MONDAY, 21 AUGUST

 14.00-18.00 SUV BUREAU MEETING (NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF LATVIA ADMINISTRATION, OLD TOWN, ŠĶŪŅU IELA 11).

 TUESDAY, 22 AUGUST

 9.30- Registration opens

10.00 – 10.30 WELLCOME.

10.30-11.00 KEY NOTE

 11.00-12.00 CULTURAL HERITAGE MATERIALS. FOUNDATIONS AND DEFINITIONS

Dagnija Baltiņa

 On the Path of Defining the Documentary Heritage

 UNESCO proposes that cultural heritage can be generalized under three categories. These are – material heritage under the World Heritage Programme, intangible heritage under the Intangible Cultural Heritage Programme, and documentary heritage under the Memory of the World programme. While such a categorization or generalization might be disputable, the impact of UNESCO is undeniable on how we assess, recognize, define or construct heritage. However while UNESCO has put a framework for the notions of tangible (world) heritage in the World Heritage Convention and intangible heritage in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, the understanding of the documentary heritage is still quite ambiguous.

Up to now in most texts addressing, the documentary heritage (Memory of the World Guidelines, Memory of the World Companion, etc.) equals the notion of documentary heritage with the notion of “documents”, failing to address the value-added dimension arising from the notion of heritage.

My presentation will discuss why it is so important to distinguish these two notions and use them accordingly; will consider the notion of documentary heritage and its value-added dimension; will examine possible definitions of documentary heritage as well as its application in archives and libraries and how it might affect the way the collections of archives and libraries are seen – as documents or heritage.

 Maryna Chernyavska

 Traditional Knowledge, Folklore Archiving, and Archival Multiverse

 Folklore archives started and developed somewhat parallel to, rather than intersecting with professional archival practice. Although today folklore collections can be found in many national, university and other types of archives, some folklore archives continue to exist on the margin of archival world (and sometimes more comfortably within the museum or library worlds). There is still some form of “othering” of oral tradition, ritual and performance when compared to the written document in mainstream archives. Folklore archives, consciously or not, often choose to document and preserve cultural heritage following their own practices; they develop their own ways of describing traditional knowledge and making it available to researchers and the general public. At the same time, there is at least as much overlap as difference in archiving theory and practices of folklore and mainstream archives. The lack of common terminology may cause misunderstanding and miscommunication, and can make everyone lose out on the potential benefits to the archival profession, including folklore archiving.

This presentation deals with traditional knowledge in archives generally, and folklore archives as repositories of cultural traditions specifically. It will explore “fragments of traditional knowledge” in archival institutions and traditional expressions documented by folklorists, and discuss the fundamental for archival science principle of provenance in relation to contextuality in folkloristics, illustrated with examples from various folklore archives. Traditional knowledge ownership, multiple provenances, and ethical aspects of archiving traditions and providing access to them will also be examined. It is the author’s hope and objective that this work will contribute to the overall conference goal to facilitate discussion and increase collaboration between folklore archivists and archival professionals in other research institution archives.

 LUNCH 12.00-13.00

 13.00-14.00 CULTURAL HERITAGE MATERIALS. FOUNDATIONS AND DEFINITIONS. NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

 H. Inci Önal

 Toward New Perspectives in Turkish Folklore Archives

 Folklore archives act as repositories for folklore by serving as sites for the preservation, organization and continued accessibility of discrete representations of this specific class of human creative behaviour. This study explores the changing nature of the cultural heritage materials which are preserved in folklore as well as in Turkish research and university archives. Turkish folklorists have long preserved their research materials in repositories, folk archives, folk life archives, and ethnographic archives. This research paper labels these collections categorically as folklore archives, examines the role of folklore archives in the field, the nature of these collections, and the growing influence on them from theories and practices originating in the fields of Turkish library science and archival management. Through this study it has been a privilege to visit folklore archives created by public and academic folklorists across Turkey, and providing opportunities for first-hand observation and interaction with folklore archives and their creators and manager. It will be shown that folklore archives (both academic and public sector and working collections and archives) have distinct needs and approaches that make them different from the collections of professional archivists, they also share much in common with them. Ideas from the field of archives can be valuable to folklore archives, can strengthen their collections and make them more useful to potential researchers. Furthermore, fundamentally the study has found out the very different perspectives of professional archivists. More and more this study reaches out to professional archivists for assistance in managing and preserving their collections. There is a growing need to provide a translation of folklore archives, which are increasingly shaped by the theories and methods of professionally trained archivists in the future. New perspectives in the Turkish archival form that is the contemporary folklore archive draw on conceptual models from the theories that inform professional archivists.

