Breaking down the invisible wall to enrich archival science and practice

Thibodeau, Kenneth

doi:10.1109/bigdata.2016.7840986

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Typical hierarchical filing systems rarely mirror business processes in their entirety. For example, in corporate bodies the documents produced and acquired in recurring processes conform to policies, but policy documents are not included in case files [77]. Similarly, laws, regulations, contracts, and other documents with legal status may legally contain other documents even though the referring documents include only citations of the others [78].…”

Section: Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Foundation for Archival Engineering

Thibodeau

2022

Analytics

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Archives comprise information that individuals and organizations use in their activities. Archival theory is the intellectual framework for organizing, managing, preserving and access to archives both while they serve the needs of those who produce them and later when researchers consult them for other purposes. Archival theory is sometimes called archival science, but it does not constitute a modern science in the sense of a coherent body of knowledge formulated in a way that is appropriate for empirical testing and validation. Both archival theory and practice are seriously challenged by the spread and continuing changes in information technology and its increasing and increasingly diverse use in human activities. This article describes problems with and controversies in archival theory and advocates for a reformulation of concepts to address the digital challenge and to make the field more robust, both by addressing the problems and by enriching its capabilities by adopting concepts from other fields such as taxonomy, semiotics and systemic functional linguistics. The objective of this reformulation is to transform the discipline on the model of modern scientific method in a way that engenders a new discipline of archival engineering that is robust enough to guide the development of automated methods even in the face of continuing and unpredictable change in IT.

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Section: Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

A Foundation for Archival Engineering

Thibodeau

2022

Analytics

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“…There is a general awareness that the digital transformation has put pressure on archival concepts such as provenance and original order [Thibodeau 2016], and this generates debates about the relevance and meaning of ingrained "archival notions of the record, evidence, fixity, permanence, uniqueness, authenticity, ownership, and custody" [Gilliland 2014]. These discussions, Thibodeau argues, often lead to unproductive positions, while a different approach could be enriching.…”

Section: Theoretical and Professional Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archives and AI: An Overview of Current Debates and Future Perspectives

Colavizza

Blanke

Jeurgens

et al. 2021

J. Comput. Cult. Herit.

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The digital transformation is turning archives, both old and new, into data. As a consequence, automation in the form of artificial intelligence techniques is increasingly applied both to scale traditional recordkeeping activities, and to experiment with novel ways to capture, organise, and access records. We survey recent developments at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and archival thinking and practice. Our overview of this growing body of literature is organised through the lenses of the Records Continuum model. We find four broad themes in the literature on archives and artificial intelligence: theoretical and professional considerations, the automation of recordkeeping processes, organising and accessing archives, and novel forms of digital archives. We conclude by underlining emerging trends and directions for future work, which include the application of recordkeeping principles to the very data and processes that power modern artificial intelligence and a more structural—yet critically aware—integration of artificial intelligence into archival systems and practice.

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“…A basic rationale for archival engineering, rather than science, is that the primary purpose of archival science is to produce insights, understanding and guidance for the creation, management, keeping and use of records in both personal and corporate contexts. The value of archival science is realized only in practical application [25].…”

Section: State-of-the-artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This discussion leads to the recognition that there can be at least two types of Relationships within Archival Assets: those that result directly from the performance of functions and activities and those imposed in accordance with a filing system. The former are the relationships described in the concept of the archival bond [44].…”

Section: Construction Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Construction of the Past: Towards a Theory for Knowing the Past

Thibodeau¹

2019

Information

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This paper presents Constructed Past Theory, an epistemological theory about how we come to know things that happened or existed in the past. The theory is expounded both in text and in a formal model comprising UML class diagrams. The ideas presented here have been developed in a half century of experience as a practitioner in the management of information and automated systems in the US government and as a researcher in several collaborations, notably the four international and multidisciplinary InterPARES projects. This work is part of a broader initiative, providing a conceptual framework for reformulating the concepts and theories of archival science in order to enable a new discipline whose assertions are empirically and, wherever possible, quantitatively testable. The new discipline, called archival engineering, is intended to provide an appropriate, coherent foundation for the development of systems and applications for managing, preserving and providing access to digital information, development which is necessitated by the exponential growth and explosive diversification of data recorded in digital form and the use of digital data in an ever increasing variety of domains. Both the text and model are an initial exposition of the theory that both requires and invites further development.

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Breaking down the invisible wall to enrich archival science and practice

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

A Foundation for Archival Engineering

A Foundation for Archival Engineering

Archives and AI: An Overview of Current Debates and Future Perspectives

The Construction of the Past: Towards a Theory for Knowing the Past

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