Archives and the Public Good: Accountability and Records in Modern Society

Citation

Roper, M. (2003), "Archives and the Public Good: Accountability and Records in Modern Society", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 617-619. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410310499645

This volume of case studies on the inter‐relationship of record keeping and accountability is intended both to fill a gap in the teaching material available to students on archive‐studies courses and to demonstrate to the general reader the crucial role of records for accountability in organisations and in society.

In their introduction the editors adopt the pragmatic approach to accountability of Kevin Kearns, in which accountability means different things to different groups but always has at its core an explicit reporting system conveying to a supervisory authority information on compliance with defined performance measures or criteria. In the context of record keeping accountability is seen as revolving round four closely related themes – explanation, secrecy, memory and trust – the four themes which provide the structure for the book.

The 14 case studies by archivists and historians from a wide range of countries, some of whom were personally involved in the cases they describe, were chosen to demonstrate the significant role which record‐keeping systems, good or bad, play in accountability, or the lack of it. Two of the studies deal with cases in the USA that were well publicised worldwide: the Iran‐Contra affair (David A. Wallace) and Holocaust‐era assets (Greg Bradsher). Most of the others were widely reported within the countries concerned: the archives of Martin Luther King Jr (James M. O'Toole), the Brown and Williamson Collection (Robin L. Chandler and Susan Storch) and the Tuskegee syphilis study (Tywanna Whorley) in the USA; the collapse of indigenous banks in Jamaica (Victoria L. Lemieux); the Fabrikant affair in Canada (Barbara L. Craig); and the destruction, or alleged destruction, of records on Nazi war criminals in Canada (Terry Cook), of IRS records in the USA (Shelly Davis), of public records generally in South Africa (Verne Harris) and of records in the Heiner affair in Australia (Chris Hurley).

The remaining studies, of accountability workshops in Tanzania and Ghana (Kimberley Barata, Piers Cain, Dawn Routledge and Justus Wamukoya), of relations between record keepers and the historical community in respect of the foreign relations of the USA (Anne Van Camp) and of the forgery of archival documents (David B. Gracy II), deal with accountability issues in a more general way.

The studies bring an added dimension even to the most widely publicised cases, for they approach their stories explicitly from the point of view of the record‐keeping issues involved, issues often neglected or misunderstood in the general reporting of the cases. In the process, they unavoidably touch on archival issues other than accountability: on provenance, arrangement and description, and archival ethics (the archives of Martin Luther King Jr); on appraisal and disposal theory and practice (the records on Nazi war criminals in Canada and the Heiner affair); on the record status of e‐mails (the Iran‐Contra affair); on the legal status of the Internet and attorney‐client privilege (the Brown and Williamson Collection); and on the powers of the national archives (and the will to implement them) vis‐à‐vis other government agencies (the IRS records and the public records of South Africa).

The editors have achieved their aim of creating a valuable tool to support the teaching of accountability issues to archival students and, in so doing, they have assembled a collection of fascinating stories which can be read for general interest, especially by those who wish to understand what records and archives mean and how they support the attainment of organisational and societal goals. Furthermore, this book provides ammunition for records managers and archivists to use in their dealings with those politicians, bureaucrats and managers who have little time for the record‐keeping function, who regard records management as relatively unimportant in the face of other pressing operational priorities, as something which can be left to lower‐level, untrained staff. It shows that they neglect at their peril the proper organisation and management of the records for which they are ultimately accountable.