 Harry Bawono

 Encouraging The Participation of Archival Institutions in Protecting and Preserving the Traditional Knowledge: a Reflection on Indonesian Case

 The issues about protecting and preserving the traditional knowledge has long been an international debate. International archival communities also welcomed this issue by bringing up the role of archives in order to protect traditional knowledge. Archival communities in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, have paid special attention to the issue of traditional knowledge, especially to the implications of their cultural context within these countries inhabited by indigenous groups. In contrast, issues about the archiving of traditional knowledge in Indonesia have not been popular. Even though Indonesia is a country inhabited by approximately 1,128 indigenous groups, the archival community in Indonesia has not intensively dealt with this issue. The involvement of archival institutions in Indonesia in the issue of traditional knowledge is still limited to the institution that holds four documents the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity given by UNESCO, Wayang (2003), Keris (2005), Batik (2009), and Angklung (2010). Actually, the objectives of organizing the archives in Indonesia conceived one of them as how to ensure the safety of national assets which are in the form of culture, but until now there has been no comprehensive program related to it. This condition is much different with archival institutions, for example, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They take a very active role in protecting and maintaining traditional knowledge through the method of archiving. Using qualitative methods through literature review, this paper argues that in order to play a role in the protection and preservation of the traditional knowledge, archival institutions in Indonesia cannot be optimized without developing community archives in each cultural community in Indonesia.

 BREAK 14.00- 14.20

 14.20-15.20 PANEL:  COMMUNITY ARCHIVES, COMMUNITY RIGHTS: TOWARDS LANGUAGE, PRACTICES, AND ETHICS

 This panel will foster discussion surrounding practices for community-driven archives and the issues of respectful stewardship endemic to post-custodial approaches. There is no presumption of best practices here, but rather, an interest in discussing practices generally, and their implications for the ways in which archives might serve as commons for promoting social justice and inclusion.

Bryan Giemza

 More than Words: Respectful Stewardship and the Balance of Community Archives

 From the Canadian “total archives” movement of the 1980s, to more recent human rights and reconciliation community-driven archives in Australia, South Africa, and Cambodia, community-driven archives offer a powerful counterbalance to the representational inequality that sometimes characterizes the interactions between institutional archives and socially stigmatized or marginalized groups. The power disparity between a community collective seeking to preserve its materials and a partner archival institution points to the limited options available to the community. Some communities might be obliged to accept whatever curatorial terms the institution extends, with the only (impractical) alternative being the creation of its own unsupported archive. At the same time, traditional archival institutions that support community-driven archives face many ethical and practical challenges in that role. Beyond the duty to manage expectations, issues of patrimony, creator rights, and the local disposition of material all attach to the post-custodial paradigm.

The Southern Historical Collection (SHC), in UNC’s Wilson Library Special Collections, is currently engaged in at least four community-driven projects (The Appalachian Student Health Coalition, The Eastern Kentucky African American Miners Project, The Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, and The San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum). The projects’ objectives and concerns are as various as the creator communities that fostered them. This paper will argue for a common lexicon describing community archives, according to various models of distributed curatorial responsibility, as a starting point for imagining canons of ethical responsibility. Drawing on the work at SHC, it will propose a new vocabulary for appraisal categories (existential value, cathartic value, accountability value, reconciliatory value, and communal value), and how such language supports a professional shift from an outcome-driven, commodity-based tradition. Finally, it will describe practical experiences regarding community rights and the role of community liaisons and charrettes in orchestrating community-driven archival projects.

