TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MOMBASA

COURSE OUTLINE FOR ARCHIEVES MANAGEMENT

DEPARTMENT: SOCIAL SCIENCES COURSE: BAR 2206 LECTURER: MR. KUYANDA

LEVEL: DIPLOMA DURATION: 45HRS

Introduction
Course Purpose: This course unit is intended to equip the trainees with knowledge,
skills and attitudes that will enables him/her understand actual activities of archives
management that necessitates professionalism in archives management

Expected Learning Outcomes General Objectives

 Understand the importance of archive management

 Apply appropriate skills in managing archive
 Understand the various types of archival materials
 Analyze the emerging trends in archive management

Week Topic
1 The Need for Archives and Archives Management
 Introduction
 Defining Archives
 Value and Uses of Archives
 Characteristics of Archives
2 Archives Management
 Introduction
 Objectives and Benefits Archives Management
 Archives Management in the Electronic/Digital Era
3 Preservation Archival Materials
 Objectives of Preservation
 Causes of Deterioration
 Media Formats on Which Archives Are Created and Stored

4 CAT 1
5 Establishing Archives Management
 Introduction
 Starting an Archives Management Programme
 Scope of An Archives Management Programme

6 Archive Management Activities

 Introduction
 Selection/Acquisition
 Appraisal
 Survey/Inventory
 Arrangement and Description
 Preservation
 Access
 Storage
 Marketing

7 Archives Management Principles

 Introduction
 The Principle of Provenance
 The Principle of Original Order
8 Archival Standards
 Introduction
 Benefits of Standards
 General International Standard Archival Description- Isad (G)
 ISO 11799:2003 – Information and Documentation – Document Storage
Requirements for Archive and Library Materials
 About The Information and Documentation-Records Management (ISO
15489)

9 CAT 2
8 Managing Electronic Archives
 Components of E-Archives Management
 Characteristics of Trustworthy Electronic Records
 The Importance of Managing Electronic Archives
 Challenges in Managing Electronic Archives
9 Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service
 Introduction
 History of KNADs
 Vision of KNADs
 Mission of KNADs
 Core Functions/Mandate
 Objectives of KNA&Ds
  KNADs Records Centres
 Transfer of Archives

10 The role of Archivists

Mode of Study
This course will adopt a blended learning format which essentially consists of online
learning, lectures and discussions.

Assessment
There will be two forms of evaluation: assignments and CATs, and exam to be taken as
per the university academic policy.
Continuous Assessment (Assignments, written CAT) 30%
Examination 70%
Total 100%

Reference Materials
Textbooks
Roper, M & Millar L (Ed) (1999) Managing Current Archives. London: IRMT

Kallaus, J (1987) Archives Management 4th edition. Cincinnati: South Western

ISO 15489-1:2001 Information and documentation- Archives management.

Cook, M (1993) Information Management and Archival Data. London; Library Association
Publishing,

Emmerson Peter (1989) How to Manage Your Archives. Britain: ICSA Publishing

Hedstrom (2003) Digital Preservation: a time bomb for digital libraries at

http://www.webstrends.com/redirect.asp accessed 12.12.2007

Lundgren Terry & Lindgren Carol (19890 Archives Management in the Computer Age.
Boston: PWS-KENT

Roper, M & Millar L (Ed) (1999) Managing Public Sector Archives. London: IRMT
IRMT Modules at www.irmt.org

Weinstein, A (2005). Upon Being Sworn In As The Ninth Archivist Of The United States.
Available at http://www.archives.gov/about/speeches.html

Mbembe, A (2005) The power of the Archive and Its Limits. Available at
http://books.google.com/books?id

Harris, V (2007) “A South African Archival Tale” In ESARBICA Newsletter, 2007

Cox R J &Wallace D A (ed)(2002) Archives and the Public Good; Accountability and Records
in Modern Society. USA: Greenwood

McKinnon (1994) Records Management and Accountability of Governance. At

http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/staff/ami

Society of American Archivists. (2005). A Code of Ethics for Archivists. Available at

http://www.archivists.org/news/ethics.asp
 TOPIC 1

THE NEED FOR ARCHIVES & ARCHIVES MANAGEMENT

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Most organizations that wish to survive in today’s aggressive business climate must continually
improve, evolve, and reposition their market, products and services, and aggressively maintain
their profitability. The enterprise must create and achieve short-term business goals, objectives
and strategies. Many businesses have invested heavily in automated legacy systems. These
systems may be nearing or have already passed their retirement date. The valued corporate
memories in these systems may be incorporated into new, emerging corporate systems; or,
alternatively, the digital information objects may be stored offline to comply with legal and
regulatory requirements. The worst case is that these out-of-date systems, data, and document
objects are ignored until it is too late to determine how they could be migrated to physical media
or logical format to be useful.

