PIVOT Down Under: a Report______K C

PIVOT Down Under: A Report________ K C. Hoi and A. G. de Vries R. C. (Roelof) Hoi studied Medieval History (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam. His archival career started in 1975 as an assistant to Professor Van der Gouw, the former General State Archivist. He worked as a research assistant for the Dutch Scientific Research Association and for the municipality of Wassenaar. After archival training in the Rijksarchief in Gelderland he finished the Rijksarchiefschool in 1980 then he became Deputy State Archivist in the Rijksarchief in Zeeland. In 1984 he transferred to the Centrale Directie Rijksarchiefdienst, working in the fields of automation and conservation. In 1991 he became the State Archivist PIVOT and in 1993 he also became Deputy State Archivist. Since October 1997 he has been Regional Director of the State Archives in the province of North Holland. Roelef is also on the Board of Directors of the Archiefschool, is Secretary of the Dutch Rock Foundation and of the Holland History Committee. He lives with his partner and two children in the city of Leiden. A. G. (Bert) de Vries graduated from Amsterdam University in 1987 in contemporary History. He worked at the State Archive in Noord-Holland instead of doing military service. After the State Archive School (1990-1991) he became a researcher with the PIVOT project. From April 1994 he was Deputy Manager of PIVOT and since October 1997 he has been Manager PIVOT. He is also a freelance teacher at the Archives School. Bert has published several articles on archival matters and on the history of the Jews in the Netherlands. He lives with his wife and his five month-old son in the city of Delft. PIVOT Down Under: A Report 79 The authors explain the Dutch method, the so-called PIVOT method of mass appraisal of records (files) from the central government since 1945. This method focuses on the context of government actions vis-a-vis society. After the context has been described in an institutional report, the actions (,handelingen), not the documents, are appraisedfor preservation in the Basic Appraisal Document. The main objective of the appraisal decision making process is to ensure that only evidence that enables researchers to reconstruct government actions associated with core functions will be preserved. After the appraisal phase, only the files concerning the preserved actions' are described in a new Model Inventory. Other files are disposed of. Although the method is based upon archival principles, the method is criticised, especially by historians, who fear that too many records which could be useful for future research will be destroyed. Introduction In April 1997 a delegation of two Dutch archivists, invited by the Australian Archives and sponsored by Australian and Dutch archival and scientific institutions, visited Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The main objectives of this tour were to inform Australian colleagues about the Dutch PIVOT project, which is concerned with the appraisal of central government records, and to make connecdons between the Australian situadon and the Dutch experiences between 1991 and 1997. During this trip the Dutch delegates promised to write down their story and to try to answer the many questions that were asked during the visit. In order to do so we will try in the following article to explain the Dutch PIVOT project and its potential relevance, as we see it, to other archival communities throughout the world. We may even be bolder and suggest that it is potentially relevant to any organisation that has to deal with the information problems of the past, and of the present and future when real documents will increasingly be virtual collections of data. As in our presentations in Australia, we will here proceed from the broader context of the PIVOT project to its final products. 80 Archives and Manuscripts Vol. 26, No. 1 Modern records and archives: evolution in administration Functions of records Notwithstanding international terminology, we often have to inform each other about the specific archival definitions used in our respective countries or languages. So, when we use the term archives, it also means records, since there is no formal difference made between the two in the Dutch language. Although the concept of modern records may differ in various countries, this article concentrates on archives created from the period after World War II. The ‘paper explosion’ in the Netherlands can be dated from that period, although in fact the real growth took place since the mid fifties. The increased role of government in society provided fertile ground for the growth of bureaucracy and consequendy produced an enormous crop of documents. An estimation from the late eighties shows on the national level an annual production of about ten to twelve kilometres of documents within the central government. Of course many of these documents never reach the files, and yet research has established that for the period 1945-1975 about 600 kilometres of state archives will have to be appraised. For the next two decades (1975-1995) we think that about the same amount of state records are waiting for appraisal. But before addressing this issue further we need to explore the function of archives. Government archives are not created as historical sources: they come into existence in support of, and within the context of, the functions and working processes of government. The government generates and uses archives for management purposes, to account for itself and to call others to account, as a legal remedy or evidence, and as the memory of an organisation. Apart from the government, records are also important for citizens to enable them to call the government to account, for use as a legal remedy and as evidence, and for historical research. But in essence, government archives are the administrative result of the actions of the government in the context of its environment i.e. the society. Bureaucratic developments Several developments within the framework of the bureaucratic system in the PIVOT Down Under: A Report 81 Netherlands and also in the field of records management have been significant. Many of these developments can be noticed in other countries too. Firstly, in the last decade there has been a strong movement towards decentralisation. Departments have been given more responsibilities. Agencies outside the walls of the ministerial fortresses have become more independent and been given more competencies of their own. Secondly, up to the mid eighties the decentralisation of decision making has naturally been followed by decentralisation of recordkeeping. Therefore, the position of the ministerial record offices has changed. In general the ‘central secretariats’ have been replaced by decentralised units at directorate or lower levels. The coordination of information management in a ministry disappears with the involvement of so many units, which are themselves often under-resourced and have poorly trained staff. Thirdly, the new information technology boom since the eighties has had an enormous influence on the field of recordkeeping. Almost overnight records managers and archivists have had to cope not only with paper material, but also with digital archives. This not only presents us with the technical problems associated with preserving them, but also with managing the more complex information flows and their contexts. The fourth and most important development, however, is the enormous growth of government activity. After 1945 the Welfare State has emerged with central government active in all parts of society. As a result, the bureaucratic system developed enormously and because archives are the administrative result of actions of government, as said before, the amount of archives and therefore the scope of recordkeeping expanded. Besides the above-mentioned bureaucratic developments, the Archives Act 1962 has been superceded. The old law mandated the transfer of records from government organisations to the public archive services after a maximum period of fifty years, when they became freely accessible to every citizen. The Archives Act 1995 has reduced the transfer period to twenty years. The reader may imagine, keeping in mind the enormous growth of bureaucratic paperwork over the last fifty years, what that means for the National State Archives in The Hague. In summary, the threats and challenges in the area of recordkeeping include growing quantities of records, a lack of quality in recordkeeping, reorganisation 82 Archives and Manuscripts Vol. 26, No. 1 of government bodies, new legislation and the introducdon of information technology. Identification of the problems The state of affairs with regard to management and maintenance of state records is dramatic. With this statement the Minister of Culture concisely summarised the current situation during consultation with the Permanent Parliamentary Committee on Welfare and Cultural Affairs in 1990. She made this remark with regard to the General Audit Office’s report, ‘State Records Management and Maintenance’. This report was presented to the Second Chamber of Parliament in September 1988. The researchers of the Audit Office found huge amounts of unsorted and inaccessible records in the ministries and government agencies which should have been transferred to the public archives. The General Audit Office thus confirmed the opinion of the National State Archives Inspection Division as stated in their yearly reports. Many of the conclusions stated by the General Audit Office will be familiar to archivists: not enough money, not enough qualified personnel, out- of-date working methods, no modernisation in terms of systems. Besides, as the auditors stated, many of the civil servants of policy making departments had been avoiding the central records offices. Why? One of the reasons has been that the need for the cumbersome regulation and classification codes used by the records offices has not been understood by the civil servants, who consequently have kept lots of records for themselves. The common complaint has been that too much records management exists solely for the sake of records management.

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