 Karida L. Brown

 The Insider-Outsider: Exploring Role of the Community Liaison in Building Inclusive Community Archives

 The emergence of community-driven archives within formal memory institutions marks a paradigm shift in archival science. In the words of the late Canadian archivist Terry Cook: “In this new digital, political, and pluralistic universe, professional archivists need to transform themselves from elite experts behind institutional walls to becoming mentors, facilitators, coaches, who work in the community to encourage archiving as a participatory process shared with many in society, rather than necessarily acquiring all the archival products in our established archives.” In this time of transformation, new roles and actors articulate themselves into the field in order for the profession to respond to the needs of the time. The “community liaison” is one such actor.

Although as-yet undefined within the professional lexicon, community liaisons have long been key players in the bustling field of community-driven archives. Serving as an intermediary and community insider, community liaisons function as indispensable intermediaries who facilitate the development of community-driven archives. They sometimes serve as a community curator-in-chief, sometimes as a field archivist, and sometimes as the main/first point of contact for multiple community champions (individuals who are eager to preserve a community’s history). In this way community liaisons serve a critical role in orchestrating work that is done off-site from the institution and channeling and translating community objectives and institutional responses between the community and institution. Drawing on experience at UNC Chapel Hill’s Southern Historical Collection, the Eastern Kentucky African American Migration Project, this paper will bring language to identifying the role this increasingly central figure stands to play in developing inclusive community archives.

 15.20 - TOUR TO THE ARCHIVES OF LATVIAN FOLKLORE AND RECEPTION - ROOFTOP HALL OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF LATVIA

WEDNESDAY, 23 AUGUST

9.00-10.00 PANEL: TWO ARCHIVES, ONE UNIVERSITY: DIFFERING APPROACHES TO CREATOR ENGAGEMENT

 This panel will focus on the theme of Respectful Stewardship and Engagement with Creator Communities. In particular, it focuses on two archives within one university with different approaches to relationships with creator communities. The first is a case study of engagement with a creator community and the practical implementation of connecting with creators, as well as what was accomplished and what lessons were learned. The second is a theoretical reconsideration of how archivists interact with and integrate creator communities more directly in the decision processes for appraisal and acquisition. This panel will provide the juxtaposition of two different approaches to engagement with creator communities carried out by two archives operating under one university and contrasting in-practice versus theory.

 Patti Harper

 Carleton University has been gathering oral histories, video recordings, and documents in an archive that tells the story of the expulsion and the resettlement of more than 7,000 Ugandan Asian refugees in Canada. The Carleton archive holds numerous personal stories from Ugandan Asian Canadians who recount their experiences of the expulsion and resettlement in Canada. The Archives, over the last 18 months has been reaching out to this community in a unique and tangible way. We have been travelling to areas in Canada where many of these refuges settled 45 years ago – Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. We have brought archival material and displays directly to them while encouraging participation in the development of this archives by donating archival documents as well as their own oral histories. To date we have collected over 75 oral histories through the generosity of resources and time by the Ugandan Asian Canadians. We have dedicated two rooms to honor two differing refugee stories and continue to host events and outreach directly in their communities.

This paper will report on the experiences during the last 18 months as a case study to highlight the connection between our archives and Ugandan Asian Canadians. This presentation will emphasize the concepts of oral histories, outreach, engagement, acquisitions and funding.

 Chris Trainor

 This paper will build on a presentation made at the 2016 ICA Congress in Seoul, South Korea on “Subjectivity, Objectivity in Appraisal and Acquisition: A New Consideration” which proposed that archivists should involve records creators more actively in the process of appraisal and acquisition. Incorporating records creators into the process helps alleviate inherent biases that we unconsciously bring to our decision making processes. The paper will argue that archivists should integrate feminist and sociological research framework elements into how we approach appraisal to create a better relationship with our record creators and develop archival collections that mitigate biases in what is saved and what is not.

While the Seoul presentation provided an overview of my concept for a reconsideration on appraisal, it did not go into depth about how the process would be bolstered by feminist and sociological research frameworks and left open acquisition for further elaboration. The current paper will provide a more robust framework for reconsideration of appraisal and integrate acquisition more wholly into the process.

