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Conference Program
This program is correct as of last update. The conference organiser reserves the right to make program changes where necessary.
Day 1 - Wednesday 6 May 1998
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8:30 | Registration
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| 9:45 | Introduction and Conference Framework
· Professor Brian Anderson (Future President of the Australian Academy of Science)
Opening and welcome.
· Gavan McCarthy (Australian Science Archives Project)
Introduction.
· Peter Horsman (National Archives of the Netherlands)
Keynote address.
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| 11:00 | Morning Break
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| | 11:30 | Session 1 - Capturing Context
"...Context. It’s the only way to decide if someone’s story is... I won’t say true - but more consistent, more authentic." Sara Paretsky 1994, Tunnel Vision, Penguin Books, London & Victoria, Australia, p. 177.
This session will examine the capturing of context in situ. What do we lose if we don’t go out into the recordkeeping environment where records have the most meaning? Why is capturing context so important? How do we capture it and what tools are required? What can the new digital technologies add? What are the limits to the capturing of context? How far do we go?
Speakers:
· Didier Devriese (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Methodological approach on collecting science archives: the "metaprotocole" as new point of view.
· Terry Stokes (Office of the NHMRC, Canberra)
Archival aspects of e-mail.
· Christopher Jack (Australian Science Archives Project)
Reconstructing context: the view from the basement.
Speakers from the floor:
· Rodney Teakle (CSIRO)
Put your time and effort where it counts.
· Ross Wilkinson (CSIRO)
Capturing the context of electronic records with the Public Records Office of Victoria.
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| 13:15 | Lunch
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| | 14:15 | Session 2 - Being Content With Form: Making Standards Work
Chris Hurley wrote in 1994: “There appears… to be a view that
standardisation is somehow removed from the immediate, daily, ‘practical’
concerns of archival life - a worthy, ‘theoretical’ goal to be pursued when
we get past the more urgent demands of getting on with the job… Such a
view mistakes the urgent for the important.” Chris Hurley 1994, "Data systems management and standardisation", Archives and Manuscripts, Vol. 22, No. 2, November 1994, p.339.
What impact will standards have on archival processes? How will we
reconcile differing standards? What are the implications for the
development of archival tools? How will standards support our “working
with knowledge”?
This session will examine the possibilities and the limitations of the
application of the emerging national and international standards for both
archival description and metadata.
Speakers:
· Sue McKemmish (Monash University)
Frameworks for standardizing recordkeeping metadata.
· Peter Harper (National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, University of Bath)
Recent standard initiatives in the UK.
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| 15:30 | Afternoon Break (and transport to the Leonard Huxley Building)
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| | 16:15 | Session 3 - Visualising the Textual Map
Data visualisation is increasingly being seen as a promising tool for
enhancing users’ perceptions of data structures, and for providing
navigation facilities for large information spaces. Visualisation and
mapping is currently being used by computer sciences, cognitive and
perceptual sciences and engineering to deal with large, unwieldy amounts of
data to reveal patterns and structures - to turn data into information.
The idea behind visualisation is to provide understanding and insight using
visual representations rather than textual ones. A picture is worth a
thousand words: data visualisation relies on the human visual ability to
recognise structure and patterns and relate these to the systems being
investigated or modelled.
Can the complexities of records structure, content and context be best
represented by multidimensional, dynamic visual tools? Could data
visualisation be used by archivists and records managers to gain a better
understanding of records? Can data visualisation be used to enhance
searching, access to and retrieval of records in the archival landscape?
Speakers:
· Gavan McCarthy (Australian Science Archives Project)
Preparing the ground, creating the landscape.
· Henry Gardner (Australian National University)
Demonstration of the “Wedge”, data
visualisation system.
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| 19:00 | Conference Dinner
Old Parliament House Canberra
Introduction:
· Tom Griffiths (Australian National University)
Dinner speaker:
· Tim Sherratt (discontents)
A conspiracy reveal'd.
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| | 23:30 | End of Day 1
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Day 2 - Thursday 7 May 1998
| 9:00 | Session 4 - Archival Constructs: Providing a Focus or Limiting a View?
Functional models and other archival constructs underpin much of the
archival process, and are used to manage, control, provide access to and
understand records. But what is a construct ? What is real ?
Recent experience with electronic records and the use of functional models
have revealed more clearly the nature of archival constructs and the
pressing need to identify and define these constructs. Constructs provide a
particular view or perspective of the records and it is possible for many
views to exist simultaneously.
How are we in our practice challenged by this ? What impact does this
understanding of constructs have on the development of tools and
methodologies ?
Speakers:
· Helen Morgan (Australian Science Archives Project)
How do I appraise thee? Let me count the ways: the archival imperative and the constructs of appraisal.
· Jean Marie Deken (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)
Writ on water? An exploration of the gap between archival construct and practice in the digital environment.
· Stephen Ellis (National Archives of Australia)
Can the seascape be viewed squarely when the porthole is round? Observations on the practical implementation of archival constructs in electronic systems.
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| 10:30 | Morning Break
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| | 11:00 | Session 5 - The Archival Control of Systems
This session will examine fundamental principles underlying management and documentation of recordkeeping systems. How do we document complex, recursive systems? How do we deal with active systems? How do we deal with redundancy and dead systems? What does practical experience reveal?
Speakers:
· David Roberts (Archives Authority of NSW)
Recordkeeping systems: wanted dead or alive.
· Philip Kent and Rodney Teakle (CSIRO)
Electronic records: technical or management problems?
· Lisa Enright (Australian Science Archives Project)
Systems is systems: documentation and control regardless of format.
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| 12:30 | Lunch
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| | 13:30 | Session 6 - Working With Knowledge: Coming Back to and Using the Information held in Records
“Along with other documents... the letters served to open the doors, stir memories, and challenge received historical wisdom...” Clifford M. Kuhn 1996,"A historian’s perspective on archives and the documentary process", The American Archivist, Vol. 59, No. 3, Summer 1996, p. 312.
Interpreting information is part of the human experience. By revisiting the information held in records the past can be put to work to build the future: new insights, new directions, a new look at old records. There are many ways in which we can harness technology to increase access to and awareness of the records and their importance as primary sources.
This session will explore ways to present and utilise the information held in records. How can we stop records from becoming time-bound at the point of documentation and make them current and relevant to the human experience again. What effect will new technologies have on this process? How do we go beyond the current models?
Speakers:
· Jennifer Learmont (Australian Red Cross Blood Service NSW)
Creating "living records": an epidemiological case study.
· Bridget Goodwin (Bond University)
Science archives: humanising and popularising the stories.
· Tim Sherratt (discontents) and Elissa Tenkate, Katrina Dean and Rosanne Walker (Australian Science Archives Project, Canberra Office)
Bringing up Bright Sparcs - the many lives of an archival database.
Speaker from the floor:
· Miroslav Krzak (University of Zagreb)
Decomposition of knowledge into factual and procedural primitives.
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| 15:15 | Afternoon Break
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| | 15:45 | Session 7 - Conference Commentary and Statement
The conference observer will present a commentary on the conference. The panel will lead audience discussion towards presentation of a conference statement.
Observer:
· Anne Barrett (Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London)
Panel:
· Peter Horsman (National Archives of the Netherlands)
· Gavan McCarthy (Australian Science Archives Project)
· Finn Aaserud (Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
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| 17:00 | End of Conference
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