bergsonian multi-dimensional time”, it appears here

that Minkowski space-time is no longer important for Upward. However, there are several

references to ‘spacetime’ in the subsequent records continuum literature (see McKemmish,

Upward & Reed 2010, and Upward, McKemmish & Reed 2011). The more recent records

continuum literature makes references to ‘space-time’ (Upward 2015, p. 337) and

‘spacetime’ (Upward 2017, p. 198), as well as a new concept, ‘archival time’ (Upward 2015,

p. 335; Upward 2017, p. 199). It would appear that the marriage between Minkowski space-

time and Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’ may have ended.

This conclusion is supported by the apparent intimate relationship which exists between the

concepts of ‘spacetime’ and ‘archival time’. This is suggested by Upward (2017, p. 199) in

the following:

In continuum theories, the multiverse’s chaos-generating capacity is derived in part

from the plasticity and indifference of the way it eddies around in spacetime,

producing unexpected links as different ideas and practices connect and affect each

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other both spatially (across locations) and temporally (across time). It is this

eddying in archival time which I want to portray…

There is a lot to unpack here. Leaving most of it alone, however, what can be observed is

that ‘spacetime’ and ‘archival time’ appear to co-extensive, and may be used

interchangeably. It is rather doubtful that Minkowski space-time can be considered as the

same thing as ‘archival time’. The simple logic of this is

‘spacetime’ ≠ space-time

That is, Upward’s concept of ‘spacetime’ cannot derive any legitimacy from the scientific

concept of space-time. They cannot be the same thing. The fact that both concepts are used

in conjunction with the term ‘continuum’ is of no theoretical significance whatsoever.

Nor can any theoretical significance be drawn from the superficial resemblance of

‘spacetime’ to Giddens’s concept of ‘time-space distanciation’. The former may have

inspired by the latter, but they are not the same thing. This remains the case despite the

misattribution of ‘spacetime’ to Giddens by proponents of the records continuum, noted

earlier. In any case, any resemblance between the two concepts does not lend legitimacy to

the concept of ‘spacetime’. Giddens’s concept does not have the wide acceptance, nor has

the empirical credentials, enjoyed by the concept of space-time in General Relativity.

The concept of ‘spacetime’ therefore requires further argument to justify any inclusion in

the archival discourse. Despite its contentious as a concept, ‘spacetime’ continues to be

central to records continuum thinking, even if it may sometimes be called ‘archival time’.

P. Paradigm shift

There is some uncertainty as to whether the records continuum model continues to be thought

of by its proponents as a paradigm shift. There is no mention of this notion in the recent

records continuum literature. Upward (2005, p. 94) seems too equivocal about the whole idea

of paradigms in the following:

…I can now write about the paradigmatic uses of the model in the past tense. It still

has present uses for teaching, but paradigms colonise knowledge and skills and this

colonisation process is now more fully available for scrutiny.

This appears to be a retreat from the claim that the records continuum model represents a

paradigm shift. The motivation for this is perhaps indicated by the use of the phrase

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‘paradigms colonise knowledge’, which suggests that a postmodern sensibility has prevailed.

In which case the claim needs to be considered in the ‘past tense’, as a possible historical

occurrence within the world of archives and records circa 1997.

If it was not proclaimed as such by its proponents, would anyone (who was not a supporter of

the records continuum model) have noticed that there was a paradigm shift? Possibly not. It

would seem that both these considerations mitigate against the claim of a paradigm shift in

the sense of Kuhn. At this point it perhaps should be pointed out that Kuhn (1970) himself

does not employ the locution ‘paradigm shift’, and that he was concerned with scientific

revolutions (as per the title of his seminal book). All the examples Kuhn gives in his book are

taken from the physical and natural sciences, and it is moot whether archival science can be

considered to be that kind of science.

For Kuhn, there is a scientific revolution when the paradigm of ‘normal’ science is replaced

by a new paradigm (Kuhn 1970, p. 77). If there was a paradigm shift in archival science

twenty years ago, what was the paradigm that the records continuum model supposedly

replaced? The proponents of the records continuum try to characterise the life-cycle model as

a ‘worldview’ (McKemmish 2001, p. 343), but this is overstating it. The life-cycle model can

be considered to be a useful way of thinking about the life span of records, but this is hardly a

‘worldview’.

Before a paradigm is replaced by another, normal science has to be in a state of crisis, with a

‘pronounced’ sense of professional insecurity (Kuhn 1970, p. 67). By some accounts there

was just such a sense of insecurity in the archives and records profession some twenty years

ago. This was supposedly brought on by the bourgeoning use of digital records (for a

discourse along these lines, see Cook 1994). For some this was seen as a crisis. There is,

however, some doubt as to how much a sense of a crisis there was across the profession (see,

for instance, Henry 1998). In Kuhn’s terms, the challenge presented by digital records can be

seen instead as an ‘anomaly,’ which ‘normal’ archival science could adjust to without the

need for a paradigm shift (Kuhn 1970, p. 53). Scientists do not reject the paradigm of normal

science just because they are confronted by an anomaly (Kuhn 1970, p. 77).

