*Paper delivered in the Colloquium series at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, January 30, 2002

I have been asked to speak today about my perspective on archival information network development based on my experiences working with the archival community in British Columbia. Although that will be my focus, I’ll also try to give this development some context in relationship to network-building in general among archives and archivists in the province, which will mean delving briefly into a bit of recent history. I do so with great trepidation, given the fact that various people associated with SLAIS and the MAS program are much better qualified than I to give that history, distinguished archivists like Terry Eastwood, a founding member of the first association of archivists in BC (and of course the founding father of the MAS program), or Laura Millar, whose book A Manual for Small Archives has, perhaps more than any other product or province-wide program, enabled the archival network in BC to be based on solid, shared concepts, many of which have been adopted in a consistent fashion in smaller archives across the province, or Heather MacNeil, who was such an important piece of the puzzle in the development of RAD, and also played a major role in guiding the early developmental stages of the British Columbia Archival Union List.

In speaking here today, then, the perspective on network building I am presenting is one of a Johnny-come-lately to the scene, one based on about 10 years of work in various capacities with the Archives Association of BC, with community archives in the province, and as a participant in many forums and on a number of committees responsible for the development of CAIN, the national archival information network. Also, as I must always state on occasions such as these, the views I present here are not necessarily those of the Archives Association of BC.

I assume that some of you here may be more familiar with the library world than with the world of archives, and you might be asking yourself what all of the fuss is about archival network building; or perhaps why there aren’t more tangible network products and structures already in place for archives, as there are for libraries, or even perhaps why there is still discussion about the rationale for the building of an archival information network in the first place, given the tangible benefits that have come about through such network activities on the library side.

The library world has indeed helped shape the manner in which archival standards have been developed and has been used as a model in various efforts by the archival community to bring these standards together to create tangible, network results. The format of RAD along with many of its rules were patterned after existing AACR2 standards. MARC as a structure standard and the complementary ISO2709 exchange format have been used, for a variety of reasons, by archives and archival information networks. But there has also been a general understanding that there are basic differences between the library and archives worlds with regard to the importance of and rationale for information network development. These differences relate not only to the purposes and goals attached to such development by participating institutions and by users of the resources at those institutions, but also to the differences in the nature of archival and library resources themselves.

Some obvious benefits of participation by institutions in library networks are those of shared cataloguing and of shared classification schemes. In the development of library information systems and networks, various other infrastructure standards have been developed and maintained, including those providing for shared name authorities and shared subject-based controlled vocabularies. In addition, common data structure and communication format standards, consistent with standardized cataloguing rules, have been developed for purposes of automation and information exchange. On top of this, tangible benefits to participating institutions include the rationalization of collection activities and the provision of better accessibility to resources for users, in an environment where open access and user needs have normally been central to the mission of libraries. I’m sure many of you can come up with a much more exhaustive list of the benefits of library information networks and their infrastructure – but needless to say, these benefits provide added value to institutions who participate in them and provide real incentive for such institutions to abide by the standards underlying the information sharing enterprise.

How might these tangible benefits of information sharing on a network basis compare to those that might shape the rationale for participation in the building of an archival information network? Obviously, the possible benefit of shared cataloguing does not have the same significance when it comes to archival material, in that by definition, records are unique, based on their context, the meaning of the record being determined by that context. The context of record creation is also unique for every record creator, making schemes to standardize the classification of such records across institutional jurisdictions problematic.

The national archival community has also not yet invested in other areas of infrastructure standards that might be seen as providing a value-added rationale for institutional participation. There exists no national archival name authority system to complement the national rules for archival description, nor are there nationally-sanctioned controlled vocabularies in other forms to be used in conjunction with RAD descriptions. And even now, there is no data structure standard or sanctioned communications format that fully embraces the descriptive content standards as prescribed by RAD. Attempts to borrow such infrastructure elements from the library world have either ended in creating limitations to the nature of possible network information sharing or have been seen as not applicable to the archival world, given the difference between archival and library material. Name authority systems for archives must be constructed to provide a means to represent some of the complexity of provenance relationships; controlled vocabularies should allow for standardized representations of concepts relating to the functions and activities underlying the creation and meaning of records, rather than simply to decontextualized topical or subject-based concepts. Data structure standards and communication formats must enable the easy exchange of contextualized, multi-level descriptive information, rather than the standard uni-level library catalogue entry.

There is general consensus that an archival information network should benefit, in one way or another, users of archival material (including archives and archivists). But the central mission of archives has not always been as focused on providing ease of access to its holdings for users as has the mission of most libraries. Archivists have long considered as being central to the value of their work the manner in which they preserve the authenticity and reliability of records in their care, to preserve the evidence of activities of individuals and institutions and of society as a whole. The priority placed on open access and ease of accessibility varies from archives to archives dependent on institutional mandates and on broader statutory rules and regulations. So even here, the benefit to the user of archives is not necessarily seen by archivists or archives as being the strongest of rationales for participating in an archival information network. In fact, wide-spread accessibility of information about their archival holdings to a broader public can be seen by some institutions as being highly problematic.

