New Zealand Archivist Vol XIII No 4 Summer/December 2002 ISSN 0114-7676 Western Pacific Archive arrives at the University of Auckland

Stephen Innes

After more than 20 years in the United Kingdom, the Western Pacific Archive (1877-1978) was transferred to the University of Auckland Library in a formal hand-over ceremony on 9 October.

Given the controversial land policy, and decision to transfer the public works. Archive to a location In 1952 the posts of outside the Pacific region High Commissioner in the 1970s, and the failure and Governor of Fiji to provide a suitable home were separated and in the region subsequently, the WHPC moved to the return of the Archive is Honiara, where the a long-aw aited and High Commissioner appropriate development. became Governor of The Western Pacific the British Solomon Archive is in fact a Islands Protectorate in combination of records from addition to his other different bodies, primarily duties. The earlier those of the Western Pacific records remained in High Commission, but Suva where they were including the territorial administered as part records of the British Agent Left to right: Barry O'Rourke (Recall), Heather Yasamee (Foreign & of the newly-created Central Archives of and Consul in Tonga (BCT) Commonwealth Office), Alf Powell (Recall), Stephen Innes (Special Fiji and the Western and the New Hebrides Collections Librarian, University of Auckland). British Service (NHBS). Pacific. These and other records relating to local jurisdiction in When Fiji became independent in 1970, the Fijian the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and records were transferred to its new government and the Pitcairn became collectively known during their residence Central Archives were disbanded. The remaining in Suva, Fiji, as the “Western Pacific Archive". collections then formed the newly established Western The Western Pacific High Commission was Pacific Archive. At this time the WPA comprised the files established by Order-in-Council in 1877 to extend of the High Commission itself, together with records British authority over British subjects in the islands of relating to the New Hebrides British Service, the British the south-west Pacific, then outside any formal colonial Solomon Islands Protectorate, the Gilbert and Ellice control. For the first 75 years of its existence, it was Islands Colony, the British Agent, later Commissioner located in Fiji, where the posts of High Commissioner and Consul, Tonga (BCT), and Pitcairn (PIT). As the High and Governor of Fiji were held conjointly. Following Commissioner's responsibilities diminished with de­ the Berlin Congress of 1884-85, a further Order-in- colonisation, the Western Pacific High Commission Council in 1893 vested the High Commissioner with became increasingly redundant and in 1978 the Western executive and legislative powers and re-defined his Pacific Archive itself closed. Most of the post-WWII jurisdiction, limiting it to territories under British records of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands were sent to control. By 1900 his responsibilities comprised the Tarawa (Kiribati) and Funafuti (Tuvalu), although the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the earlier material relating to these territories remains an New Hebrides, Tonga and Pitcairn. integral part of the Commission's archives; those of the Intended initially to control the more unruly and British Solomon Islands Protectorate were sent to illegal activities of European traders and settlers Honiara; and those of the Western Pacific High (especially the labour traffic), the Commission over Commission were sent to London together with records time became a vehicle for British imperial expansion, relating to Pitcairn, Tonga and the New Hebrides. taking on comprehensive administrative functions The material now transferred to the University, in the New Hebrides, Gilbert Islands and Solomon consists of the record groups remaining after this Islands, including health, taxation, communications, diaspora, (except for those dealing with Pitcairn, which remains a British Overseas Territory) i.e.: the transfer from all governments with an interest in the records of the Western Pacific High Commission, WPHC. The FCO sought and obtained permission to the British Commissioner and Consul to Tonga, and transfer the territorial records to the University, the New Hebrides British Service. although support for the transfer of the WPHC was The transfer was the result of several years of not universal, the Solomon Islands having a long­ negotiation, review and physical preparation, standing desire to see the material returned there. including substantial conservation work by the Foreign Nevertheless, the standard of facilities available for and Commonwealth Office (FCO), who had been the the Archive in Honiara, and the increasing instability custodians of the material in the United Kingdom. The of the country generally, meant that this was not a process began in 1999 when Associate-Professor Hugh realistic option in the final analysis. Further important Laracy, of the University's History Department and considerations for the FCO in terms of the UK Public well-known Pacific historian, discussed the value of Records Act, were to review the records for sensitive the Archive to researchers material prior to transfer, in the Pacific region with and to assess the the British High University Library Commission in suitability as a repository Wellington. Professor for the Archive, given that Laracy had been a long­ the records were now to standing supporter of be stored outside the UK. collection-building for In January 2001, Pacific studies, and once Heather Yasamee and Ken he knew that the British Clare of the Records and government would be Historical Department of receptive to a request from the FCO visited Special the University of Collections to satisfy Auckland to have the themselves as to the Archive, he approached University's suitability to me about the Library's accommodate the Archive interest in housing it. and provide appropriate For a variety of reasons access. During the year, the University Library the FCO had completed supported the acquisition their own internal review of the Archive: it would of the records for sensitive reflect and reinforce the material, leaving the way University's strength as a clear for the transfer. centre for Pacific research, Earlier this year the which had already seen Left: Mrs Heather Yasamee, Head of Records & Historical Library and the FCO the creation of the Centre Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. finalised a formal transfer for Pacific Studies in 1990 Right: Dr Raewyn Dalziel, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) agreement detailing the University of Auckland. (and most recently the University's obligations Fale Pasifika development); the New Zealand and as custodian, and ensuring that any sensitive material Pacific Collection, and Special Collections, had built would be safeguarded. Once this was agreed, the FCO up a comprehensive research resource of printed proceeded with substantial conservation work on the material on the Pacific over the years, probably archives, followed by careful packing before sending second only to the University of Hawaii, and this to New Zealand in three shipping containers in July. formed an excellent strength on which to build; and The hand-over ceremony, which finally took place at finally, the move would contribute greatly to the the University marae on 9 October, was attended by University's strategic goal of developing special over 100 guests, including diplomatic representatives collections to support its research goals. of the United Kingdom and Samoa. The event featured Consequently, there was strong support for me to a mihi (formal Maori welcome) from Emeritus enter into negotiations with the Foreign and Professor Dr Ranginui Walker and a Samoan Commonwealth Office, represented by Pat Andrews performance by students of the Centre for Pacific as the immediate custodian, and eventually Mrs Studies, followed by signing of the transfer documents Heather Yasamee, Head of the Records and Historical by Heather Yasamee for the FCO, and Professor Department. Raewyn Dalziel, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, for the A key issue for the FCO was distinguishing the University. records of the Western Pacific High Commission, Because of the size of the Archive (600 linear metres), which were deemed British public records, from the it had to be housed in a commercial storage facility territorial records of Tonga and New Hebrides, which (Recall), although future developments may eventually would require the consent of the relevant governments see it transferred to a University special collections before they could be transferred. The other issue of facility. The work of unpacking and identifying the concern for the FCO was obtaining the support for the contents of the three shipping containers fell to the efficient staff at the Recall records centre, under my Pacific researchers over the years have experienced supervision. Annotation of the 88 registers, which frustration trying to access the material, and from the describe the records, with new location identifiers is outset a number expressed strong support for an progressing well, and access to the materials will be Australian or New Zealand base for the Archive, based available from January 2003. Although stored off-site, on conservation and access considerations. We are the records will be consulted in the new Special certainly proud to offer the WPA a fitting new home Collections reading room completed earlier this year and look forward to assisting researchers from New as part of the General Library refurbishment. Partly Zealand and abroad to make full use of the materials, stimulated by the integration of the science libraries and the other Pacific resources available in the Library. into the General Library, this redevelopment has Perhaps the most fitting tribute to the importance of brought together rare books and manuscript collections the Archive can be found in the words of the former which had previously been scattered, and Archivist of the WPA, Bruce Bume, who when the accommodated in less than ideal conditions. Now all transfer of the records to the UK was under discussion, this material is housed in closed stacks with access argued strongly for the retention of the Archive within provided in a supervised reading room, and the entire the region and as a single entity. In 1976 he wrote: facility is air-conditioned. "The records form... an entire and integrated Deciding factors for the FCO in agreeing to transfer whole. As such, not only must they be invaluable and the WPA to the University were the strong interest it of prime interest to the Governments of the region, had demonstrated in Pacific research, the suitability but they also constitute by far the most important of the new Special Collections department to manage depository of historical and other information in the and provide access to the materials, and the entire Pacific region, covering as they do the major University's proximity to the largest group of part of the South Seas inhabited by a wide variety of researchers likely to make use of it. Speaking at the Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians. To hand-over ceremony, Heather Yasamee thanked the historians, anthropologists, political scientists, University for providing: demographers and other social scientists the value of the documentation they contain is incalculable." "...a safe and very welcome home for a much travelled Archive. It seemed to us that The University The background to the transfer and contemporary of Auckland, as the major regional centre for Pacific reaction is well described in: Frank Rogers, "Western studies, would be an ideal and entirely appropriate Pacific and Western Pacific High Commission Archives", institution to entrust our Western Pacific treasure to. Archifacts 1986/1 (Mar. 1986): 10-12 [reproduced below], We...have every confidence that, under the I am indebted to Richard Overy, an archivist formerly in University's care and protection, the Archive can at Kiribati, for this important detail. For a recent report see: last fulfil its proper role in facilitating the study of the Clive Moore, "Solomon Islands National Archives", Western Pacific region and its past." Pambu series 5, no.14 (June 2002): 7-8. Western Pacific and Western Pacific High Commission Archives

