THE INTRODUCTION OF AN
AUTOMATED ARCHIVAL CONTROL SYSTEM AND
THE ADOPTION OF ISAD(G)
Simon F.K. CHU
Archivist, Public Records Office of Hong Kong
February 1997
PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE OF HONG KONG
FOREWORD
In this paper I am going to report on the recent attempt of the Public Records Office of Hong Kong (PRO) to have its archival administration system automated. During the process, serious thought has been given to the feasibility of replacing our archives descriptive practices, which has been used in the archives for over two decades, by the newly developed ISAD(G).
The paper will give an account on why and how we did and still doing it, and also explain our old descriptive method and the planned new one.
Background
1. In March 1996 the Administration has asked that a serious study should be undertaken at the possibility of installing an automated system for the control of our archival holdings in the new purpose-built archival building at Kwun Tong, scheduled for completion in June 1997. The new building and the automated system, apart from their practical needs, will also serve as one of the landmarks of the Government's respect for the community's cultural heritage.
Why Automate
2. The automation project will be instrumental in :
a) greatly facilitating the work of researchers and other members of the public, both locally and (subsequently) world-wide, in identifying and accessing the relevant reference materials from the archival stock;
b) providing a ready means of compiling an up-to-date and comprehensive list of Hong Kong's public records in electronic, "portable" form for transfer to the Chinese authorities, as and when required, and
c) providing us an opportunity to review our traditional "Descriptive Practice" and study the feasibility of adopting an international standardized system such as the ISAD(G).
Our Present Situation
3. The Public Records Office of Hong Kong (PRO) was established in 1972 and at present holds some 800 records groups, comprising about 700,000 historical records items coming from some 300 government departments and agencies. According to the present trend, the average annual intake of historical records is about 11%. This seemingly high growth rate is the result of the Government’s present service-wide effort to dispose of departmental inactive records. Based on this growth rate, the total archival stock in 5 years’ time will amount to about 1,100,000 records items.
4. PRO, like many other government and private archives in the world, performs the following basic archival administration activities:
a) Accession - where records are appraised, selected for permanent retention, arranged (classified) and described (catalogued and indexed).
b) Documentation Research (loan and circulation) - where requested archival materials are retrieved for administrative and other research purpose. The proper performance of the accession function will directly affect the effectiveness and efficiency in this area of activity.
c) Conservation survey - where historical records are identified for preservation and/or restoration treatment.
d) Review - where records reaching 30 years’ old are required to be re-appraised so as to determine their suitability for public access.
5. The above activities are at present undertaken manually. The various functions and archival activities are further described by flowcharts at Appendix A.
The Problems We Face
6. The mission and functions of an archives are similar to that of a library where “information” is being processed so that it can be made available for users in the most timely and economical ways. It is apparent that the advance in automation technology in recent years has largely enhanced the library functions and activities. The functions and activities described above are at present undertaken manually in our office where tremendous labour intensive effort is required. It is particularly true with regard to functions (b) and (d) where in a manual system, researchers and staff have to spend a lot of time in identifying and retrieving the needed records. The following are some details to illustrate this time consuming process:
Accession
a) There is a large difference in time spent between an on-line and a manual environment as our staff need to check and cross check the names of the records transferring agencies, determine the proper records groups for the transferred records; decide whether additional new descriptive information is required and allot the most appropriate controlling numbers.
Documentation Research
b) It normally takes 30 minutes to an hour to search and retrieve a required item from our archival holding in a manual system; whereas in an automated system, the required time is estimated to be not more than 10 minutes.
Conservation Survey
c) In a manual system, it takes 15 - 30 minutes to retrieve the lists of records items for conservation treatment whereas in an automated system, time needed is about 2 - 5 minutes.
Access Review
d) Situation here is similar to that of (c).
Implementation By Phases
7. It is our intention to have the automation project implemented in the following phases:
a) Phase 1 : to automate the accession list of PRO’s entire holdings comprising some 300 fonds and sous-fonds, 800 records series and 700,000 record items (target completion date June 1997).
b) Phase 2 : to automate the whole retrieval, circulation, users tracking, and reporting mechanism on an networked environment (target completion date July 1997).
c) Phase 3 : to accord world-wide access to PRO’s accession list (down to records series level) through the Internet (target completion date mid-1998).
d) Phase 4 : to enhance and upgrade the system to support Chinese (target completion date the year 2000).