I mention the above to point out that the benefits of the development of archival information networks to the actual participating institutions are not so readily identifiable as those for libraries participating in their information networks. I also mention this to provide some context to the rationale used by the AABC in developing the BC Archival Union List and other aspects of its archival information network.

But before I begin talking about that rationale and the process by which the BCAUL was developed, I want to provide some brief background to the development of the archival network in British Columbia leading up to its establishment.

The first organization in BC created by archivists for archivists in the province was the ABCA (the Association of British Columbia Archivists), established in 1974 (and incidentally predating by one year the establishment of the ACA in 1975). This was the forerunner of the present AABC and was established with the goals of providing for communication among archivists, for training opportunities, and for other cooperative enterprises of various kinds. In other words, the goals were intended to provide an infrastructure for "networking", although I’m sure that word was not used as a verb or a gerund at that time. In addition, it became a lobbying body, and, as a result of lobbying activities, a variety of programs and services were established to benefit the archival community as a whole. This lobbying included convincing the provincial government of the need for an Archives Advisor, a position established at the Provincial Archives in 1978, and later advocating for stable funding to promote the development of archives in the province, resulting in the establishment of the Community Archives Assistance Program in 1989. This funding was important not only to individual archives in the province but also was essential for the provincial association in establishing its own province-wide programs and services, by providing necessary matching funds to use alongside federal funding to develop new projects and sustain ongoing ones.

The establishment of stable funding sources, both from the provincial and federal governments, allowed the Association to carry out projects designed to assist archives in standardizing their operations and to develop an inclusive network of archival repositories and trained personnel in those institutions. A draft BC Thesaurus was published in 1990. The BC Archival Union List, of which I will speak much more later, was first begun in 1991. The BC Conservation Service was established in 1992. The Community Archives Education program was formally established in 1993. An Archives Advisor program administered by the AABC was developed in1996, and integrated with the Education program in 2000. All of these programs were established to promote the development and maintenance of a cohesive archival network in the province.

And I am remiss, in speaking of archival network building in BC, in not mentioning the establishment in 1981 of the MAS program here at UBC, and the fact that practically all of the major developments referred to above in the 1980s and 1990s in BC were spearheaded by graduates of that program.

The development of the BCAUL as the cornerstone of an automated archival information network was led by Chris Hives, as President of the AABC, who proposed the project in 1991 and conceived the manner in which it should be carried out.

The technological means by which the end result would be made accessible was not of pressing concern in the early stages of the project, emphasizing the fact that the most important rationale for the program was one based on education and training. From a technological standpoint, it was felt that if data on the network was consistent with national descriptive content standards (RAD), and some generally-acceptable and workable structure standard, it would be adaptable to different platforms and delivery methods down the road. When the BCAUL was first envisioned in 1991, it was thought that perhaps the database would be made widely accessible through new technology of the time, the CD-ROM, which would be regularly distributed to participating institutions. The increased development and use of the Internet in the early 1990s, however, made this less attractive. In 1993, the BCAUL was first made accessible via the Internet through a telnet connection to a file on the UBC Library Catalogue. In 1996, the first http or web version of the union list was made accessible. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The rationale for the development of the union list as the basis for an archival information network is well documented in an article published in Archivaria in the early 1990s authored by Chris Hives and Blair Taylor. The rationale was multi-faceted. The union list project was first and foremost to be used as a vehicle to provide training to archives in the use of RAD, as well as to provide hands-on assistance and reinforcement in understanding the archival principles underlying those standards, and the manner in which they could be implemented. This was accomplished by contracting with archivists to visit participating institutions and to assist those working at archival repositories around the province with archival arrangement, redescription work, and the development of automated capabilities for housing and accessing these descriptions in-house. The establishment of the union list mechanism was to provide an infrastructure in which the results of this work could be exploited on an inter-institutional basis.

In the design of the project, inclusivity and comprehensiveness were seen to be the keys to providing validity to the end result. In this way, the design of the union list mechanism was limited to providing a backbone from which access to further information about archival repositories and their holdings could be provided. The union list, then, as a registry of the highest level of descriptions for fonds and collections in the holdings of archives around BC, was contemplated as being only one mechanism for enabling better access to archives in the province.

In addition to the educational and training role of union list development, and of the manner in which better access to archival material in the province could be achieved through it, an additional rationale for the project was to provide participating institutions with a variety of advocacy opportunities, both within their organizations and with the broader public. Project archivists did not sneak in and out of the archives they visited—instead, they made a point of making themselves available to speak with administrators of the body sponsoring the archives, and of being accessible to local media. In the majority of community archives visited, local news articles or radio spots were generated.

Another stated rationale for the development of the BCAUL as one part of an archival information network was to provide a more comprehensive management tool for furthering the development of the provincial archival community, which would allow for a better understanding of the needs of archives in the province, could allow institutions to rationalize acquisition policies, and in fact, could provide a framework to assist in the transfer of records among institutions, either to reunite records of identical provenance or to transfer ownership and custody of records from one institution to a more appropriate repository. These activities have certainly occurred since the establishment of the union list and anecdotal evidence suggests that the BCAUL has encouraged many of these actions.