Frank Rogers1

The de-colonisation of Oceania has brought its along with other territorial records that had been problems to the governments of the successor states collected over the years by the archives staff and including that of their archives. Those of the colonial referred to also as Western Pacific Archives. As the governments are legally part of the archives of the de-colonisation process continued (Fiji became an imperial power yet obviously of greater interest to the independent state in 1970), the High Commission successor states, in spite of their lack of resources to was wound up, and since the lease on the WPA service them. In the case of Great Britain, the matter building was due to expire, the archives were boxed was given greater importance by the comprehensive and up, in 1978Aand shipped to the Foreign and collective nature of the documents contained in the Commonwealth Office in London and later stored archives of the Western Pacific High Commission (1875- in the Public Record Office repository at Hayes in 1978). The Commission was the administrative centre Middlesex. for the island groups, other than Fiji, in the region, that After the shift, letters and articles of protest were under British administration. The archives appeared in the Pacific Island Monthly. Dr Jim include papers and documents recording the history Boutilier (January 1984) called the move "little short of the Solomons, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Pitcairn, of a tragedy" that "one of the largest organised as well as the records of the British Consul in Tonga. assemblages of original source materials in existence The archives of the Commission were housed in relating...." to British colonial policy in the South the Western Pacific Archives Building in Suva, Fiji, Pacific and to Pacific Islands history in general, should be shunted off to the United Kingdom to be "virtually of the Government of the Solomon Islands or forgotten in an official repository...." This article drew the other former territories of the Western a response from Mr M.S. Berthoud, British Consul- Pacific High Commission. This agreement in General in Sydney to the effect that the archives of the principle applies only to the WPHC records WPHC are British public records and that in any case and not to the other territorial records which the lease on the WPA building in Suva had been due to at one time formed part of the Western Pacific expire and that there was no other suitable building Archives (WPA). Some territorial archives available there, nor were the individual successor were sent to Honiara, Tarawa, Funafuti, and governments in a position to take over the portions of Vila when the SPA archives closed down in WPA 'territorial records' that related to them. (In fact, November 1978, but no decision has yet been some WPA archives were sent to certain of the island reached on the few territorial records dealing governments, as is related below.) Mr Berthoud states with the New Hebrides, Tonga and Pitcairn in his letter to the Pacific Islands Monthly in May 1984 which are held at Hayes. that the WPHC archives were stored at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London and went on to say: I should add that there is little prospect however of the WPHC records being " since the crates were opened in September transferred to Honiara in the immediate future, 1980, all queries, whether from governments or because there are various problems to be sorted from private individuals, have been answered. out at both ends. Not the least of these is the Where practicable, photocopies have been lack of a trained archivist in the National provided. The records may soon be back in the Archives to take care of the records (some of Pacific, following a formal request for them from them already in a poor state of preservation) the Solomon Islands Government. Initial legal and to regulate access to them by members of obstacles to making a gift of these records to the the public. In our view it would be Solomon Islands have been overcome and the British Government is currently seeking the views irresponsible to release them in these of other governments in the Western Pacific circumstances. region on this proposal." It is not clear from this letter whether the services In order to discover if any developments had taken described by Mr Berthoud are still available through place, as well as to establish the present location of the the Foreign and Commonwealth Library and Records WPHC archives and the authority to whom researchers Department. Confusingly, the letter lists the capitals should apply for information, I wrote to the Foreign of the island states in one place and the old names of and Commonwealth Office late last year and received states in another with Vila (Vanuatu) in the first list the following reply from Patricia M. Barnes, Library and New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in the second. It and Records Department: could mean that there are still some records for Vanuatu at Hayes, or perhaps it is an error. 15 January 1986 With the growing interest in South Pacific studies in New Zealand, the prospect of the WPHC Dear Mr Rogers archives going to Honiara in the Solomons is not particularly inviting although not quite as gloomy WESTERN PACIFIC ARCHIVES ; WPHC as the inconvenience of the present repository. One MATERIAL could argue that Suva would be a more central location. The dispersal of the WPA archives once Thank you for your letter of 12 December 1985 so laboriously assembled may seem logical and enquiring about the Western Pacific High legal, but is it practical? This raises the same Commission (WPHC) records. They are at argument as over New Zealand's Provincial present housed for safe keeping in the Public Council archives - should they not be returned from Record Office (PRO) repository at Hayes in National Archives to the provincial centres in which Middlesex, in a secure area to which members they were generated (actually some have). Which of the public are not admitted. comes first - legality or convenience? I cannot see many people rushing off to Tarawa, Funafuti, Vila The Lord Chancellor, the Minister responsible or Honiara any more than to Hayes. At least Suva for public records, has given his approval in is already a centre for Pacific studies with the Fiji principle for the WPHC records to be presented National Archives (4200 metres, about the same as to the Solomon Islands National Archives at National Archives, Auckland), and Oceania Marist Honiara. However he stipulated that it should Archives as well as the resources of the University be made clear to all concerned firstly that the of the South Pacific. WPHC records are to be presented because they The solution from the user's point of view lies are not required for permanent preservation in in microfilming and, fortunately, thanks to the one­ the Public Record Office, and that, secondly time WPHC archivist Bruce T. Burne and staff, this they are not in any way the returned property has been done in part. Dr Boutilier records that they "undertook the massive project - with WPA in Suva", but it is apparent that the necessary Australian and Islands aid - of microfilming all the funding and staffing is lacking. It is not likely that WPHC files down to 1927" and he complains the smaller states with their MIRAB2 economies are "....the master negative microfilm copy of the likely to afford to share in the financing of Solomon WPHC records was remitted to the United Islands National Archives on a scale to warrant the Kingdom without the consent of the participants transfer. So far as New Zealand is concerned, we in the project". contribute to the Aid in MIRAB, and we haven't Two former WPA archivists, B.T. Burne and P.D. even got a for-the-purpose National Archives Macdonald, also entered into the controversy which building of our own, and our supply of trained had been set off in 1978 by Sir Guy Powles, in an archivists is stretched to the limit, so that we are in article in which he urged island governments to no position to help. Or are we? take steps to retain the archives in the Pacific before The controversy appears to have been abortive it was too late. He stated "....no useful purpose is although it has served to ventilate the problem - if served by attempting to discredit the Foreign and you read Pacific Islands Monthly. After all, Commonwealth Office, especially since, as far as something had been done before the controversy. can be ascertained, it never seems to have been The Solomon Islands had erected a bu ild ing asked to provide funds for a microfilming designed to accommodate the WPHC archives but programme". Powles went on to say that the has not yet seen fit to grant the finance to provide governments of the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) and the necessary services. The United Kingdom of the Solomons had not made any attempt to Government was in no position to dictate to island acquire copies of the relevant microfilms, perhaps governments, especially in the climate of because they were unaware of the microfilming devolution, as to what they should do with their programme, and concluded that the obvious archives, or to provide a repository in the South solution of the problem of access was to complete Pacific. It is for the successor states to decide what the microfilming programme. I think all will agree they do about their archives, and what use they that the initiative for that will have to come from make of British and other government aid. The this part of the world. logical thing was done - to provide for safe keeping In spite of Dr Boutilier's remarks quoted above, in the United Kingdom until proper provision could two copies of the WPHC microfilms are held in be made for the handing over of the WPHC archives New Zealand, one by the Alexander Turnbull to one of the successor states under appropriate Library and one by the University of Auckland conditions, and at the same time to hand over the Library. According to Angela Viskovic's guide to territorial archives to those states that wished to the latter's microtext collections, the inclusive dates have them. This is a case surely where the archival are 1875 to 1925. The WPHC catalogue is included principle of provenance has been observed, with the catalogue of microfilm of the Central however absurd or annoying the effects may be Archives of Fiji which was published in 1970, before from the point of view of the potential users. the demise of WPA as a repository, so that the location of the WPHC archive as noted therein is REFERENCES no longer correctly stated. Librarians holding this Powles, Guy C. 'Islands Governments must act to keep work are advised to make a correction. Suva archives in the Pacific' Pacific Islands Monthly, vol.49, There is obviously a need for a more precise and no.10, Sep. 1978, p.77. authoritative account of the WPHC and WPA Bume, B.T. 'W. Pacific Archives' PIM, vol.50, no.3, Mar. archives including the location of microfilm 1979, p.6. masters and copies in order to amplify the two Macdonald, P.D. 'W. Pacific Archives' PIM, vol.50, no.6, pages of listings and helpful comments contained Jun. 1979, pp.5-6. in Viskovic. Perhaps it is just as well that New Boutilier, J. 'Little short of a tragedy' PIM, vol.55, no.l, Zealand, in spite of being a sort of downtown for Jan. 1984, pp.43-45. many islanders and a source of aid and remittances, Berthoud, M.S. 'Fate of the WPHC Archives' PIM, vol.55, no.5, May 1984, p.9. is not, so far as I am aware, involved in the agitation Central Archives of Fiji and the Western Pacific High for the return of the archives to the Pacific region, Commission. Catalogue of Microfilm. Archives Series (mimeo however desirable that would be from the point of [photocopy]). Suva, F iji: 1970. view of the growing number of Pacific specialists Rogers, Frank. Archives New Zealand. A directory o f archives in New Zealand. Sir Guy Powles, at that time (1978) and manuscript repositories in Neiv Zealand, the Cook Islands, on the staff of Monash University, set out a strong Fiji, Niue, Tokelau, Tonga, and Western Samoa. Auckland : Archives Press, 1985. appeal to stop the transfer to Britain, but to no avail. [Zivkovic, Angela, comp. A Guide to Manuscripts and The best that has been done, with the aid of the Archives Collections on Microtext at Auckland University Australian and some Islands governments, was the Library. Auckland : Auckland University Library copying programme, which cries out for Bibliographical Bulletin 12,1981. ISSN 0067-0499.] completion. The Solomon Islands National 1 Article reproduced from Archifacts 1986/1; March 1986, Archives appears to be the most likely candidate by permission of the Editor. for the reception of the archives since the National 2 Migration, Industry (lack of), Remittances (from NZ Archives building is, according to Dr Boutilier, "a etc.), Aid (from former governing states), Bureaucracy structure intended as a worthy successor to the (large). Relationships in Records: (4) Electronic Series - Rediscovering the Mystery

Chris Hurley

We have been spinning coins together since 1 don't know when, and in all that time (if it is all that time) 1 don’t suppose either of us was more than a couple of gold pieces up or down. I hope that doesn't sound surprising because its very unsurprisingness is something I am trying to keep hold of.1

Identifying and describing series that are in electronic form is not mysterious. Archival institutions do not have to radically overhaul their descriptive standards to accommodate the 'new kid on the block'.2

God must have created mistakes for their wonderful value in illuminating proper pathivays. In all of evolutionary biology, Ifind no error more starkly instructive, or more frequently repeated, than a line of stunning misreason about apes and humans ...I f we evolved from apes, why are apes still around? I label this error instructive because its correction is so transforming : If you accept a false notion of evolution, the statement is a deep puzzle; once you reject this fallacy, the statement is evident nonsense (in the literal sense of unintelligible, not the pejorative sense of foolish).3

4.1 A coin, thrown into the air, can be expected to 4.4 It would be possible to describe a new-born land up heads more or less as often as it lands up puppy using the documentation required by the tails. Yet the chances of its landing up heads next Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages to register time following a throw of tails always remain 50/50. human births. The resulting form could easily be The reason for this is that throws of a coin are not a accepted by the system and processed to produce a series. Those who cannot understand this should not conventional birth certificate. This would not, try to document records and they should never play however, mean that the being thus described was a at two-up. human child.