 10.00-10.20 BREAK

10.20-11.50 ENGAGEMENT WITH CREATOR COMMUNITIES. COMUNNITY RIGHTS

 Nicola Laurent

Archivists as Amanuensis (Scribes) of Indigenous Knowledge

 “As archivists we are privileged that we are given access and are allowed to learn Indigenous knowledge. We don’t have the authority or right to teach it to others.”  (Archivist, Return, Reconcile, Renew project, 2017)

This paper will use the Return, Reconcile, Renew: understanding the history, effects and opportunities of repatriation and building an evidence base for the future project as a case study to explore the collaborative relationship between the eScholarship Research Centre and representative organisations of the Ngarrindjeri, the Torres Strait, and the Kimberley Indigenous communities.

The project brings together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations, universities, government and cultural institutions to advance repatriation research. The Return, Reconcile, Renew web resource will consolidate the perspectives and knowledge of repatriation of ancestral remains which will improve the development of protocols for digital archiving of, and online access to, information of high cultural sensitivity.

Drawing on interviews with Return, Reconcile, Renew project archivists, this paper explores archival issues relating to Indigenous cultural heritage and working with Indigenous communities to make materials and knowledge accessible in culturally appropriate ways. Within the context of community rights to cultural knowledge, this paper will discuss the ongoing obligations of universities working with Indigenous communities and records.

 Caroline Brown

 Accountability, Healing and Community. The Role of Archives in a Fractured and Misunderstood Community

The University of Dundee Archive Services recently undertook an innovative approach to collecting, recording and using the memories of a particular community via an oral history project focused on people with learning difficulties, and their careers and their lives. The project took place at a local hospital (previously known as an asylum), whose archive the University holds, and involved meeting with former residents and staff of the hospital, using archival material to instigate discussions and recording of conversations.

 This paper will examine the opportunities and issues raised by such a project, which potentially has the opportunity to empower and reconcile parts of the community. These include giving hitherto underrepresented communities the chance to record and reinforce their memories and identities through archives; ethical issues of recording for future archival deposit those with learning disabilities; issues of agendas and ownership; creating new partnerships with charities, social workers, and medical staff; and creating policies and educational tools for future use.

Yanina Hrynevich, Iryna Vasilyeva

Folklore Heritage of the Local Community: Problems of Digital Archiving and Perspectives of Using

The paper deals with preservation of cultural heritage materials of the local community. In the Collection of Folklore Recordings (the largest folklore archive of Belarus) there are stored different types of materials including audio and video records and their transcripts (as electronic data text files), photos, manuscripts, sketches which were made in the one location (village, town and etc.) at different times by professional folklorists and amateurs. A substantial part of these materials covering all aspects of folklore was accumulated during field expeditions of folklorists of the Institute of Art, Ethnography and Folklore named after K. Krapiva of the National Academy of Science of Belarus since the 1960s. Another part was donated to the Collection of Folklore Recordings from personal and university archives. These folklore and ethnographic data allow us to characterize the local tradition and how it changes over time.

But as the materials were collected under different conditions (historical periods, collecting strategies, technical equipment etc.) they raise a number of problems and questions that need to be discussed and solved before presenting them in digital form in an online database. The paper will focus on problems of digital archiving and perspectives of using the folklore heritage of the local community as seen in the example of folklore and ethnographic data from Vielieŭščyna village, Liepieĺ district, Vicebsk region, Belarus.

 LUNCH 12.00-13.00

 13.00-15.00 SUV MEMBERS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

(THE MEETING WELCOMES NON-MEMBER COLLEAGUES AND POTENTIAL NEW MEMBERS AS WELL)

 FOLLOWING MEMBERS MEETING -

BUS TOUR AND TRANSPORTATION TO CONFERENCE DINNER AT OPEN AIR MUSEUM

 THURSDAY, 24 AUGUST

 9.00-10.30 DESCRIPTION AND USE OF ARCHIVES

Lauri Harvilahti

Context as Key Term for Archival Standards and Tradition Archives

 Context is defined in ISAD (G) standard as: “(T)he creators administrative or biographical history, archival history of the fonds and immediate source of acquisition or transfer”. According to the standard, the term context should not to be confused with the same term in other disciplines. However, the context and the creation of the records by an individual or group would thus be limited to the hierarchical understanding of the provenance and fonds.  