The BCAUL was not the first archival union list or union list of manuscripts in the country. The ULM projects of the National Archives had preceded it, as had other smaller inter-institutional projects. But it was the first such network device to be established in an easily-accessible online environment, and the first to base its rationale on broader goals of education, training, advocacy, and management of the archival community. Alberta was soon to follow suit in developing its own provincial union list, which was then followed by Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

Starting in 1996, with Chris Hives as Chair of the Canadian Council of Archives, and showcasing the successes of BC and Alberta, annual national forums on the development of a Canadian Archival Information Network were established. In 1998, planning work began in earnest on the development of CAIN through the establishment of a CAIN Implementation Planning Committee, and active advocacy efforts directed to various federal government bodies. This work was partially stimulated by a verbal challenge given to the representatives of provincial associations at the 1998 forum by Ian Wilson, then provincial archivist of Ontario, who thought it possible to establish by the new millennium a national information network, based on the concept of a network of networks, where provincial and territorial networks would be responsible for supplying data to CAIN National, which, as its first stage, would consist of an online registry of fonds and collection level descriptions in archives throughout the country. The network of networks approach had, at that time, been carried out inter-provincially when an integrated access mechanism to data on union lists for Alberta and BC was established. Planning was being finalized in Saskatchewan to similarly provide integrated access to the union lists of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

As a result of the advocacy work of the CCA and National Archives, federal funding for CAIN, through the Department of Canadian Heritage, was finally secured in 1999 and the first version of CAIN was launched on the web in the fall of 2001.

At the present time, the archival communities, both provincially in BC and nationally, stand at a crossroads in determining the immediate and long-term direction to take in the development of their respective archival information networks.

The loss of a stable funding source with the decision by the provincial government in BC to cut all funding to the AABC and to community archives in the province puts in jeopardy the long-term sustainability of the BCAUL and other components of the BC Archival Information Network and certainly makes it unlikely that any new developments in the future will be led by the AABC itself, unless new avenues of funding or support can be found. It may be that individual institutions in the province, including the provincial archives, will have to step into the gap to assume more of a leadership role in the planning and delivery of any new information network initiatives.

At the national level, a divergence between the goals of the archival community as articulated in planning by the Canadian Council of Archives and the desire of the primary funding source for CAIN, the Department of Canadian Heritage (that being for archives to provide digitized representations of their holdings on the web), has caused numerous planning and logistical problems, and has caused the CCA to reexamine its priorities, to some degree, to ensure ongoing funding. In addition, the "millennium" objective of bringing together descriptions of fonds from all institutions in the country has not been met, owing to poor participation rates by institutions in a number of provinces and slow progress in the development of any kind of network infrastructure in a few.

In this present climate, priorities and, in fact, the rationale for the development of the network are being reexamined. As well, new sustainable funding sources will be sought, and in so doing, new and different priorities may be imposed on the archival community.

In planning for future information network developments, there certainly is a need to identify and develop the technical standards to be used most effectively. The development of technical standards, to my mind, at least, has unfortunately dominated too much of the discussion and debate about the nature of network creation and evolution.

More important, I believe, is the need to revisit the basic rationale for archival information networks. In doing so, new priorities can be developed that might be in line with new partnerships both inside and outside the archival world, relating both to establishing ongoing funding arrangements and to participating in broader information networks.

Should users of online archival resources be made the highest priority, the needs and desires of these disparate interests must be identified and built in to whatever end result is produced. This must, in turn, be balanced by the ability of archives, given the network infrastructure available and given the actual desires of archival institutions and potential funding sources (including users themselves), to participate.

What is that necessary infrastructure and how can it give participating archives and archivists added value to act as an incentive to continue network cooperation?

Discussion is now under way at the national level about the need to develop an enhanced national name authority system for archives, something deemed necessary by many, before efficient access to full, multi-level descriptions of archival holdings from multiple repositories is possible. Some archivists, however, question whether the expense of developing and maintaining such a resource would be worth the expected efficiencies obtained, and whether this indeed would be considered an added value for participating archives, given already existing authority systems developed in house at a variety of different repositories.

Likewise, there still continues discussion and debate about the need for other nationally or provincially sanctioned and maintained controlled vocabularies designed to provide efficient access to archival descriptions.

Some archivists believe that the rationale for an archival information network should be primarily that of a management tool for the archival community as a whole, to assist for example in developing acquisition strategies and in identifying areas where archival development needs to be promoted. Some have even suggested that the network should be extended to include access to descriptions of records that have not in fact entered the sacred preserve of an archival repository or come under archival purview. Whether this is workable or not is something archivists might be forced to examine, given any thorough review of the underlying rationale for the building of an archival information network.

Other archivists feel the major thrust of archival information network building should be aimed at creating a public relations vehicle to increase the awareness of the value of archives and the archival enterprise. The value of digitizing the most used resources in archives, and the ability to provide interesting or exciting content on the web, all shared across a network infrastructure, have been seen as a priority. Whether the results of these activities, shared on a network basis, would indeed provide an accurate or appropriate picture in educating governments, corporate administrators and the general public on the value of the archival enterprise is an issue that archivists are beginning to debate.

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© 2002 Archives Association of British Columbia