4.2 Consider, however, a different set of 4.5 In 1905, the American Museum of Natural circumstances: a ballot determined by extracting History displayed a row of skeletal fossils of horses marbles from a jar - an equal number of black and in ascending order of size demonstrating the white ones totalling 100. When the first marble is "evolution" of the horse. The message conveyed drawn, the odds on its being either black or white by this description was that the modern horse (the are 50/50. If the first marble is, in fact, white, then largest in the progression) had evolved through the odds of the next marble drawn out of the jar being stages and that each stage succeeded to and evolved black are higher. This is because the boundary from the last. It was asserted that the fossils were established by the jar limits the number of possibilities in sequence. In fact, that message was quite false, and each instance of drawing a marble out is because the fossils on display were not in an accordingly part of a series. Using the same principle evolutionary series. to try to predict the numbers in successive Lotto In conventional charts and museum displays, the draws is, however, stupid. evolution of the horse looks like a line of schoolchildren all pointed in one direction and 4.3 If we had some abstract set of descriptive arrayed in what my primary-school drill instructors requirements for acts of this kind, it would be called "size place" (also stratigraphic order in this possible to describe each of them using that case). The most familiar of all illustrations, first methodology. If, however, our descriptive tool was drawn early in the century for the American designed only to describe instances in series, it Museum of Natural History's pamphlet on the would be a misapplication of the descriptive tool evolution of horses, by W. D. Matthew, but to use it for throws of the dice, notwithstanding reproduced hundreds of times since then, shows the that all the descriptive fields can be filled in and whole story : size, toes, and teeth arranged in a row the resulting description is perfectly by order of appearance in the fossil record ... But comprehensible. We would be describing throws what is so wrong with these evolutionary ladders? of the coins as a series when in fact they are not - Surely we can trace an unbroken continuity from just like the addled gambler who imagines his Hyracotherium to modern horses. Yes, but chances of winning on heads are better immediately continuity comes in many more potential modes after a throw of tails. than the lock step of the ladder.4 Each fossil was, indeed, an example of the 4.9 Not the least of the weaknesses in the evolution of the horse. But they were not instances custodialist position is that it has failed to develop of a progression or sequence. The fossils displayed the descriptive tools needed to achieve custody. To did not exist in a definable relationship to each other apply series description to electronic records you of which the display was illustrative. A quite false are trying to take into custody, you must first be impression of succession was conveyed by the way reassured that the electronic records you are taking they were arranged and described. into custody are organised into series as a result of the process of records creation which brought them 4.6 In recordkeeping, evidence is captured by about. documenting action and maintaining definable relationships in series. Serial relationships, as we 4.10 Sufficient grounds exist for intelligent have seen, can be expressed as ownership scepticism that the world of electronic recordkeeping relationships and can subsist anywhere within the is as yet organising electronic records into describable recordkeeping domain (documents, files, actions, series. We are probably passing through an intermediate stage, however. It is now possible to agents, responsibilities, etc.). The arrangement and outline, theoretically at least, how series can (and description of series is, therefore, fundamental to probably should) be re-established within the realm recordkeeping practice. Some only use it to deliver of electronic record keeping. Until that happens, so- information about dead processes to researchers in called transfers of electronic records into a custodial archival search rooms and on the Internet. environment will not happily be describable using Custodialists who wish to use it in this way must traditional methodologies. have access to the same descriptive tools to describe, for example, a series of electronic records over which 4.11 The descriptive techniques which will be they would assume control as the rest of us will need needed to document electronic series in archives to be recordkeepers in cyberspace. They are, custody will most likely come out of the engagement however, unlikely to find them in a continuing we now have with issues of recordkeeping in fixation on the problems of custody or in borrowing cyberspace. First, to paraphrase Mrs Beeton, catch methods used to document taxonomies in your record. The custodialists, essentially in denial, knowledge management. must therefore await the results of those whose work regards storage and custody as incidental, not central, 4.7 Series must be documented to support to the issue. It will be a sweet irony if the tools the creation and maintenance of records, not just custodialists need to do their piece-meal work (viz. preservation and discovery. We document series the descriptive techniques necessary to ensure the because the evidential value of a single record survival of electronic records in archival custody) are depends on connections it has with context and delivered to them by those of us for whom custody is other records. The organisation of records into neither here nor there. contingent sequences (relationships) is how these connections are made. Records are not 4.12 As so often happens when we think outside subsequently arranged into series so that archivists the square of traditional archival methods, new can describe them for the benefit of researchers. solutions to new problems arising in cyberspace Records exist in series (if at all) because that is how usually throw light on some hitherto unresolved they are made and kept in the first place - how they problems in the world of physical recordkeeping. To must be made if they are to document an inter­ anticipate, at this point, the general conclusions of this related sequence of events or circumstances. The article, it is likely that electronic series will present us essence of recordkeeping is not the compilation and with two problems which will require major surgery dissemination of content, but the establishment and to traditional series description : a. a much more maintenance of relationships. complicated set of issues around provenance, and b. a much higher incidence of records belonging to more 4.8 The question is not, therefore, whether a bunch than one series. When we think through the of electronic stuff can be documented using a series implications of this insight, we find that provenance was just as complicated in the paper world and that description format; but rather whether electronic sequencing of paper records was also not as recordkeeping is in fact making and keeping electronic unproblematic as it seemed. stuff in series. The question of how to document the stuff delivered from a records-making process into 4.13 Consider a series of book registers. In the the workings of an archival descriptive process is paper world, we would describe the volumes as a inextricably tangled up with the question of how series according to the system of arrangement given electronic stuff is organised within a records-making to the books by the records-maker. Thus, we would process. The answer may be "as series", but then expect the spines of the books to show the volume again it may not. There is nothing, of course, numbers or years used to organise the volumes on preventing us from offering our insights on the shelves. This organising principle or sequencing serialisation to those designing and implementing of the volumes is the basis upon which we would recordkeeping systems. identify and describe the volumes as a series. 4.14 Even in the paper world, however, we indexes. The control records (registers and indexes) would have understood that the organising would be a guide to the physical location of each principle for the volumes was not the same as that docket and the whereabouts of replies in the letter- upon which the data contained in the books (its book. contents) was arranged. The system of arrangement of the entries within the register, often 4.20 More importantly, however, these control organised upon quite a different basis, is also records document sequencing of the records (for significant. Thus, the entries might be arranged recordkeeping purposes) which is different from the chronologically (for an annual single number order of the registration numbers. If you want to system) or according to some classification scheme "assemble" a transactional record within this series (for a multiple-number system). Importantly, it is necessary to use the control records to guide however, the contents of each book begins afresh you to the disparate documents which make up the (e.g. by returning to the number "1" at the whole record. beginning of each volume and prefixing it with a year date). Different sets of numbers might be 4.21 New correspondence would be freshly grouped by prefixes given to certain files (e.g. “P" registered and previous papers often attached (top- for personnel files) or in sets of file number blocked numbered) into the new docket. The removal of the out in advance for use in regional offices. Entries old docket from its place in the sequence to be filed in even the most simple register will be some under the new number used to register subsequent combination of a chronological order and a business would be recorded in the register. Not all registration order. old dockets were top-numbered, however, some were simply cross-referenced and, in some cases, 4.15 The organisation of the contents of a series there is no evidence that a connection was ever made and of the physical packages in which the content is between two pieces of business. A complete held, while it may sometimes be identical, is transactional record does not exist in these systems frequently different. Except in very problematic except as a "view" provided by the operation of the cases, we have (in the paper world) preferred the system as a whole. organisation of the physical packages as the basis for "serialisation" over the organisation of the data Figure Seven contents. Thus we will describe a series of book registers based on the sequencing of the volumes, Nineteenth Century Docketing System (with Top-Numbering) rather than the contents within and across volumes. Outward Letter-Books [Le tte r C opies ll[2|3|4|5|6l 7 ~ ] 4.16 We are choosing to emphasise one sequence at the expense of another in order to fit the data into a t\ . preconceived idea of what a series is like. A more In d e x (e s )------| A | B j C Top-Numbered Dockets systematic approach would be to regard the contents of the series (both the data and the packages of data) / , , , [R egister | 1 [ 2 [ 3 | 4 | S | 6 [ 7 | 8 l 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 j 13 | TT~1 as an organisation of records-stuff and observe (if the Documents (inwards Correspondence & Memoranda) facts require it) that this assemblage involves several sequences, not one. 4.22 Archivists have the choice of registering as 4.17 It is clear, however, that we could have also a series the sequence of registration numbers (1, 2, made a series out of the contents, in preference to the 3, etc) - many of which no longer exist physically physical packages. Thus, identifying as a series the because they have been top-numbered - or the entries in a body of book registers (rather than the sequence of top-numbered dockets (A, B, C, etc) - registers themselves) we now see to be not only which has unexplainable gaps to someone unfamiliar possible, but arguably more sensible. with the process. Whichever is chosen, it will be seen that both sequences are relevant to construct 4.18 In the world of physical sets, we would, of both these and alternative views of the data. course, have to register the physical packets. We can now see, however, that just as the context of the fonds * In this kind of system, incoming correspondence is is virtual vis a vis the physical series, so too the physical registered and then "docketed" by folding it down the centre series could be treated as virtual vis a vis the data (with the registration number showing outwards), tying it with contained therein. red tape, and placing it in a pigeon hole with the registration number showing. Cross-references are made to copies of outwards letters in the Letter Book. Subsequent 4.19 A nineteenth century docketing* system communications on the same matter (or with the same party) employing top-numbering provides an even more are separately registered and docketed, the connection being obvious example. Each piece of incoming documented in the Register. Sometimes earlier dockets are correspondence is registered and docketed. Outgoing enfolded within a later, related docket ("top-numbering"). Top- numbered dockets lose their place in the physical sequence but replies would typically be copied into a letter book their registration number remains operative. Sometimes the cross-referenced to the dockets using registers and papers may be placed in a simple folder made of paper. 4.23 It will be seen that the physical manifestation the documentary traces, of course). Records are of the correspondence with Jones (A) will not be the essentially the intersection of recordkeeping processes first registration item (no. 2) nor the first index entry (e.g. filing rules) and business processes (e.g. (linking nos. 2 and 6) but rather the last docket into classification rules). In the paper world, which letters from Jones were top-numbered (no. recordkeeping processes gave a sequence to 9). As a recordkeeping system, it is necessary to documents which preserved, but did little to embody, document the organisation of data into four business process. In cyberspace, the analysis of sequences (or series): business processes (the key to system design in the IT sense) will also provide the metadata we need as 1. Registration order (1, 2, 3, etc.) tools to identify, describe, and preserve series. 2. Transaction order (A, B, C, etc.) 3. Physical order (arrangement of surviving 4.26 Why is any of this important? If we did describe dockets) any convenient body of data that comes our way as a 4. Arrangement of entries in the letter books. series (using the practices we employ to document the largely physical sequences of paper records resulting In addition, this system presents us with at least primarily from the imposition of a recordkeeping three other arrangements of data : process over the detritus of a business process) what would be lost? The answer to that question, once 1. Arrangement of the registers themselves appreciated, is shattering. The answer is : everything 2. Arrangement of the letter books that makes a record important as evidence. 3. Arrangement of the index. This article is part of a series appearing in parts, and is formatted (with paragraph numbering) for publication 4.24 It is also possible that the arrangement of entries in full on the Internet. within the Letter Books and the Index provide alternative arrangements. In all, this makes for a 1 Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Cuildenstern are Dead, possible identification of 9 different sequences (or Act I. London, Faber, 1968. series) within this one recordkeeping system where, 2 Marion Hoy and Andrea Rosenbusch, "Describing in the physical world, we would ordinarily only identify three (viz. the surviving dockets, the letter Electronic Series: does it have to be a Mystery?" in books, and the Index). I have long argued that the Convergence: Conference Proceedings of a Joint National world of electronic recordkeeping should look to Conference of the Australian Society of Archivists and the nineteenth century docketing systems for its model of Records Management Association of Australia, how to organise electronic records, rather than the silly 2-5 September 2001, Hobart, Tasmania, p.294. attempt to emulate files in cyberspace using "folders". 3 Stephen Jay Gould, "The Declining Empire of Apes" in Eight Little Piggies. London, Jonathan Cape, 1993, p.284. 4.25 What files are good at, however, is putting a 4 Stephen Jay Gould, "Life's Little Joke" in Bully for boundary around business processes (and organising Brontosaurus. New York, Norton, 1991, pp. 174-174.

NR AM News

The appointment was announced in September of effective systems of arrangement and description and Kay Sanderson to the position of NRAM Administrator through promotional programmes. and Training Co-ordinator, following the resignation Kay's objective over the next six months is to of Sarah Welland. She has taken over administration increase awareness of NRAM and the opportunities it of the database and website from Sarah, and, thanks offers to all kinds of organisations to make their to a recent grant from the Stout Trust, Kay will be able archival collections known to the world. She says, "We to focus more time on promotion NRAM as well as will known that we have put the Stout Trust grant to training and support for contributors. good use when we can see more organisations Kay first began working with archives in 1980 when contributing more entries to NRAM. Good promotion she joined the staff of National Archives. This was and communication will be critical to our success. I followed by several years at the Alexander Turnbull need the help of people in the archives community. Library. More recently she has become involved in They can tell me of any organisations (no matter how community archives, particularly those based in public small) which might have collections which could be libraries, both in Australia and in Upper Hutt, where listed on NRAM. I will follow up all leads". she has recently worked on the Upper Hutt City New Zealand Archivist will publish regular progress Council, archives and at the Wairarapa Archive in reports on Kay's work. She can be contacted at Masterton. She has a special interest in improving the [email protected] or through the NRAM website: accessibility of heritage collections both through www.nram.org.nz, or on telephone 06-379-9333. Don't Buy an Archives Database: You Don't Need It

Kevin Bourke

I am often asked by archivists managing a small enquiries received and answered by the archives. So Archives what 'archives system' they should buy. you could save the details in a Word document, Unless they have very specialist needs, and sometimes creating your title by using the person's surname and even if they do, I recommend they don't buy any but the subject of their enquiry. rather utilise the programmes they already have Enquiry 001 Brown - Treaty of Waitangi available within their computers. Most computer Enquiry 002 Smith - Immigration 1880-1900 users, including archivists, being Microsoft users Enquiry 003 Clark - Family History (White family (whether they want to be or not), have an extremely in Canterbury) powerful database available absolutely free. Well, not Using a structured method of titling your free exactly, but included with base Microsoft products documents enables you to better utilise the searching shipped with new computers over the last decade. capability within the system. The sequential This database is used in conjunction with the numbering acts as a de facto chronological file; the letter computer's operating system, to organise and maintain from Smith was answered a little before that from Clark. its own electronic files. So if you use Windows 95, 97, 98; Windows 2000 and Windows ME; or Windows XP, Searching this matter is of interest to you. This last section illustrates how to undertake As the facility comes free with the computer, it is searching. Each of the searchable fields available worthwhile knowing how it can be used for archives within Explorer are set out below. The following management purposes. I believe that, with careful keys/options need to be selected to get to the relevant planning, it is powerful enough to make the use of a screen. separate database unnecessary. There are three separate elements to utilising this Windows Key + E: capability efficiently. The first concerns the way you opens the Explorer window build the overall structure into which you save From Toolbar Menu documents, the second is the use of a standard format Tools / Find / Files or Folders: for document titles, whilst the last element uses the opens the Find window powerful search capabilities which are to be found in the standard Microsoft group of products. Named This allows a search of all titles or parts of titles. File/Directory Structure Thus, you could choose Brown and it would return all The computer automatically sorts saved documents documents with 'Brown' in the title. You could choose into what can be thought of as a big basket. You can 'Treaty' or 'Waitangi' and it would return all see this by opening the Exploring screen (with the documents with either of those words in the title. You cursor over the Start button press the right mouse could also choose '1880' and it would return any button and choose 'Explore'). You can divide this document with that in the title. 'basket' up into separate parts, known as files or You can do a search looking for any document titles folders. Each of these can have sub-files or sub-folders. which have the words Brown or Clark in them by Thus, you could have the following file structure: simply entering 'Brown Clark'.