The practice of archives and archives management exists to safeguard the corporate memories by
enabling long-term preservation of such information of enduring value. In fact virtually all
organisations, and even individuals have some records that they need to be kept indefinitely. This
could be for business reasons, cultural reasons or even for mere evidential reasons. For instance
all people would prefer to keep their birth certificates and academic certificates for ever.
Companies would want to keep all documents legalizing their existence like certificate of
incorporation forever.

To maintain and manage these records indefinitely, requires some dexterities and knowledge
how to ensure they survive for the longer periods and those responsible for such long-term
maintenance of the records must also be aware of basic issues in this long-term indefinite
preservation. This is where archives and archives management come in.

We refer to the people responsible for archives and archives management as archivists. These
are information professionals, who collect, categorize and store information, usually in the form
of documents, images, photographs, memoranda and artefacts that reflect and trace the history of
an entity or even a field. Their power derives from their ability to select those currently available
records that will be preserved for the future (Mason, et al,1995).

1.1 DEFINING ARCHIVES

The word archives is popularly used to refer to older paper and computer files that are not
needed for daily used and confined to a particular storage area for reference purposes.
Sometimes, the words archives and records are used interchangeably. However this use is not
correct from a professional standpoint.

Archives are records of permanent value selected for long-term / permanent preservation
primarily to serve evidential and informational values in an organisation (SAA, 2005;
Stoler,2005) .

Archives document past events in a society or organisation and provide rich source of
information on past events that can be used as evidence and also mere sources of information for
information’s sake.

Most records have a limited lifespan and are eventually destroyed. However archives are a
unique lot of records that are selected for permanent storage due to their long-term significance.
Archives may include records that have continuing significance in the conduct of business or
records that are no longer expected to be needed for operational purposes but are kept
indefinitely as collective part of the corporate memory, for research and cultural reasons.

The word archive is also used to mean an institution responsible for managing archives like
Kenya National Archives or even more narrowly, to a room used to store archival materials.

1.2 VALUE AND USES OF ARCHIVES

Traditionally, archivists were only interested in identification, selection and acquisition of
records of enduring value. According to Penn, Pennix and Coulson (1996), the archivists were
also interested in preserving them. However they never deemed it necessary to disseminate
information from archives to those requiring it. This led to accusations that archivists were more
interested in wasting organisations. They were deemed to be of no value to organisations.
Consequently, any time organisations needed to down size, the fist to go was the archivist. If not
sacked, they were redeployed or resources reduced.

Modern archivists have however realized that they sit on wealth of information that can be
utilized to assist both public and private sectors in achieving success and the set goals. They have
also realized the importance of disseminating the archival information to users.

Today, many organisations especially in the developed world have decided to ensure that their
archives are well managed and available in different formats. Archives are now considered of
much value to organisations than they were before.
The values of archives can then be thought as research value, evidential value and preservation
of institutional and societal memory.

1.2.1 Research Value

Archives embody and re-live society’s collective memory and experiences. Records enable
scholars and the general public to use records for all manner of research including historical,
cultural, sociological, demographic, scientific, medical and technological (Wamukoya, 2007)

1.2.2 Evidential value

One other greatest value of archives is the fact that they provide evidence of past events (Harris,
2007). For example archives have proved useful to solve land disputes among individuals,
organisations and even countries. Indeed in Kenya now, they are the archives which are heavily
being relied upon to solve the dispute between Kenya and Uganda regarding Lake Victoria’s
Migingo Island. Archives have also been previously used to solve boundary issues between
Kenya and Sudan (Daily Nation, 2009).
1.2.3 Preservation of history/institutional memory
Archives help preserve the history of a society and an organisation. They document the genesis
of an organisation. They show the transition an organisation has gone through. This kind of
information is essential especially when developing strategic and development plans. Historical
information is also useful in serving informational value. When archives are selected and
preserved, a whole society’s way of life is preserved. Archives have information that can assist
the society to reclaim its lost values through identification and redesign of traditional practices
and even resurrect languages. They can assist reconstruct cultural values.

1.2.4 Archives in Context of Society

Archives play a crucial role in fostering society well-being. According to David Lammy,
Britain’s Minister for culture, any Government that neglects archives does so at its
peril. Archival documents are the foundations of our collective understanding of who we
are. And any thorough examination or exploration of our identity, our history and our future
would flounder without archives (Lammy, 2007).

Lammy (2004) further notes that whereas the 20th century was about where the last century the
battle was about the role of the state and the power of the market, in the early 21st century, the
focus has moved to issues such as race and faith, environmental climate challenges, social
cohesion and the community. At the heart of the public policy agenda is culture and identity
and, without doubt, archives are at the centre of this and have never been more important.