Diversity of the Technologies
8. Computing technologies for managing information systems, archives, records, etc. continue to grow and diversify each year. Faster central processing units, better computer operating systems, more capable programming environments, increasing data storage capacities, and networked business environments all contribute to a growth in the sophistication of automated archives or records management systems. For this reason, the variety of technology products available increases continually.
Our Selection Approach
9. In making selection decisions on the software or system to buy, we have tried our best to follow a standard project management approach to system selection and acquisition. The goal of this approach is to be as objective as possible in implementing technology in order to assure that our functional requirements determine the outcome of a decision, rather than the contents of glossy promotional brochures, fascinating vendor demonstration, or personal infatuation with a given feature or aspect of a product. Therefore, given the very extreme time constraints, we have at least follow the following steps:
a) Project team formation.
b) Archival functional requirements design ( as already shown at Appendix A).
c) Request for information and demonstration from vendors.
d) System selection comparison.
e) Rating relative priorities , costs and impacts.
f) Make vs. Buy decision.
10. Of the six , Step (b) is the most critical.
Our Decision : The GENCAT
11. As we have said, time has not been on our side. From June till September 1996, we have been able to look at four such systems which are designed either partly or solely for records or archives management. Details and evaluation of the four systems are at Appendix B. Having looked at the four systems thoroughly, we have decided on the fourth package: GENCAT (Generic Cataloguing).
Reasons for Our Choice
12. The GENCAT Archives System is a Local Area Network (LAN) computerized application automating the management of documents, files, manuscripts and other types of material in a typical archives environment.
13. The GENCAT Archives System was developed with GENCAT, a relational cataloguing and retrieval software product from Eloquent System Inc. of North Vancouver, B.C. Canada. The product was chosen for the following reasons:
a) It supports all our required archival functions and services.
b) It is flexible and able to satisfy most of our system requirements and specifications without any additional programming.
c) It supports the application of ISAD(G) in archives description.
d) It is relatively user-friendly and intuitive.
e) It has powerful search capabilities.
f) It is affordable as far as our budget is concerned.
g) It is widely used by archives and major institutions (National Archives of Canada started using its control module in June 1995).
h) It is supported by a team of professional and consultants who are very conversant with archival operation.
How We Arranged and Described Our Archives
14. The Public Records Office of Hong Kong has, since its inception, been following the Australian model in its arrangement and descriptive practices where the concept of “records series” prevails.
15. Records accepted for permanent retention in PRO will be accessioned where they are arranged according to the principles of “provenance” and “original order” and described in such a way as to enable the easiest and most complete access to them.
16. Records transferred to PRO are first examined to distinguish the various “records series” into which they fall. Records series is defined as
“group of records items that has been brought together because they (a) arise from a specific activity or purpose, (b) are created and arranged in accordance with a particular classification system, and (c) maintained together as a unit because they share particular format.”
17. Each series is then allocated what is termed a Hong Kong Records Series (HKRS Number). Records series are often transferred to PRO in installments (each installment of the same series is identified by a different “Deposit Number” assigned consecutively to each installment); but whenever they are received, and from whatever source, the records of any one series will always be allocated the same HKRS Number. Thus, if the HKRS Number 524 is given to those “Records (files) Relating to the Resettlement Department” (see description sample at Appendix F) , all subsequent installments of files relating to the Resettlement Department will carry the same HKRS Number 524, but with different Deposit Number, of course.
18. In our old descriptive practice operated manually, once a number has been allotted to a records series, details of the series (including the series number, title, date coverage and quantity, etc.) are recorded in an Inventory of Hong Kong Records Series.
19. The series entries in the Inventory are grouped under the department or agency which created or transferred them. The Inventory of Hong Kong Records Series is the primary guide to PRO’s current holdings. By reference to it, the researcher may note several HKRS which, from their titles, offices of origin, and date coverages, appear likely to contain materials relevant to his/her study. His next step is to consult the accession documentation relating to the series selected by him/her for further investigation. These documentation consists , principally, of a Series Identification Sheet (S.I. Sheet) and a Records Transfer List.