Researchers Register Containing text Enquiries & Letters All Word or Excel documents stored by the Permissions operating system are almost instantly available using Archives Collections this search mechanism. Essentially, the system uses Joe Bloggs Papers the same procedure it would use if it was creating an Cat Care Society Papers index of all the documents in the directory. Thus, any Diary of William Tell word or combination of characters can be searched. The usefulness of this is self evident. You can also do 'OR' searches - where there may be Titles a number of different words which may have been The available searching capacity allows you to used in the documents. If you enter 'tram railway' search any word, or part of word, in the title of saved (without quotations) the system will find all document. Thus, to carry on the example above, you documents which contain the word 'tram' and all may decide you want to keep a record of details of all documents which contain the word 'railway'. Look In Type This allows you to direct your search to just the part It is possible to search only those documents which of the directory file structure which is likely to have are of a particular type. Thus, you can just look as the documents you want. Thus, using the example Word documents or just Excel documents. above, we would ensure that the search was in the 'Enquiries & Letters' directory. If you would like extra assistance, or information about putting the above into practice, you can contact Date the author directly: [email protected]. It is possible to enter a search for documents amended between various dates, or documents created in the last few days or few months. Council News

Council has put in a submission on the National We ask that the decision to not incorporate Library Bill, mainly along the lines of an earlier sprinklers in the new library be overturned so that submission, and we have had notification that this the Council can meet its legal responsibilities under has been received and circulated to members of the the above legislation. Education and Science Select Committee, who are considering the Bill. Yours sincerely We await with interest the presentation of the Public Records Bill to Parliament; current David Retter indications are that this will happen during 2003. President, New Zealand Society of Archivists The Council is looking at some new training initiatives; time will tell whether they bear any fruit. [See stories in News Items.] A recent news article stated that the Kapiti Coast District Council was building a new public library EDUKIT Course building, which would also house archives. Rosemary Collier ran a course for 8 participants However, the Council decided not to install at AgResearch in Upper Hutt at the end of sprinklers in the building, against the advice of the September. The one-day course covered the basics New Zealand Fire Service. The Society wrote to of archives work, and was attended by people from the Mayor as follows: a variety of backgrounds, including three from AgResearch itself. Holding a course at a venue with Sprinklers in New Library lovely grounds and tuis in the tree outside the We understand from newspaper publicity that it window on a beautiful spring day must have is the intention of the Council to construct a enhanced the learning experience! building for the housing of library and archive Several people who could not attend indicated material which will not contain sprinklers. The interest in participating in a course at another time, reason advanced is that the building was so if you wish to be included on a list for another considered a Tow fire risk'. course in the Wellington region, possibly early in Our society, which represents professional 2003, contact Rosemary on 04-233-8155, or fax 04- archivists working in New Zealand, wishes to point 233-2031. out that we believe such a decision is short sighted and fails to recognise that archive material is unique Conservation Supplies and in the event of destruction cannot be replaced. Materials for the preservation of our cultural heritage The whole rationale of providing suitable Megan and Jack Fry announce that they have sold accommodation and care of archives is precisely the business to Jim and Margaret Morrison, and to minimise all possibility of damage whatever the from 30 September 2002, Conservation Supplies cause. Under the provisions of section 256 of the Local Ltd. will be trading as: Government Act, 1974 local bodies are required to Conservation Supplies (not Ltd.) protect their archives. PO Box 646 'Every local authority shall do all things WARKWORTH necessary or expedient to provide adequate telephone 09-425-7380 protection for and the use of, and for access to, any fax 09-425-7385 local archives....' e-mail [email protected] Fire protection, including sprinkler systems, Jack and Megan will continue the work would, we believe be the minimum needed to meet undertaking conservation treatments, and can be this requirement. contacted on 04-239-9426, or fax 04-239-9447. ANZ Bank Archives Kirsty McClea

The ANZ Banking Group (New Zealand) Limited order to manage both risk and cost to the recently appointed me as its Records Manager and organisation. The primary purpose of the records Archivist. The position is based at ANZ Tower in manager position is to ensure that the needs of the Wellington. I took up this new position in October organisation are being met. Consequently, a larger after working as an Information Advisor in allocation of my time will be given to the records Information Management - Records at Wellington management role. However, the combination of the City Council. I had previously worked as an role of records manager and archivist will make the archivist at Archives New Zealand's Head Office in identification of records available for transfer more Wellington, and as a records officer at Christchurch efficient, as there will be regular contact between Polytechnic. I have also been employed in the the records manager and the business units. Archives department at Canterbury Museum and As the Archives had not previously been closely at what was then National Archives' Christchurch aligned with records management, this has meant Regional Office. that some transfers of materials have contained ANZ had previously employed a part-time items of dubious archival quality. Therefore, the goal archivist, but the position of records manager is new is to create a more streamlined business-focused to the ANZ in New Zealand. The previous lack of Archives, and this will involve reappraisal of some consistency in co-ordinating of transferring records accessioned items. There is also work to be done in to off-site storage and Archives was obvious. order to align the function of records management However, with the new position, the Archives is now and Archives to the standards and procedures in a position of strength to become a functional currently in place in ANZ Australia. business Archives rather than a receptacle for Any queries regarding the bank's archives can be collectable items that business units no longer want. directed to me by telephone on (04) 496 8719, or by Retention and disposal schedules are in place in email at [email protected]. Reviews

Archives New Zealand Second Annual Report 2002 Wellington, Archives New Zealand, 2002. ISSN1175 6969, pbk 24x15cm, 71pp. gratis, www.archives.govt.nz. AJHR G61 2002. Reviewed by Frank Rogers and Rosemary Collier.

This is the second Annual Report of the stand­ not shrink into obscurity. alone Archives New Zealand since it was created; Logistically, this year's volume is more difficult Dianne Macaskill as Chief Executive and Chief to use than its predecessor. Although only 12 pages Archivist reports to Hon. Marian Hobbs, the longer than the 2001 report, the 2002 one does not minister responsible for Archives New Zealand. lie flat: instead of having a stapled spine, it has a The Report covers the period 1 July 2001 to 30 June glued, hard spine. Given the volume's narrow 2002. There are 24 pages of archives report, 29 width, this means it has to be held down to be read. pages of financial statements and 5 pages of other One of the achievements noted in this year's information. The first Report set out the report is the transfer of a large quantity of Government's overall outcomes and this Report important nineteenth century records from LINZ sets out the outcomes (i.e. goals) of Archives New (many of them records which Archives has tried Zealand, Keeper of the Public Record - the Memory for many years to prise from Lands and Survey of Government. Given that the report is to the Department and its successors: Department of minister and Parliament, it has somewhat limited Survey and Land Information, and its successor value for the ordinary reader, with its discussion Land Information New Zealand, but the report does of 'Outcomes' and 'Statement of Intent'. not say this). Others are the appointment of This report is rather unhelpful for discovering Archives New Zealand as Custodian of the information. How do you find anything? The Government Information Locator Service metadata Contents page is not very useful compared with standard; the development of GLADIS, a that of the 2001 report: Foreword, Archives New computerised system for easing access to the Zealand Outcomes, The Department, Overview finding aids, which will be available to the public, from the Chief Executive, Achievements, Financial early next year, (though not complete for five Statements, Other Information. And that designer! years), and the launching of the Access Standard. Terracotta sub-headings on a pale pink background. Particularly significant is progress on the Public Headings are supposed to stand out from the text, Records Bill: broad policy positions approved by Cabinet, and drafting instructions nearing a comparison in several fields. This source is an completion. Australian Council of Archives statistical While much of the report is inevitably taken up publication in 1996 partly the responsibility of a with administrative and financial information, former Archives New Zealand staff member (long- there are some interesting photographs since resident in Australia). Putting those statistics accompanying descriptions of aspects of the together with some from last year's annual report institution's work. There are charts and tables, but (which covered only nine months, and some crucial none showing yearly comparative statistics for figures were not included [na), the following table archives holdings, which is surprising. We can can be compiled: glean from another source enough statistics to make

1991 1995 2001 2002

Total holdings 48,962 63,166 na 77,500 (in linear metres)

Staff 72 83 na 123

Accessions 4,635 3,715 2,600 2,438 (textual archives)

Archives produced 32,117 45,534 53,797 48,893 in reading room

Reader visits 9,304 14,959 17,107 15,256

An oddity in this year's report is that statistics with have been marked off. The computer should are given for access services, and a chart shows be the servant of the researchers, not their master. "remote reference enquiries to Archives New This impacts particularly on out-of-town users, Zealand". One would assume that this would cover who find themselves wasting some of their precious the same classes of reference enquiries as those time in Wellington hanging about waiting for the recorded in a different form in last year's report. next batch run from the stacks. This is primitive, But the chart shows a figure of approx. 6,000, and needs to improve. Another aspect of reference slightly fewer than for last year. Yet last years' services, written enquiries, needs a little courtesy figures are 6,241 written enquiries and 3,937 for added, whereby enquirers can receive an email enquiries. Surely both types should make acknowledgement of their request (as is always sent up the total? Last year's total is therefore 10,178. by Ministerial offices, no doubt much better staffed) We can only assume, therefore, that this year's total and be given an idea of when their letter will be excludes emailed enquiries. responded to, rather than wait many weeks without Some matters not addressed on which even knowing if the request is in process. information would have been of value concern Our spies tell us that some records in the staff. While it is pleasing to see that pay scales have Auckland Regional Office are being reorganised been improved (and the new pay scales are shown), and the finding aids computerised, without the old it would be valuable to know if this has helped to references being still available. This is not good halt an exit of qualified and experienced staff. archival practice, nor helpful to readers. GLADIS While training is planned for the next year, we are will, we trust, not amplify problems of this sort. given no information of the qualifications and Undoubtedly much top management time has experience of existing staff. been spent on planning, implementing the new It is interesting to note that the demand-driven department, and initiating the GLADIS system activities, i.e. accessions, productions in the reading (whatever happened to ELMS? It is not mentioned; room and reader visits increased last year on 1995 perhaps it died of Dutch elm disease!). While figures, but are down this year. Perhaps the description of exhibitions, and of international publicity surrounding the creation of the new participation are nice to have, we look forward to department and the appointment of a new Chief next year's reporting of some of the long-awaited Executive brought additional interest in the achievements: professional education for staff, institution and the services it offers, which has improved finding aids via GLADIS, and the waned a little since. enactment (after nearly 30 years from the first Hopefully, though there is no mention of this in moves in this direction) of new legislation. the report, GLADIS might assist reading room Perhaps at an official launch of GLADIS, there services. It should be possible for readers to be might be a ceremonial shredding of a few of the issued with new items before ones already finished worst of the paper-based finding aids! Archives New Zealand - Statement of Intent 2002- 2003. Wellington, Archives New Zealand, May 2002. Pbk 52pp. 1SSN1175 8686, gratis, www.archives.govt.nz. AJHR G61(SOI) 2002. Reviewed by Michael Hodder.

