Assignment

Vocabulary

Each English term is supplied with its dictionary definition. Think of the corresponding Russian equivalent and its explanation. Fill in the appropriate empty box.

catalogue	an archival finding aid describing individual documents of a specific type, e.g. maps, documents brought together fofr a specific purpose or relating to a defined subject
description	the preparation of finding aids to facilitate control and consultation of holdings
finding aid	a document, published or unpublished, listing or describing a body of records/archives thereby establishing administrative and intellectual control over them by a records centre/archives, making them more readily accessible and comprehensible to the user; basic finding aids include guides, inventories, catalogues, lists, indexes, registers and, for machine-readable records/archives, software documentation; also called means of reference
provenance	a) the agency, institution, organisation or individual that created, accumulated and maintained records/archives in the conduct of its business prior to their transfer to a records centre/archives; b) in manuscript terminology, any source from which personal papers or manuscripts are acquired
sorting	arranging systematically or according to type, class, etc.
user	an individual who consults records/archives, usually in a search room; also called reader, researcher, searcher

Discussion

1. From the text select the statements which best express its main idea. Give your reasons.

2. Make up a plan of the text and discuss its points with your fellow-students.

3. Comment on the authors’ aim to publish MAD and develop technical infrastructural standards. Dwell upon MAD’s strong and weak points.

4. What do archivists mean by technical infrastructural standards?

5. Do you know anything about the attempts made by Russian archivists to develop their own description standards? Has any special manual been published? Try to find and collect as much information on the subject as possible.

6. Comment on the author’s remarks: ‘There is not yet a place in our professional culture for the establishment of rules and standards’ and ‘British archivists have always asserted their right to develop their own systems’.

7. Answer the question which you come across in the text: ‘Is there any need for archivists to collaborate with the systems developed by the other information professions?’ Yes or no, give your reasons.

8. Discuss with your fellow-students the problem of the users of archives services.

9. Speak about a parallel the author draws between archives services and the Internet.

10. Name the changes that have taken place in the archival world of GB recently. What is the author’s attitude towards them?

• Read the title of the text below and say what information you expect to find in the whole text. Make use of the material of all the previous texts of the book. Present your prediction in the form of a thesis. Then read the text and compare the information of the text with what you have suggested. Say if you were a success in guessing the main facts of the text.

CONCLUSIONS

I have tried to indicate some of the changes of purpose, method or attitude that I have encountered during my career. The idea was to use this personal review as a peg to hang some observations on. The result, clearly, is personal and does not cover the whole, or even all of the most important things. Looking back over it, I think I can perceive one general point. This is that, although archivists have been able, over a long period, to organise themselves, change, improve and extend their service in ways that would have seemed quite unlikely in the 1950s, yet the major changes have been imposed from the outside.

Organised archives work took off originally as a response to the demands made by an intellectual movement, the movement to recover national sources. It developed in the shadow of other public beliefs and institutions. In particular, British archivists pinned their faith on the ancient shires, which seemed likely to last for ever. Consequently, change in the basic structure and nature of local government, when it came, proved traumatic. The effects of this change are continuing.

Similarly, changes to the university archives services have been imposed by changes in the nature of their institutions. The same can be said of many archives services in specialist organisations or in the private sector. One result has been the destabilising of the career prospects of young entrants. There will be more changes of this kind. They will alter the look of the profession, and the way its members operate in their immediate environment, in ways that are difficult to predict. Yet overall, it has been a success story, and it is possible to hope that success may continue.

The Society of Archivists celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. This article by one of the UK's most influential archivists looks at the changes that have taken place during that period from the perspective of an archivist whose career has spanned virtually the whole of the first 50 years of the Society's existence. [ed.]

(Cook M. Changing Times, Changing Aims)