Mckemmish and Glenda (1999) also note that archives play the following roles with regard to
society: facilitating good governance; underpinning accountability mechanisms; constituting
corporate, national and societal memory; constructing individual, community and national
identity; providing authoritative sources of information.

Wallace (2007) also asserts that archives and archivists contribute both to societal empowerment
as well as its hindrance. According to Wallace, laws, regulations, standards, best practices,
policies and compliance and audit mechanisms provide records-based frameworks and
opportunities for healthy societies.
1.2.5 Archives and Good governance
Given the evidence they document, archives are critical in fostering good governance in society.
According to Chibambo (2003) documentary heritage or records are not only a key to the
preservation of an organization’s and society’s memory, but to the effectiveness of good
governance and the development of national awareness and identity.

Kemoni, Ngulube & Stilwell (2007) observe that records are required for developing and
implementing policies, planning, keeping track of actions, achieving consistency in decision
making, providing effective service to citizens and achieving greater efficiency.

Weinstein (2005) observes that the national archive for instance is a “public trust on which our
democracy depends. We enable people to inspect for themselves the record of what government
has done. We enable officials and agencies to review their actions and help citizens hold them
accountable. We ensure continuing access to essential evidence that documents the rights of
citizens, the actions of federal (and other) officials, and the national experience”.

In Kenya for instance, archives served a critical role in unravelling issues around the Goldenberg
Scandal that led to irregular payments or siphoning out of the country of billions of shillings
through a dubious trade in gold, between the government and individuals.

Archives were also useful in handling land issues between the Maasai community of Kenya and
white settlers, where the Maasai were demanding their land back after 99 years of leasing. The
documents held in the Kenya National Archives were instrumental in resolving the conflict.

Still in Kenya, the Ndungu Land Commission that was investigating matters concerning irregular
land allocations and grabbing in independent Kenya, heavily relied on such archival documents
to gather evidence.

1.2.6 Archives and Human Rights

The absence of records impacts upon transparency and accountability of government. The
baseline of this argument is that where there are no records, there is no transparency and
accountability. Where there is no transparency and accountability, there is no good governance
and human rights will be undermined. A number of experts (LaGrange, 2005; Harris, 2005; Cox
& Wallace, 2002) referring to records and human rights, point that records are used to:
o Benchmark its progress and that of organizations and individuals working for it.
o Protect the rights and obligation of the public, its partners and itself.
o Support programs meant to advance the will of the public
o Enable the public gain an insight into the centuries and processes government does in
their name.
o Prevent, eliminate or reduce fraud.
o Support accountability
o Support and uphold transparency
o Provide evidential support during a litigation process
o Preserve corporate memory, culture and history of a people and finally.
o Fulfil Freedom of Information Compliance.
Wallace (2007) also opines that records and archives provide a records-based framework for
ensuring, protecting and provisioning a range of human rights. According to Mnjama (2003), the
loss of control of records has consequences for all citizens, especially for the poorest who are
least able to defend themselves. Relevant accurate public records must exist if governments are
to preserve the rule of law and to demonstrate fair, equal and consistent treatment of citizens.

1.2.7 Education
Archives support education of generations. Archives provide materials for even writing historical
books for the education of present generations. Today in the Kenya National Archives, school
children pay visit to be educated on some of the traditional and cultural practices of Kenya
communities courtesy of the Murumbi collection that has a huge collection of artefacts across
Africa including weapons, clothing, artilleries etc.

1.2.8 Cultural Preservation.

A very important use of archives is preservation of culture. Archives document cultural practices
of communities which can then be transferred to subsequent generation. For instance in the
Kenya National Archives, the Murumbi collection provides a rich source of cultural information
on various communities’ cultural practice through the various artefacts preserved by the
collection.

1.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF ARCHIVES

Charles Dollar, in Ensuring Access over Time to Authentic Electronic Records: Strategy,
Alternatives, and Best Practices, proposes a number of preservation characteristics that help
preserve the legal integrity of a business record while stored and archived. These characteristics
include:
 authentic: the measure of the reliability of a record (i.e., its ability to remain unaltered,
unchanged, and uncorrupted)
 encapsulated: the measure of the self-referential linkage of logical components in a
record
 identifiable: the measure of the specification of unique identification boundaries in a
record
 intelligible: the measure of the integrity of the bit stream represented in a record
 readable: the measure of the integrity of the bit stream device processing of a record
 reconstructable: the measure of the quality of rebuilding the same structure and
intellectual content of a record
 retrievable: the measure of the capability to locate objects and parts of a record
 understandable: the measure of the quality of the context of creation of a record