Good intentions of instruction to agencies to the "safe preservation" of As a comparatively new government department, records, distinguishing it from advice on "efficient and Archives New Zealand has to fulfil a number of economical administration and management" of public reporting requirements which previously fell to records. However, the Chief Executive's Introduction Internal Affairs. The departmental forecast report notes the proposed Public Records legislation will (DFR) required under the Public Finance Act is one of "empower Archives New Zealand to ensure that the these. However, these reports, primarily financial in standards set for recordkeeping are implemented by all nature, are being progressively upgraded to a broader government agencies". approach, termed statements of intent (SOIs). Such The section on Enduring principles addresses the statements emphasise the link between what a integrity of the public record, partnership with Maori, particular department is doing and the results which accessibility, openness, trust, and professional the Government wants to achieve - an "outcomes" excellence. These are important, even noble, but approach. Performance indicators to demonstrate convey a hint of isolation. I wonder about a leadership outcome achievement are critical to this, and role in the records/archives/information community, departments are expected to address organisational and a broader sense of partnership - with record capability and risk. This is still a new approach. Only creators and archives users. this year has the State Services Commission published The assessment of capability starts, intelligently, its SOI apart from a DFR. The National Library will with the people employed by Archives New Zealand, not publish its first SOI until next year. noting the need to develop expertise in providing The SOI begins with a short Statement of purpose advice on current recordkeeping (including electronic for Archives New Zealand, followed by the Chief records) and in understanding Maori needs. From Executive's Introduction. Sections follow this on there, the resources of the Archives: its budget ($14.2 Outcomes, Enduring principles, Capability (including million) and holdings (77 km of records) are noted. risk), Financial statements, and finally two appendices. Areas for development include improving the storage The Chief Executive's Introduction foreshadows the environment within the Auckland repository and provision of internet access to archival finding aids finding additional storage space. So far, there is no and contextual information about the holdings, an hint of the approach taken by the National Archives important development since, by comparison with its of Australia to review its holdings - and its public Australian counterpart, Archives New Zealand is well facilities - and use the savings generated to provide a behind in terms of provision of public electronic access. much improved standard of description for the The Introduction also notes the development of a remaining holdings. Time will tell whether Archives recordkeeping framework, and comments on the issues New Zealand needs to contemplate a similar choice, posed by electronic records. The national Archives in once it has developed a more detailed knowledge of both Australia and New Zealand have secured a the costs of managing access in an electronic similar position with respect to metadata in environment, and also managing electronic records in government, through being the custodian of the that environment. System improvements in appraisal Government Locator Service, and this seems a good and the development of electronic finding aids are both foundation for further collaboration. highlighted. The final two areas of capability are The Outcomes section explains what each outcome organisational culture and relationships; both vital to means and the ways in which the Archives will achieve success. Leadership, understanding needs (agency and them - what the SOI terms "interventions". The reader community), reinforcing agency initiatives and is warned that many of the named interventions are in providing support to them, improving consultation place already so this section does not readily highlight with stakeholders, and developing strategies to meet new projects. However, one that is new is to "develop the possible increased demand are all foreshadowed. and operate a compliance program". Here we learn that The Financial statements begin with a commentary "agencies need to understand the benefits of good about significant underlying assumptions. Much of recordkeeping... and be made aware that non compliance this will be replicated in SOIs from other departments needs to be publicly documented as part of government and there is no commentary to suggest where there expectations and accountability". The ways in which are unique assumptions for the Archives. There are this will be carried out include reports on the state of no notes to the forecasts themselves so, for example, government recordkeeping and agency reporting and one can only guess why the 2001 /02 budgeted $309,000 recordkeeping audits. This is commendably ambitious cash from departments is continued as a forecast for - but it also contains a worrying dilemma. How easily 2002/03 when the actual cash earned from can the Archives provide advice and also monitor how departments in 2001/02 was $120,000, or why the total well it is used? In a sense, the degree of compliance is a annual accommodation operating commitments will measure of the effectiveness of Archives New Zealand - drop from an actual $2,059,000 in 2001 /02 to a forecast not just of the agency whose records management $1,633,000. Nor can one see how much the small practices are being scrutinised. In addition, such a stance digital repository (projected for 2002/03) will cost, looks beyond the enforcement capability of the Archives although presumably it is part of the $910,000 stated Act, since section 12 limits the Chief Archivist's power as the forecast purchase of physical assets. The Statement of objectives and forecast financial The two appendices are significant. Appendix 1 sets performance for each class of outputs during 2002/03 out, in tabular form, the respective recordkeeping roles sets out 18 different performance targets. The of agencies and the Archives - the ideal partnership measures which imply stretch for the Archives are not matrix, if you like. What it does not show is how those with targets 95% or higher. Rather, it will be the agencies and the Archives inter-relate in areas such as 70% of written reference enquiries being answered developing standards or training. Appendix 2 is an within 15 working days and the 80% of respondents organisational chart which has now been superseded, scoring 7 or greater on a client satisfaction scale of 1 to with the decision to abandon the separation of the 9. It would be good to see targets extended to measure National Archives "business" from the Statutory and the time when documentation about transfers becomes Regulatory Group. That organisational structure was publicly accessible, and measuring the impact of the controversial when initiated in 1995/96; but not to Archives' advice and policies across central and local foreshadow its abandonment in the SOI is surprising government agencies. Surprisingly, the intended since the planning for such a change is likely to have surveys of recordkeeping practices are absent from this been in progress when the SOI was being prepared. statement. This section includes a breakdown of The only staff change particularly noted in the forecast expenditure by output. Selection and Capability section is the establishment of a Maori description is increased by $979,000 (up 33% from the Manager position. budgeted 2001/02 level - curiously, the estimated While the structure of the Statement of Intent makes actual 2001/02 level is not provided in this table, for a fractured presentation, it shows Archives New although it is in other tables.). The structure of the Zealand grappling with the many challenges facing SOI appears to preclude linking this forecast government Archives throughout the world. At this expenditure to projects or initiatives, although it may stage, the Archives seems to be probing relevant issues, well relate to the planned work on finding aids and although it looks light on defining effective working improving appraisal. There is no change for 2002/03 relationships with agencies - both central and local in the $878,000 allocated to recordkeeping advice, government - and on the urgency to know about policies and standards. This is surprising, because the current recordkeeping practices in agencies. In the next capability analysis draws attention to the focus on year or two, the Archives should be more securely improving government recordkeeping, an area in placed to consult with its wide range of stakeholders which the SOI is "much less developed" than on the about critical choices, before setting and implementing work required to enable access to government archives. its priorities.

Robin H Griffin: Victorian Bank Architecture in New Zealand. O'Griffy Publishing, Auckland, 2002. ISBN 0-473-08228-4. Pbk., 160 pp, $60 (special price for members of NZSA/subscribers to NZ Archivist: $40). Azmlable from the author: Robin H. Griffin, 10 Charlton Avenue, Mt Eden, Auckland 1003. Telephone 09 630 7220, e-mail: [email protected] Reznewed by Kevin Bourke.