20. The Series Identification Sheet contains particulars of the origin, chronological coverage, quantity, etc. of the material in the series, a general description of its subject matter, method of arrangement and control and notes on the history of the series before and after its transfer to PRO.
21. Where necessary the S. I. Sheet are supplemented by notes on the administrative history of the agencies which created the series, or on the function which the series was designed to serve.
22. The Records Transfer List forms a supplement to the S. I. Sheet and consists of a list of the discrete records items contained in the series, recording their individual titles, dates coverage and agency registration numbers. The Lists are each identified by a Deposit Number and the records items listed are serially numbered throughout.
23. Since the combination of the HKRS number and the Deposit and Serial (records item) numbers pertaining to any archival document is unique to it, this combination is all that is required for the retrieval of the item and for its citation in a written work.
Adopting ISAD(G)
24. With the introduction of an automated control system, we have the opportunity to re-examine our traditional descriptive practice and decided to take on board ISAD(G) as our new descriptive standards.
25. As we all know, archival material must always be managed, and therefore described, at more than one level. Attaching strictly to the two principles of “Original order” and “Provenance”, archival holdings in the Public Records Office of Hong Kong will again be arranged hierarchically and described primarily in 4 levels. As we have pointed out earlier, the automation package GENCAT supports the application of ISAD(G) in archives description. We have, in this context, recently developed our own archival descriptive standards or rules, observing basically the principles and standards stipulated in ISAD(G). The draft of these rules is attached as Appendix C.
26. The four levels of description to be practised in our archives will be as follows:
a) The First Level: “fonds” level
A “fonds” is the name given to the totality of all records series created and/or accumulated by a creator, normally a major government department or branch. A sample of this level of description is illustrated at Appendix D.
b) The Second Level: “records series” level
Fonds is made up of a number of Records Series which in turn comprises a number of records items (i) created and arranged in accordance with a particular filing system; (ii) and/or maintained as a unit because they share a particular format; and (iii) arise from a specific activity or purpose (see also definition of records series in paragraph 15 above ). Series level description is shown at Appendix E.
c) The Third Level: “deposit level”
Series of records are often transferred to the archives by installments. For the sake of identification and easy retrieval, each installment of the same records series is given a different number which is called the “Deposit Number” in our descriptive system (see Rule 2.4 of the Public Records Office Generic Descriptive Element at Appendix C). Sample of this level of description is shown at Appendices F and G.
d) The Fourth Level: “ records item level”
This is the smallest (and the lowest) unit of description in our descriptive system. Each deposit of records series is made up of at least one or more records items. For example, there are 10 records items registered in Deposit Number 1 of Records Series Number 524 (see entry number (4) at Appendix F) . Each item of records will also be described in our system. Samples of item level description are shown at Appendix H.
27. These descriptive standards will become an important component in our new automated archival control system.
Automation Project - When Complete
28. Because of some unforeseen complications and unnecessary red tape, the original schedule has been revised a couple of times. It appears now that the project will proceed as follows:
a) GENCAT Software Delivery - by 1 April 1997
b) Stage 1 Consultancy and
Customizing Work - 1 April - 10 April, 1997
c) Document Preparation - 1 January - 1 April 1997
d) Data Entry - 15 January - May 1997
e) End of Phase I - 31 May 1997
f) Stage 2 Consultancy - June 1997
g) End of Phase 2 - July 1997
29. Implementation plan for Phases 3 and 4 will be worked out as soon as Phases 1 and 2 are near their completion.
Conclusion
30. The new automated system will greatly facilitate every aspect of our archival functions and activities. It will assist our staff in organizing and describing our voluminous archival holdings more efficiently and effectively. Existing backlog will be reduced; searching of records simplified; and thus making our archival material more readily available for both public and government access.
31. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the proposed automated system will enhance the prestige of the government and the new home of our cultural heritage. Besides, the automated system provided us the chance to improve our existing descriptive method and adopt the newly introduced international standard in archives description - ISAD(G) - as prescribed by the International Council on Archives.
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