In folkloristics, social linguistics, and many other disciplines context refers to a wide range of cultural processes and phenomena. Folklore records come into being through an active process of fieldwork and other methods of collecting folklore materials created by diverse groups of society or individuals, as a part of their tradition. For folklorists, the provenance of records of one individual or particular group of the society is not as relevant as the information concerning the context of the tradition: the performance, performers and other aspects that represent culture and heritage.

The theory of a single, once-for-all provenance has been criticized in the archival theory, as well. The records, especially in the digital age, might be produced multiple times in the same context (the so called multiple and simultaneous multiple provenance), or even simultaneously in different contexts (the parallel provenance).

The welcome novelty that the draft of the RiC standard offers from the perspective of tradition archives is, quite naturally, the use of the term context. RiC breaks away from the former, limited use of this term in archival sciences. RiC discusses the emergence of the context, and even deals with the use and reuse of the records for locating, retrieving, evaluating, and understanding them.

 Karsten Kühnel

 Authenticity in Describing Archives – Standardisation vs. Institutional Mandates?

 Authenticity as a concept is grounded in the whole of criteria based on which information is considered authentic: true and original. It is likely that there are different definitions of authenticity depending on the archives’ specific methods, practices, mandates and their understandings of their own identity. Definitions may also vary based on different paradigmatic languages regarding terminology, concepts and models. Moreover, it can be expected that the perceptions about authenticity diverge from the concept of authenticity which is common in archival science and philosophy. Those differences in perceptions may reflect the different measures of value attributed to authenticity by archivists, providers and users of archives in their professional practice. Describing archives is grounded in an intelligent process of recognising information and representing this information through meta-information. Mandates, given to institutions with archival holdings, have an influence on the goals of processes and products of these institutions. Special collections holding institutions can have special mandates for dealing with the information within their collections. Such kinds of influences could be causative in order to transform descriptive work into a remarkable process of de- and re-contextualisation, even if there is a risk of losing some original context information.

Describing a skeleton of archival reality depends on an appropriate system of entities, properties and relations. RiC-CM is a standard that, in contrast to ISAD(G) and the other “I-standards”, does not present a methodological framework only, but also gives a toolkit of possible contents, meaning a certain and limited set of possible relations. This may work for classical archives. Their mandates are well-known and always the same. However, does there emerge an abyss between classic archives and archives with special mandates like archives of scientific institutions, memorials or folklore archives? This presentation will look at a conceptual framework of archival description and the place, where in it RiC-CM could be implemented and where not.

Pekka Henttonen

Two Conceptual Models for Archival Description – Records in Context and AHAA: Complementary Views or Conflicting Conceptions?

International Council on Archives (ICA) formed Experts Group on Archival Description (EGAD) in 2012 to develop a comprehensive descriptive standard that reconciles, integrates and builds on ICA’s four existing standards. In 2016 EGAD published first draft of its conceptual model, “Records in Contexts. A Conceptual Model for Archival Description” (RiC). At the same time also a group of representatives from Finnish archival community created in AHAA metadata project a conceptual model for archival description which was used as a background material for RiC. The RiC and AHAA models are both attempts to make explicit conceptual structures behind archival descriptions. Whereas RiC tries to integrate retrospective descriptions, the AHAA model strives to describe what descriptive information is generated in records and archives management processes. This paper compares entities and relationships in the models to see their degree of compatibility. This helps to understand the strengths and the weaknesses of the respective models and also to see how they might be developed further and perhaps united in future.