This book, by the former Bank of New Zealand and security of the banks concerned. The solidly archivist, traces the development of New Zealand bank panelled interiors and the heavy closed panel door of architecture, commencing with a general history of the manager's office suggested that each client's Victorian architecture. Griffin notes the influences which business was strictly confidential.". He observes that inspired the work of New Zealand architects in their colloquially, this style was known rather disparagingly design of bank buildings. In the first chapter he uses as "bankers' baroque" - high two-storeyed banking this as a background to show how practices in Britain chambers with entrance porticoes, lit by tall windows and US had a significant influence over the later designs or overhead lighting, and externally enhanced with of New Zealand architects such as William Mason, columns and sometimes even gates. William Armson, Edward Mahoney, Christian Toxward The text is enliven by the occasional anecdote. The and Thomas Turnbull. story is told of why the Bank of New Zealand building The book shows how the development of bank in Mangaweka is so much larger than its counterpart building, not surprisingly, parallels the growth and in Taihape. It seems that the architect who designed prosperity of the regions the banks served. Thus, early both accidentally swapped the plans whilst drunk, so buildings were often nothing more than tents or one- the smaller town got the grander building. There is room huts. These in turn gave way to buildings of more useful information about general banking history. The substance. The author identifies a variety of styles: author remarks in passing that banks were reputed to "tavern like" structures which were two-storey box­ have included staff accommodation in bank buildings shaped buildings, often on major street intersections; because if they had staff on the premises 24 hours a day 'suburban" which were not box-shaped and were in they got markedly reduced insurance premiums. the suburbs; and 'city style' - multi-storeyed and ornate. The book is well illustrated with both photographs It is the last style which most of us associate with and plans, supported by an extensive section of notes Victorian banks in New Zealand. Griffin notes that and a substantial bibliography. This book is rather a customers "...wanted dignified buildings which specialist publication and will appeal to those interested inspired confidence in their clients as to the soundness in New Zealand architecture, and banking history. NEWS ITEMS Report details art lost on 9/11 Pictures welcomed home NEW YORK: First editions of Helen Keller's books, The Whanganui Regional Museum yesterday [21 sculptures by Auguste Rodin, artefacts from a centuries- July 2002] received not only the William Partington old Manhattan cemetery, thousands of photographs of Photographic Collection but also an album dated 1893 Broadway, off-Broadway and even off-off-Broadway of original photographs of Wanganui Maori and scenes. shows... all were lost, along with thousands of other The album was presented by Piripi Haami. He said it important works of art, photographs, negatives, was posted to him by a man in England who had read artefacts and historical documents, when the World of Whanganui River Maori efforts to obtain the Trade Center towers collapsed, a new report shows. Partington Collection. The man wanted no payment "There was stuff put in vaults that were simply for the album, believing it should be returned to the vaporised," said Lawrence Reger, president of the descendants of those depicted. Mr Haami did not Heritage Preservation, a Washington DC-based cultural- elaborate further. preservation organisation that released the report. It About 200 people, including many descendants of surveyed 57 museums, archives and cultural institutions Whanganui River Maori photographed by Partington close to the Trade Center site. It focused on the scope of in the 1890s and early 1900s, turned out to witness the what was lost in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon arrival of the photographs and negatives at the during the September 11 attacks. museum. Whanganui River Maori Trust Board "In emergencies, sometimes there is simply nothing chairman Archie Taiaroa and the museum's joint you can do." council chairman Rangi Wills, said the homecoming Within and around the twin towers were such works of the collection was due to the tremendous efforts of as Fritz Koenig's The Sphere and the Rodin collection the community as a whole - Maori and Pakeha. in the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading firm "We are really relieved to have all these photographs that lost 658 of its nearly 1000 employees. The Sphere, and negatives here. On the other hand, we are very which sat in the concourse between the towers, was disappointed we had to go through such a process. badly damaged and now serves as part of a temporary When our tipuna paid to sit for the photographs, but memorial in nearby Battery Park. "It was next to a then their descendants lose the rights in terms of miracle that the Koenig sphere survived in any way.," control of the photographs and publication rights Mr Reger said. appropriate legislation needs to be put in place to But most of the rare casts of Rodin sculptures did not ensure this does not continue to happen. However, we survive. Those that did were badly damaged. are extremely happy that the community have joined Almost the complete Port Authority of New York and together to ensure the whole collection returned to New Jersey archive was destroyed, including papers, Wanganui, iwi and Pakeha, and that brings extra photographs and blueprints detailing the construction of happiness. May it continue. I am grateful for that," the World Trade Center and dozens of other landmarks. Mr Taiaroa said. Nearly 40,000 of photographer Jacques Lowe's Mr Wills said copies of the photographs could be negatives, detailing John F Kennedy's presidency, were obtained by descendants, but first, restoration work lost when 5 World Trade Center was heavily damaged had to be done and, hopefully, a national sponsor in the attack, destroying the bank vault where they were would be found for this. Descendants' help in stored. Lowe's family estimated the negatives were identifying many of the 735 photographs would be worth nearly $US2 million ($4 million). needed, he said, a request that led to a number of "Most people did not think that the World Trade people giving information on the 50 or so photographic towers had such a variety and such a wide breadth of prints on display. historical items," Mr Reger said. It is more than 10 months since the fight to obtain The Heritage Preservation report also showed that the collection began. Following the cancellation of its hundreds of thousands of items in nearby institutions were sale by auction, much negotiation and fundraising, the saved by quick-thinking find good emergency plans. "The Whanganui Regional Museum brought [sic] the good news is that people really took commonsense action collection for $135,000. The money came from the and that helped save quite a lot," Mr Reger said. "Most of Whanganui Community Foundation, Whanganui those who did that had some kind of plan, but we do River Maori Trust Board, MaraeKowhai Whenua Trust, think too many institutions don't have proper planning." Nga Tama o Ngati Haua, Atihau Whanganui For example, just across the street from where the Incorporation and Morikaunui Incorporation. towers once stood, administrators at the Museum of Mary Bryan, Wanganui Chronicle, 22 July 2002. Jewish Heritage climbed to the roof and manually cranked vents closed when power was lost. As the towers [This article raises copyright problems. The interpretation burned in the background, they stayed to turn off water of the Copyright Act given to the Society's 1999 Seminar on Copyright by one of New Zealand's leading intellectual valves, even though police ordered them to leave. When property lawyers, was that the commissioner of a they returned, not a trace of dust, which can be lethal to photograph is the owner of the copyright, which therefore artefacts, was found inside the museum, even though gives him /her rights over its reproduction. This is different lower Manhattan was covered in a thick layer. to the situation of an article in a newspaper, magazine etc. NZPA /AP Manawatu Evening Standard, 2 June 2002. where the author retains copyright unless the he/she is an employee. In addition, 'sale of an original work does not of a virtual library of the attacks being compiled by carry with it an implied sale of copyright in that work'. scholars in Virginia and New York. (Sec. 21(3) of the Act.) However, copyright in photographs, The September 11th Digital Archive "will serve as a as with other works, expires fifty years after the death of the author. Consultations between government authorities new platform in which people can make their own and Maori over Maori cultural property rights are ongoing, history," said Jim Sparrow, one of the organisers of the and some Waitangi Tribunal claims have included taonga, project, which is accessible online. Chrissie Brodigan, a which embraces such things as photographs and film graduate student working with Sparrow on the site at footage. Ed.] the Center for New Media and History at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, said the goal is to create $7 million Archives project 'a little a national memory of the attacks. Sparrow and his behind schedule' colleagues at George Mason, which is about 20 minutes west of the Pentagon, started the project in January by ARCHIVES New Zealand says a $7 million visiting victims and families in New York, Washington computerisation project, designed to make its vast and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the four collection reference material more accessible to hijacked planes crashed. researchers, is a little behind schedule but should be Since then, the researchers have collected hundreds completed in about six months. The original timeline of e-mail and chat room messages, photos and online for the project, announced in last year's Budget, has personal diaries from people nationwide relating to their not been disclosed. The government agency is September 11 experiences. Also sought are text messages developing electronic search tools to help people such transmitted by beeper that day from people trying to as historians and investigative journalists find reassure friends and loved ones. government documents in its collection. Archives NZ Beaty and her husband, Kirk, already had spoken by is custodian to 7 million historical documents phone after the attacks started. At 12.18pm, more than generated by government, which occupy about 70 three hours after the first plane struck the World Trade kilometres of shelving. Much of the material is Center, she sat at a computer and wrote the e-mail that manually indexed. would be relayed to worried friends and relatives. After General manager of archives business, Chris Hurley, telling them she was all right, she detailed the chaos: says the Gladys [sic, actually Gladis] project to create the "Had I made the train I was trying to this AM, I would electronic finding aids is still in development. "There has have been in the WTC when the plane hit. Pays to be been a little bit of slippage. We will still hopefully get all late sometimes," she wrote. "Was standing next to some the iterations in this year, but a bit later than hoped." people that were in the building across from the Tower Archives staff should get access to the computerised - they saw the plane hit and then saw people jumping search system within the next few months and Gladys out the windows. It was absolutely the most horrible should be available for public use in reading rooms by thing I have ever witnessed in my life." December - or February at the latest, Mr Hurley says. Kirk Beaty said he submitted the e-mail to the archive Much of the budget for Gladys is being eaten up by because it "represented an unaltered view of events of the need to key details of Archives' collection into a that day from the people who were personally involved, database, but the project has a significant technology instead of a professionally edited form of the same component. IT services firm Unisys New Zealand has news." the $1 million-plus contract to deliver the core software Keith Riggle was working at the Pentagon when for Gladys, awarded a year ago. American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building. Mr Hurley says it may be later before the search facility The subject line of his e-mail sent three days later, reads becomes available over the Net. "The contract calls for it "We're fine. I think we all know that these attacks will to be Internet-ready, but the operational decision - have a profound impact on life in the US and how we whether or not the data we have on it makes it desirable see ourselves and the world. ... I know I'll never feel to put on the Internet - has more to do with legacy back- comfortable flying again," he wrote. capture that will take place over the next three years." Projects like the archive represent a new way to take The database describing Archives' collection will snapshots of historical events and to record how assign about a dozen fields to each document - such America reacts to them, said Lee Rainie, director of the as its title and details of the agency that created it - Pew Internet and American Life Project. Dozens of other allowing to readers to use intelligent searches to track sites have similar functions, though few store e-mails government information. or text messages, as the digital archive does, Rainie said. Tom Pullar-Strecker, NZ Infotech no.549, Dominion For instance, a separate site, The September 11 Web Post, 5 August 2002. Archive, tracked and stored government, media and other web pages related to the attacks as they were Digital archive for disaster images viewed on September 11 and in the months after. "One FAIRFAX, Virginia.- After a long walk uptown to of the learning experiences from September 11 is that escape the unfolding disaster at the World Trade Center the Internet is a great way to catalogue and pull together last September 11, Lisa Beaty made her way to a these communications shortly after they occur," Rainie Manhattan office, sat down in front of a computer and said. "Almost any major news event that occurs in the e-mailed two words that friends and relatives were future, you will see similar sites develop." anxious to see: "I'm okay." That message and hundreds Genaro Armas of the Associated Press, Wanganui of other e-mails, photographs and video images are part Chronicle, 21 August 2002. Japan N-plants caught falsifying New home for rare books core records Staff in the new Special Collections section of the University's General Library live in a constant JAPANESE authorities have ordered all power temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, with 55 percent companies to inspect their nuclear plants after the relative humidity. Much more importantly, so do the country's biggest electricity producer was found books, which include such treasures as several original to have falsified records of the inspection and repair editions of James Cook's voyages valuable not only for of cracks surrounding the reactor cores of three of their historical significance but also for their wonderful its nuclear facilities. drawings. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency All rare books and archival material from the General announced it had found evidence of 29 cases of and Science Libraries have now been placed in the new false reporting on the inspections of cracks at the air-conditioned Special Collections section on the facilities and other major problems at three plants ground floor of the General Library. This is a big step owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) during forward for the Library, explains Special Collections the late 1980s and early 1990s. Librarian, Stephen Innes. Previously these valuable The revelations follow an investigation of the materials were scattered through several different areas company's documentation prompted by a and, thought stored in air-conditioned rooms, they were whistleblower's leak almost two years ago. It has taken out to be read in the Library reading rooms which shown incorrect records were kept on suspected offered no special atmospheric protection. cracks or signs of cracks, in the core structures of In the new area, the Special Collections, which include 13 reactors at the three plants. the New Zealand and General Glass Case collections, Tepco outsourced the checking process to the rare science books, and the archives and General Electric International, the Japanese arm of manuscripts, have their own separate reading room, US giant General Electric. It remains unclear under the surveillance of staff. whether Tepco or GE is to blame for the Since the move, use of the collections has increased falsifications. by about 20 percent, probably, says Stephen, because of Stephen Lunn, The Weekend Australian, 31 the more prominent position of the collections. The August-1 September 2002. materials occupy about 1500 linear metres, with around 60 percent now on sliding compactor shelving which Historic records stolen allows for high-density storage. Storage systems are state-of-the-art, with work areas designed to allow for The Royal New Zealand Returned Services' efficient sorting and processing and a range of acid-free Association is appealing for the return of materials used to encapsulate or box books or irreplaceable historic records taken in a burglary of documents. its National Headquarters in Wellington on the 31 Because of the rare and unique nature of most August/1 September. The Willis Street offices were material in the Special Collections, staff must do all the broken into sometime between 6pm Friday and early photocopying on behalf of readers. For this purpose a Saturday morning. A high security safe containing Minolta PS7000 scanner has been bought. This is an historic documents and computer discs which also overhead scanner which will scan up to A2 size, without contained historical data was taken. The thieves also the need to compress the book as is necessary in a flatbed took a computer server that contained information scanner. Especially designed for rare books in libraries on the day-to-day running of the organisation. and museums, it can be adjusted to different heights Though the RNZRSA has insurance and can and to variable focal lengths (needed for scanning large replace many of the items taken, Chief Executive Pat open books). Herbert said that, ''We are most concerned about Readers can copy the microtexts themselves, using a the contents of the safe, which included a hand­ variety of machines producing high-quality images with written book listing everyone the Association had digital technology. The resulting scans from microfilm honoured during its 86-year history." or microfiche can be printed directly or emailed to the The information was invaluable as it recognised user's home address if they have University of the work of those who had performed a range of Auckland affiliation. services for RSAs nationwide, such as hospital visits, A major and very exciting future development is helping people in the community or those who were scheduled to happen later this year, says Stephen. The homebound. It is irreplaceable. "That record is entire archives of the Western Pacific High Commission really, really special to us. It's not worth anything are to be transferred from Britain to the University commercially and we'd like whoever took it to get Library. With the arrival of these archives - described in touch with us some way or arrange its return by Stephen as an historical and ethnographical gold­ through a third party," says Pat Herbert. mine - the University's position as a Pacific research National Headquarters would also like to inform centre will be greatly strengthened. local RSAs, RSA members, as well as members of Stephen is assisted in Special Collections by Giles the public that they may encounter delays in Margetts, the microtexts supervisor; Natalie Mahony, response to their enquiries as staff undertake the task the library assistant; and Jocelyn Somerford, the of retrieving lost information. weekend assistant. www.rsa.org.nz September media release. The University of Auckland News, September 2002. The sum of us with pride about their "leading edge" approach. The Should 10e put a price on a treasured Gallipoli war diary, new rules are undeniably tidy, bringing more or ourfounding national document? Ruth Laugesen reports harmony to accounting standards between the on a museum revolt against a new accountancy fad. public and private sectors. VETERAN auctioneer Dunbar Sloane remembers "We want to set standards that reflect best practice the peculiar experience of being asked to help put a and also result in transparent and comparable price tag on the priceless - the Treaty of Waitangi. information for different entities," says institute "It's an emotional thing to do," says the man who director of accounting and professional standards has spent his life dispatching everything from Lay Wee Ng. "If you pick up financial statements, household china to the rarest of antiquities. you would like to think that they show a true and "I sort of worked on a world price value. I did it fair view of the operations and the financial position on the basis of, what would a world collector of such of an entity." things in the book world buy it for. I had to say to But there is revolt among the country's big myself, if it was put up for auction, there would be regional museums, who say they don't need a dollar somebody out there who collects important sign on a balance sheet to recognise an item of documents, and maybe drawings of Leonardo da immense value. The Auckland War Memorial Vinci or something like that. I just took it as a job. Museum, the Museum of Transport and Technology, It's not going to leave the country and it's a wonderful the Canterbury Museum and the Otago Museum are document and I valued it very highly." Archives New all refusing to comply with the new accounting Zealand also consulted Sotheby's in London, arriving standards. at a valuation of $30 million. "We're not against valuation per se, but our board But the practise [sic] of reducing precious artefacts policy is it's a waste of time and effort for no realistic like the Treaty to dollars and cents on a balance sheet return. It's a very expensive exercise to undertake is repellent to some. "It's gross. The God money on a regular basis. The collections are held in trust pervades everything," says Dr Ranginui Walker, in perpetuity, so we can never realise the valuations emeritus professor at Auckland University. "It's the anyway," says Canterbury Museum director rich and the greedies who use art and artefacts as Anthony Wright through a spokesperson. alternative tokens to money. It's a repulsive game." The country's biggest regional museum is the For a decade, Treasury has required institutions Auckland War Memorial Museum, famed for the like Archives New Zealand, Te Papa and the quality of its Maori and Pacific collections. It is National Library to tot up the value of their preparing to publish its annual accounts next month treasures. Archives' holdings are currently in a form that makes accountants everywhere blanch estimated to be worth $542m, including $20m for - with a caveat attached to the accounts. Museum the 1835 declaration of independence of northern director Rodney Wilson says the caveat will be chiefs, and $10m for the women's suffrage petition mildly worded, explaining that the museum refuses that led to New Zealand becoming the first country to comply withthe new rules. "It's not a good look, in the world to give women the vote. Te Papa's but it's a bad look that we're prepare to live with. treasures have been valued at $526m, while the rare Somebody has to fly the flag of common sense. It's books and manuscripts at National Library have dogma. They've come up with something which in been valued at $671m. accounting terms makes a lot of sense to them. But Putting a value on the nations treasure's has made no difference to funding the three organisations, but it makes no sense in many places out in the it has made the crown look wealthier. The assets marketplace." Wilson is calling on the accountants make up more than $1.7b of the crown's $72b of to repeal the new ruling, dubbed FRS3. "How do assets in the latest financial year. But you won't find you value a 19th century waka taua {war canoe}? the Americans rushing to have the Declaration of Or a major, major 19th century meeting house? Independence valued. New Zealand, followed soon These things never come up on the market. Why do after by Australia, is so far alone in requiring its museums collect? They don't collect with a view to public institutions to view its heritage assets with a reselling, so there's no market relativity." gimlet eye. Elsewhere, government accounts are less A Gallipoli war diary, treasured by the soldier's complete. They reflect only spending and revenue, descendentsfsic] and full of intimate observations, was not assets and liabilities. But now this antipodean an example of the sort of item that might be given to enthusiasm for nailing down the price of everything the museum. "It may be for that family, the most is spreading beyond central government. valuable thing they possess, more valuable than the New accounting standards from the Institute of house they live in, because of its emotional significance. Chartered Accountants which came into force from And we put five and sixpence on it - and the family's June require beancounters in local governments and mortified, because that's all it's said to be worth," says trusts to start accounting for heritage assets just like Wilson. At the end of the day are you going to allow any other item of property, plant and equipment. your sense of value to be so impoverished that the The edict covers everything from public monuments market is the benchmark against which everything is erected by local authorities to the butterfly judged? The museums are standing firm and saying specimens in regional museums. Accountants speak this is nonsense and we're not going to do it." Wilson also has concerns that publishing the to persuade Treasury that only a nominal value value of Auckland Museum's collections would should be put on collections. "We felt it was an give strength to museum sceptics. "It raises extremely difficult task and did question whether we political issues, the sort of stupid comment you really came up with a terribly relevant figure," she sometimes hear in local body politics, well if says. Archives was faced with the task of valuing they've got all that money let them sell something," 77km of records. It grappled with whether to value he says. Ultimate responsibility for the accounts each famous signature individually. In the end of these organisations rests with the office of the Archives decided to assess all but a few exceptional controller and auditor general, which has been documents by the metre. Documents are divided into trying to win museums over to the idea of heritage categories of age, and then simply multiplied by the asset accounting for several years. length of shelving they take up. Deputy controller and auditor general Kevin Boxes of files from 1852 or before are valued at Simpkins acknowledges the idea still needs some $202,400 per metre of shelving, while the 1945-1970 finetuning. "Our view is we think it's important that category comes in at just $2200 per metre. Lindsay there are very good records and information on the Ferguson, manager of financial services at Archives, assets and their worth so there can be good is less than forthcoming when asked whether management. But we have some concerns about the valuing assets has turned out to be a useful difficulty of valuing many of these assets. We have management tool. He sighs, he chuckles and he said work needs to be done by organisations to look umms. "At present we are required to provide valuation figures and we do that." at how these assets can be valued and reach some Sunday Star Times, 22 September 2002. sort of agreement on them. We think if there were clear rules about how we actually apply the valuations, that the effect on the cost side of the Liberated war maps have sting in valuations could be reduced." the tail At Te Papa, corporate services general manager A JAPANESE map of our coast, "liberated" from a Matthew Reid is in favour of the valuations. "It Japanese foxhole on an aerodrome in the Solomon creates a sort of management discipline. It's Islands in 1943, has been presented to the RNZAF obviously also useful for insurance. It puts a value Museum, Ohakea. The map, with two of the Pacific on collections, it creates a discipline in terms of region and two of Fiji, was among other maps and managing them as assets, ie you know where they're "treasure" from a former airman handed to museum stored, where the locations are," says Reid. Te Papa curator Peter Calkin. dealt with the thorny issue of valuation by valuing Mr Calkin said the man had asked not to be much of its collection in bulk. Sections of the identified because he came by the material through collection for which there is a ready market, such as disobeying an order during a clean up 20 years ago. fine arts and ceramics, have been relatively easy to "He was told to throw it out," Mr Calkin said. "And value, with many pieces valued individually. In it's treasure, real treasure." Mr Calkin was told the other collections, the sale of a similar item maps were found after the Japanese were pushed off internationally may provide a benchmark. The Guadalcanal, largest of the Solomon Islands, in 1943. feather cloak given to Captain James Cook by a A New Zealand airman, Flight Lieutenant Spicer, first Hawaiian chief was valued at $5.3m after a similar name unknown as yet, went fossicking. item was sold in the United States. The Maori In an abandoned Japanese dugout he found a collection has had a high and growing valuation number of artifacts, including the maps, Mr Calkin ($151m) because of the thriving international market said. He sold some of the items as mementos to for treasures from indigenous cultures. American servicemen. Some he eventually brought But that valuation, says Walker, "is bullshit. You back to New Zealand, and to Ohakea. The items given cannot put a monetary value on a greenstone pendant, to the museum include a number of Ohakea ground tiki, or anything like that that's been owned and worn crew training and aircraft maintenance manuals, the by generations and centuries of ancestors. They are original bound history of one of the base's long-gone beyond price." support units, and the maps. Oddly, other highly significant items at Te Papa The maps are not significant in terms of the war. have not been valued individually. One is what is They are perfectly standard sea charts, and Mr thought to be the first dinosaur fossil ever found, the Calkin is as curious as anybody why they should so-called holy grail of dinosaur hunters. Found by have been in the Solomons in 1943. They were Gideon Mantell in Sussex in the early 1820s, the printed in Britain from British Admiralty 1900 iguanadon tooth came to New Zealand with his son charts, and with very few exceptions the information Walter Mantell and was given to the former National they contain is in English. However, there is a block Museum. Geologist Hamish Campbell says the of Japanese text printed "in the sea" off Himatangi. discovery changed the course of science, giving What was so important that it needed to be stated immense value to the tooth. in Japanese characters? With the help of city Kathryn Patterson, who headed Archives New restaurateur Atsushi Taniyama the answer was Zealand when the new rules on valuing heritage brought to light, and it's certainly a matter of assets were brought in, says she tried unsuccessfully importance. "Warning: Air Force bombing range extends five it can cost up to $US300 to register a company. miles from coast between Rangitikei River and Ms Harris said they did some consultation with Turakina". Companies Office users, such as search agents, over John Myers, Manawatu Evening Standard, 2 the transfer of paper files which happened from October 2002. June. "We had to work out when the timing was right," she said. "Overall, 73% of our clients are Companies Office shrinks as files using our online service and we want to encourage them to use it." go to Disc National Business Review, 11 October 2002. The Companies Office has defended its decision to get rid of paper files as it moves to a totally Public Records Bill electronic register. If you visit your local Companies In May 2001 Archives New Zealand (ANZ) issued Office today you might be surprised to find what was once a hot and bustling centre full of search a discussion paper on a proposed Public Records agents checking through files is now practically Bill. This seems to have snuck under the radar empty. There is little point trekking in to your local screen in some areas, despite the serious implications office as files are no longer kept there and most the Bill has with regard to the autonomy and information can be more easily accessed online. independence of universities and university staff. At the Auckland Companies Office in Kingston If the underlying tenets of the proposals in the Street there is an area the size of several netball discussion paper are accepted and incorporated in courts of echoing space where the paper files were the Bill it has the potential to fundamentally change once stored. All hard-copy files have been the relationship between universities and the Crown. centralised at a centre in Wellington's Seaview, On page 3 of the 2001 discussion paper ANZ states known as Disc (document and information service that "in this paper the concept of ownership refers centre). The move has resulted in delays in checking to public records owned either by the Crown or by local company files, as requests for hard-copy a Government office under the Crown". ANZ staff documents now must be sent to Disc and will take argue that the concept of 'government' in the Public about 24 hours to process. Records Bill should be applied in the 'broadest sense' However, the shift was not motivated by a desire to all public institutions carrying out 'government to save space, but is part of the Companies Office activities'. The records they produce are therefore visionary plan to become a totally electronic register. 