When there has been a paradigm shift, the majority of scientists will move to its world view,

and eventually there will be only ‘a few elderly hold outs’ remaining (Kuhn 1970, p. 159).

This obviously has not happened in archival science over the last twenty years. Some

lvii

proponents of the records continuum have been left wondering as to why it has not been

‘immediately accepted as global archival theory’ (Upward 2017, p. 221).

Given that the records continuum model does not actually represent a paradigm shift in the

Kuhnian sense, we can reject the claim made by its proponents. There appears to be some

resignation to the fact that the records continuum has failed to become the new paradigm

Q. The disputable nature of the records continuum model

All the theoretical propositions of the records continuum examined above can be said to be

debatable or contentious. This supports the thesis that the records continuum model itself is

contentious in many if not all respects.

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CHAPTER 6

Discussion

The records continuum model can be seen as an attempt to wed the record-keeping paradigm

of David Bearman to the postmodern views about the contingency of archives and records,

while not throwing out the Jenkinsonian baby with the life-cycle bathwater. How successful it

is at this has been discussed at length already.

The postmodern turn in archival discourse has problems with accommodating the universalist

claims made on the behalf of the records continuum by its proponents. The Jenkinsonian

concern with records as evidence fits in with the record-keeping paradigm, but there are

problems with emphasising evidence over information. There are also problems with the

strong “Bearmanesque” positions the records continuum takes on the transactional,

contextual and functional qualities of records. These qualities are held to define records,

while a less dogmatic approach would be to allow records to have other qualities, such as

informational value, in equal measure. The persistent fashion in which proponents of the

records continuum sticks with the ideas of Bearman continues to frustrate its ambition to

embrace the less system-friendly varieties of records. The most problematical of these are

personal archives.

The proponents of the records continuum attempt to resolve these difficulties by evoking the

continuum as a way of thinking which dissolves away troublesome dichotomies. Proponents

of the records continuum have, in fact, imposed these dichotomies upon themselves. One

needs to drink the Kool-Aid, though, for continuum consciousness to work. There is no

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compelling reason to be found in the exposition and promotion of the records continuum to

persuade us to do so. There are, however, compelling arguments, based on a close

examination of the theoretical propositions of the records continuum model, which should

persuade us that it is critically flawed as an archival theory.

The argument that digital records would render accepted archival theory obsolete brought

about the development of the record-keeping paradigm. The new archival theory promoted by

Bearman and his supporters swung the content-context pendulum firmly in the direction of

context. It was seen that it would be practically impossible to appraise digital records for the

value of their informational content, there would be just too many to do this. What this

argument has overlooked is the simple fact that digital records can be analysed digitally, by

virtue of the fact that they are (you know) digital.

Software tools or algorithms may be developed which can analyse the content of digital

records en masse so that their informational content can be made available for archival

appraisal. In fact, automated techniques for discourse analysis have already been developed.

Similar techniques could be used to enable archivists to make appraisal decisions based on

analysis of the information content of records, as well as a functional analysis. The advent of

digital records did not make appraisal based on content harder to do, rather it has made it

easier to do. The very digital nature of digital records makes it possible to analyse any or all

such records on the basis of their content.

Bearman and his supporters can perhaps be excused for not considering the possibility of the

content of digital records being analysed using algorithms. Such techniques did not exist back

then. No such excuse can be made for the proponents of the records continuum model.

Technology has moved on, and archival theorists should be aware of what is now possible.

The predominance of the records continuum and its way of thinking has, if anything, been an

impediment to new approaches in archival science. For instance, the diplomatics approach to

digital records seems to have potential, but little work is being done on it here in Australia.

The records continuum may have even blinded us from seeing digital records properly.

The grand theoretical approach of the records continuum metanarrative has borne little fruit.

Any successes it may claim can perhaps be attributed to its postmodern sensibilities, but

while the records continuum may need postmodernism, postmodernism does not need the

records continuum. Building theory from the ground up, based on research and critical

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thinking would be a more productive way forward to achieving something which looks more

like archival science.

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CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

The critical examination of the records continuum model has been extended in this paper.

This critique of the records continuum model has found that the aspects of the records

continuum which had not been previously subject to criticism are also open to dispute. The

concept of ‘spacetime’ in particular fails to stand up to critical analysis. Many of the other

concepts, claims or theoretical propositions of the records continuum can be characterised as

contentious.

Furthermore, not all the theoretical components of the records continuum are logically

compatible with each other. In particular, the record-keeping paradigm, as adapted into the

records continuum model, is a continuing source of theoretical difficulties for the model. Key

concepts such as ‘evidentially’, ‘transactionality’ and ‘contextuality’ prevent the records

continuum from adequately encompassing the character of personal archives. The way that

the records continuum model deploys these key concepts creates an either/or dichotomy,

which bring the theory into conflict with other approaches in the archival discourse.

The lack of engagement with the records continuum model, and its failure to deliver a

paradigm shift, is attributable to the shortcomings identified in this paper. A less grand

theoretical approach that is more research-based may prove to be more productive for

archival science.

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