 BREAK  10.30-10.50

10.50-11.50 DESCRIPTION AND USE OF ARCHIVES

Anon Mirmani

 The Comparison Description and Use of Archives Based on RiC Model and ISAD (G): a Case Study at Archives Office Universitas Indonesia

 Since University of Indonesia’s (UI) archives office has been established, our vision and mission is to keep our memory. The first priority is to save and collect all documents, including photos and films about UI with historical and local content. In fact, in the process of identifying the types of documents, we found some obstacles, such as with regard to documents about the removal of the UI campus from Salemba (Central of Jakarta) to Depok (South of Jakarta). For example, we could not identify either the creator of the picture or its caption. Another obstacle is the formats or media such as film, video and/or documents on mini dvd, with worn out readers. Also UI was lacking any officers or human resources specialist on records and archives management during 1960-1980, even at the administrative university level or at the faculty level. Thus, we don’t have resources to keep and to store all documents created.

But since 2009, the UI archives office has to fulfill its function expeditiously. Of course, to satisfy and meet the stakeholders information needs, we created a simple system. At that time, we thought the important factor was to make finding aids for retrieval, so that users could have accurate and easy access. There was no use of mandatory metadata as a national or international standard.

Applying macro analysis and the need for simplified access, in 2010 we built an access system for the stakeholders and customs requests. The mandatory archives metadata only recorded items such as title based on that supplied on the document found in the archives, form or medium of archives, and a simple description which may have been taken from various sources. But in our experience, these metadata did not `satisfy the users.  Sometimes they needed information with more details. Now they were requesting details about information, or they desired a retrospective look back to the evidence basis for reports or on the activities for logistics supply and on documents and reports relating to financial responsibility. It should also include these, and things having to do with history of UI.

There is the example of the Faculty of Medicine building which still manages its own renovations, even if there are only a few of them. The architects of the building maintain the original building plans. In government rule no. 28, year 2012, archives description should have (only) the following fields: the records creator; records number; classification code; information description; volume of records; date range; and other information (if needed).

Using action research methodology, University of Indonesia archives office sought to identify the archival description which is appropriate to the need for information access by stakeholders whether with the RiC or ISAD (G) schema. How do you design finding aids within the context of cultural heritage, and public information need?  Which do you use if the objective of the researcher is to study the process of the construction of the buildings of the old UI campus (an example of content connected with a locale) or of the new campus to help celebrate 30 years of the UI campus Depok?

 Rona Razon

Description and Use of Archives - Records in Context (RIC) Standard. Improving archival collections’ discoverability, accessibility, and usability through contextual information

 While discoverability of information in archives or research institutions has increased since the emergence of online databases and finding aids, accessibility and usability of archival information are issues that many archivists are still struggling to improve and perfect. Lingering questions among archives specialists include: how much information should be given to each collection; are minimal descriptions sufficient; or should archivists provide detailed and contextual information for enhanced and accurate access and use of collection materials.

At the Bibliothèque byzantine of Collège de France, the archive of Thomas Whittemore (1871-1950), “Fonds Thomas Whittemore - Institut byzantin (ca. 1890s-1950s),” was re-examined and re-described starting in April 2016 in order to develop and expand its reach to researchers and to emphasize its contextual value and associations with related but separated archival collections in France and the United States. The aim was also to virtually or intellectually reunite the long-lost connections of Whittemore’s materials through contextualized descriptions and standardized name taxonomy, echoing ICA’s new conceptual model Records in Context (RIC). Overall, Whittemore’s material is an excellent model on how associated but physically separated collections, described in varying levels within multiple repositories, can be linked through descriptions and name index terms in order to have a complete and unified understanding of a creator’s work.

This paper will examine how RIC’s emphasis on a “contextual web of relationships” and provenance could improve the access and use of Whittemore’s dispersed archival collections for all types of users. It will focus on: 1) the significant value of provenance research and in depth understanding of a collection’s acquisition history; 2) the benefits of detailed and contextualized descriptions of archival items up to the folder-level; and 3) the added value of standardized name index terms. The objectives for these points are to move beyond the discovery of information and to focus on the approachability and usefulness of information for better scholarship of primary sources.

11.50-         SUMMATION AND CLOSING

 14.00 -        PROFESSIONAL VISIT TO NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF LATVIA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25

 POST CONFERENCE EXCURSION TO SIGULDA AND CESIS