'public records', which are, according to the The office's Auckland regional manager, Mary definition in the discussion paper, owned by the Harris, said most documents are now scanned and Crown. For the purposes of the Public Records Bill, can be viewed online on the Companies Office therefore, ANZ considers universities to be either website, www.companies.govt.nz owned by the Crown or in some other way carrying The world-leading website has been ahead of out the functions of a Government entity. other government departments, and other countries, New Zealand universities have always rejected in successfully encouraging clients to move to an the claim of Crown ownership of their institutions online service. Registrar Neville Harris has made it or that they are agents of government. To quote a a personal crusade to get the Companies Office statement made in the New Zealand Vice online, in the process reducing business compliance Chancellors' Committee (NZVCC) submission on costs - a strategy that has been highly successful. the discussion paper: "Universities are not Ninety five per cent of company name registrations government entities and do not carry on government are now online, 92% of new companies are registered activities...Thus, they are accountable to the public, online and about 86% of annual returns are filed but in a different way from other public bodies, and online. legislation needs to acknowledge this". The NZVCC That shows up other departments, such as the also pointed out that Statute and Common law (e.g. courts, that have no online presence whatsoever with The Education Act 1989 and various Crown Law all transactions still carried out in the sluggish Office and court decisions) recognise the traditional manner. independence of universities. The Companies Office has binned the remnants Indications are that the Public Records Bill would of its old Gliding On bureaucratic culture with its apply well beyond central administrative records. behind-the-scenes operation seeming every bit as At a recent archives conference ANZ staff suggested efficient as any private sector organisation. that it might also apply to lecture notes and research Businesses that are constantly battling red tape and papers produced by academics, unless there are compliance costs have welcomed the Companies specific arrangements to the contrary between Office move to cut charges as operations move academics and the institutions (although there does online, with an online company search now costing seem to be some ambiguity on this point). If lecture only $2. and research notes come under the auspices of the Delegations from other jurisdictions who have Bill it would mean that many of the records of New travelled here to observe the New Zealand example Zealand academics would effectively be considered have been gobsmacked at how cheaply the service 'public records', and the final disposition of those can be provided. In some countries, such as the US, records subject to an externally imposed set of compliance mechanisms. There is also a possibility Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea and that the donated research archives of universities other Hemingway works - will remain in Cuba, while would be considered public records for the purposes digital and microfilm versions will be housed in the of the Bill, this despite the fact that research archives John F Kennedy Library in Massachusetts. are generally accepted on the basis of a private "Cubans have taken care of this collection lovingly contract between the university and the donor. for many, many years," McGovern told AFP, adding A feature of the discussion document that is of that "there is a need for additional resources to particular concern, given ANZ's expressed views on preserve this". Hemingway's widow, Mary, gave including universities, is the suggestion of using an Finca Vigia to the Cuban government upon his death order-in-council mechanism to override provisions in 1961, after which it became a museum. in other legislation that conflict with the Public AFP. Wanganui Chronicle, 13 November 2002. Records Bill. This seems to be an extraordinary amount of power to give to Ministers of the Crown Archivist's huge role recalled and raises the spectre of other pieces of legislation THE memory of city archivist Ian Matheson, who that affect universities been negated for the sake of died in July this year, could live on for many years to the Public Records Bill. come. City librarian Anthony Lewis is recommending Wholesale adoption by universities and university to the city council that the city archives, set up and staff of the concepts presented in the Public Records maintained by Mr Matheson, be renamed the Matheson Bill discussion paper would effectively result in City Archives. Mr Lewis said the city archives had a universities being treated as if they are Government national reputation as one of the finest local-authority departments, offices under the Crown or in some archives in the country, and it was supplemented by an other way agents of Government policy. This outstanding community archives collection. rekindles the debates associated with institutional "Both of these two archives owe much to the autonomy, academic freedom and capital charging professional expertise of the late city archivist, Ian and has the potential to set a precedent that could Matheson. His passion enthusiasm and commitment result in a hitherto unseen level of Government to archives was legendary. I think it's not interference in university activities. unreasonable to suggest that in Palmerston North and As has been pointed out to ANZ, there are the surrounding area, the word 'archives' remains alternative legislative means for ensuring sound synonymous with Ian Matheson." record keeping practices are carried out in the tertiary Mr Matheson was appointed New Zealand's first sector. This could be done by enshrining such local government archivist in 1970 and continued in practices in other legislation that applies to that role until his death. Mr Lewis said the naming universities, such as the Education Act 1989. This recommendation was inspired by Mr Matheson's would be a more palatable model to the potentially valuable service to the council and the number of autonomy threatening provisions of the Public people in the community he touched in his Records Bill, and one that it may be worthwhile for ambassadorial role as chief advocate of local history. AUS members to explore. At the time of his death, Mr Matheson had completed AUS [Association ofUnwersity Staff] Bulletin, no.55, many chapters of the 125th anniversary history of the October 2002. Palmerston North City Council. The book is now close to completion and will be launched in the New Year. For whom the bell tolls Mr Lewis's recommendation will be considered at HAVANA.- Cuba and the United States signed a meeting of the Community Development, Sport cultural co-operation agreement yesterday to preserve Recreation and Culture Committee on Tuesday. the archives of novelist Ernest Hemingway, who lived Manawatu Evening Standard, 15 November 2002. on the island for more than 20 years. The agreement was signed in the gardens of Finca Vigia, the airy white [Security Intelligence files] house outside Havana where the writer lived and A group of 30 academic historians and political wrote several of his masterpieces. President Fidel scientists are asking the Prime Minister, as Minister Castro, members of Hemingway's family and a in charge of the Security Intelligence Service, to delegation from the northeastern US state of release files for research, as other countries do. Massachusetts, led by Democratic Representative Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University is James McGovern, were present for the signing. researching New Zealand's relations with China, The accord addresses the preservation, classification and has found New Zealand's SIS more secretive and archiving of thousands of documents, letters, than the KGB. The FBI in the United States has sent photographs and manuscripts stored in the home of her information, and the KGB have been more open the adventurous author who won the 1954 Nobel Prize than the SIS. She says a thirty or fifty-year release for Literature. US researchers could not access these date should be set, as elsewhere, but the government materials until now. Cuba and the United States have is not doing it here. In reply, the Prime Minister not had full diplomatic relations for more than 40 years, said that the SIS was currently developing an and they maintain only Interests Sections in each archives policy, and would probably decide on a 50- other's capitals. year release date. The original documents - including drafts of For TV3 News, 19 November 2002. Researchers denied access to SIS Chief sound archivist appointed archives Rachel Lord has been appointed as RNZ's chief sound archivist. Sound Archives Nga Taonga Korero IT IS easier to get United States or former Soviet is based in Christchurch with two additional staff in bloc security service files than it is look [sic] at our Auckland. It is New Zealand's foremost radio archive, own SIS archives, according to a letter from top responsible for managing, collecting and preserving academics to Prime Minister Helen Clark. The New Zealand's radio heritage, and is funded by NZ letter, signed by about 30 leading historians and on Air. Rachel has been with Sound Archives for six political scientists at New Zealand universities, years. She has attended international conferences on asked Miss Clark, also minister of the New Zealand audiovisual archiving and has been on a Winston Security Intelligence Service, to review the policy Churchill research trip to the United Kingdom, Canada on access to service files dating back to the late and Europe. She has a degree in Library Studies from 1950s and 1960s. Wellington College of Education, a BSc from the Canterbury University political science lecturer University of Canterbury. Anne-Marie Brady said she and other researchers Listen Hear, News from Radio New Zealand, had been repeatedly refused access to SIS files. Number One [September 2002]. "The outcome is always no. Nobody sees anything - that's the norm here," she said. The letter said most Western countries opened security files after 30 years, or politically sensitive material after 50 years, but New Zealand's secret service had never made public any of its own records - despite having been in existence for 46 years. "I found it perplexing. We all think of New Zealand as a very free society. I could not understand why our secrets were ore secret than other countries' secrets," Dr Brady said. The information was important to ordinary New Zealanders as well as scholars, she said. "There have been many New Zealanders during the Cold War era who came under [SIS] surveillance because they bought The People's Voice or they went to a few meetings of the Communist party when they were young." The black mark against their names meant some were denied work promotions or discriminated against in other ways, Dr Brady said. Understanding New Zealand's foreign policies and relationships with its allies would help develop our sense of nationhood, she said. In her reply, Miss Clark said the SIS considered all requests for information made under the Official Information Act but there was provision for it to be withheld for security or privacy reasons. "Contrary to the assertion in the open letter, releases by other security and intelligence agencies are quite selective and significant areas of information are withheld. Information from other Caption please! agencies is never released without the originator's Entries to: permission. This is the situation in Australia, Britain Editor, and Canada," Miss Clark's letter said. By Michelle Kuirke, Dominion Post, 19 NZSA, PO Box 27-057, November 2002 Wellington In this Issue ARCHIVES Western Pacific Archive Arrives at the University of Auckland. Stephen Innes NEW ZEALAND IN Western Pacific and Western Pacific High Commission Archives. Frank Rogers THE NEWS ANZ Bank Archives. Kirsty McClea Rosemary Collier Relationships in Records (4): Electronic Series - discovering the Mystery. Chris Hurley The Spring 2002 issue of the Newsletter of Archives Don't Buy an Archives Database: You Don't New Zealand: Outreach; kia whakakautoro, contains Need It. Kevin Bourke many items of interest. The lead article describes the Reviews: Archives New Zealand Statement of sophisticated new electronic records management Intent. Michael Hodder; Archives New Zealand's system Archives has installed for its own internal Second Annual Report. Frank Rogers; Victorian records management. Among other features, it should Bank Architecture in New Zealand. Kevin Bourke. provide better tracking of research requests, and thus Council News a faster turn-around time for enquirers. The system, NR AM News Objective 2000Plus, has not been used before in New Conservation Supplies. Zealand, and it is hoped that it will assist Archives News Items: Report details art lost on 9/11; Pictures New Zealand in giving advice on electronic records to welcomed home; $6 million Archives project 'a little other government departments behind schedule'; Digital archive for disaster There is an announcement of the departure of Chris images; Japan N-plants caught falsifying core Hurley (General Manager) after six years on the staff, records; Historic records stolen; New home for rare approximately one third of which was as acting Chief books; The sum of us; Liberated war maps have Archivist. This role meant overseeing the transition sting in the tail; Companies Office shrinks as files of National Archives into the new government go to Disc; For whom the bell tolls; Archivist's huge department, Archives New Zealand. The article pays role recalled; Pacific archive in safe keeping; tribute to Chris's 'forthright advocacy' for the Security Intelligence files. Researchers denied access institution, and his 'strong intellectual leadership', and to SIS archives; Chief sound archivist appointed referred to his role in working to develop the Rosemary Collier, Michael Hodder, Lydia Government Locator and Archives Description Klimovitch, David Retter, Noelene Wevell. Information System (GLADIS), and the new Archives New Zealand in the News: Outreach legislation. items. Rosemary Collier Reported in this issue also is the sad loss of one of ------♦ ------the staff, Alison Whyte, who died in late October. About the Contributors Alison had worked at Archives since 1996, and was Kevin Bourke is a free-lance information, records involved in preservation, film, exhibition and management and archives specialist, and NZSA occupation health and safety work. Secretary. There is a report on an exhibition Pacific Dreams, Michael Hodder was formerly at National Archives, Island Realities which was toured to Apia to coincide was head of State Records in South Australia, and with the 40th anniversary of that nation's is currently Library Manager for the Rangitikei independence from New Zealand. District Council. He is a Council member of NZSA. Another restructuring at Archives New Zealand was Stephen Innes is Special Collections Librarian, implemented on 1 October, following an internal General Library, University of Auckland. consultation. It has resulted in four new groupings: Chris Hurley is an archivist, until recently General Access Services, Government Recordkeeping, Archives Manager, Archives Business, Archives New Management, and Business and Finance Services. Zealand, Wellington. There is also a Human Resources function, including Kirsty McClea is records manager and archivist at training, reporting to the Chief Archivist. [The the ANZ Bank in Wellington. restructuring reflects the move of the Labour Frank Rogers is a retired history teacher who was government away from the impractical and ideology- for some years did voluntary work on archives and driven policy/provider/purchaser split. Ed.] Both manuscripts for New Zealand and Pacific old and new organisation charts are included in the Collections, The University of Auckland Library. Newsletter.

New Zealand Archivist (ISSN 0114-7676) is the quarterly journal of the New Zealand Society of Archivists Incorporated. It is published each year in: Autumn/March; Winter/June; Spring/September and Summer/ December. It is compiled by the editor: Rosemary Collier. Copyright © NZSA and contributors. Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the NZSA. The editorial address is PO Box 27-057, Wellington, NZ. All other correspondence to Secretary, NZSA, at the same address. Contributions for publications are invited. The journal is available through membership of the society (personal $45.00 in NZ, $55.00 overseas, or institutional $100.00) or separately by subscription at the same rates. Overseas rates include airmail postage. All charges payable in New Zealand dollars only.