Thursday, October 29, 2009

Electronic record

By Khairul Izzuan Ahmad

According to Archives or Ireland, Electornic record can be define as "Any combination of text, graphics, data, audio, pictorial, or other information representation in digital form that created, modified, maintained, archived, retrieved by a computer system".

According to Library of Virgina, electronic record can be define as "data in form that can be read and processed by a computer and that satisfy the legal definition of a record.Electronic records may include data files and databases, machine readable indexes, word processing files, electronic spreadsheets, electronic mail and messages, as well as others text or numeric information".

According State Archive of Michigan,United State of America, electronic records can be define as " Information recorded by a computer that is produced or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an agency or individual activity. Example of electronic record include email message, word-processed documents, electronic spreadsheets, digital images and databases. Many electronic records are maintained as part of an electronic record keeping system,such as graphic information system (GIS), digital image storage system, computer aided design (CAD) systems, and electronic commerce system"

As conclusion, electronic record can be conclude as any records that have been created by the computer and needed a device to read it.

Sources
Electronic Records at Archives Ireland: Free impartial advice and information : http://www.archives.ie/electonic.html

Electronic records:chapter 7, Virgina Public Records Management Manual.Library of Virgina.
http://www.1va.lib.va.us/whatwedo/records/manuals/00mch7.html

Michigan Archive, United State


Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Akta, Arahan pengurusan rekod

By Khairul Izzuan Ahmad

Terdapat beberapa akta, arahan dan pekeliling yang berkaitan dengan pengurusan rekod:

  • Akta Arkib Negara Malaysia (Akta 629)
  • Surat pekeliling Am Bil. 1 Tahun 1997 : Peraturan Pemeliharaan rekod-rekod kerajaan
  • Surat kementerian kewangan 3 November 1993 : Pelupusan Bahan-bahan Bercetak/Kertas Terpakai Daripada Kemeterian/Jabatan Kerajaan/Badan Berkanun
  • Arahan perbendaharaan No.150 :Tempoh minimum Bagi Menyimpan Buku Akaun Dan Rekod Kewangan( Lampiran M)
  • Arahan Perbendaharaan 299: Buku Yang Belum Diguna Dan Usang
  • Pindaan Arahan Perbendaharaan 150, Surat Kementerian Kewangan 29 Disember 1997 : Pemusnahan Buku Akaun Dan Rekod Kewangan.
  • Pekeliling Perkhidmatan Bilangan 5 tahun 2007; Panduan Pengurusan pejabat- Bahagian VI-VIII (Mengantikan- Arahan perkhidmatan bab tiga: Surat menyurat, arahan perkhidmatan Bab empat : Fail-Memail dan menyimpan rekod-rekod kerajaan)
  • Surat pekeliling Perkhidmatan Bilangan 10 tahun 2007; Pelaksanaan Modul Pengurusan Rekod Peribadi Aplikasi HRMIS. Bahagian Pengurusan Teknologi Maklumat, Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam Malaysia.
Sumber
Savumthararaj. G, Pengenalan Kepada Pengurusan Rekod dan Sistem Fail.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Keratan akhbar : Arkib Negara Malaysia Memenangi hadiah Unesco Jikji Memory of The World Prize 200

PUTRAJAYA: Sumbangan Arkib Negara Malaysia (ANM) untuk memelihara dan memulihara khazanah sejarah serta warisan negara ini mendapat pengiktirafan dunia apabila jabatan berkenaan diumumkan sebagai pemenang hadiah Unesco Jikji Memory of The World Prize 2009 di Bandar Cheongju, Korea Selatan, Jumaat lalu.

Ketua Pengarahnya, Datuk Sidek Jamil, berkata beliau bangga kerana ANM dipilih sebagai pemenang anugerah paling berprestij di kalangan 130 arkib dunia dan menewaskan 29 calon dari negara lain, termasuk Austria dan Afrika Selatan.

“Anugerah ini amat bermakna dan menggambarkan bahawa ANM kini menjadi ikon dalam memelihara bahan khazanah, warisan serta sejarah dunia.

“Kita berharap rakyat Malaysia sedar bahawa ANM sudah mencapai tahap begitu tinggi dan apa yang kita lakukan sebenarnya bertepatan dengan piawaian antarabangsa,” katanya ketika ditemui sejurus tiba dari Korea Selatan di Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur (KLIA), di sini, semalam.

Jikji Memory of The World Prize adalah hadiah bernilai AS$30,000 (kira-kira RM100,000) bagi memperingati pendaftaran Jikji sebagai buku cetakan tertua di dunia yang diterbitkan di Bandar Cheongju, pada 1377. Anugerah itu diberikan setiap dua tahun sekali.

source
Adapted from Hak Cipta Terpelihara 2007 - Berita Harian Sdn. Bhd.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Who Select The AV records

By Helen P Harrison, Media Library Consultant, Open University, UK

Who Selects
It is necessary to establish who will select the material and then formulate the criteria for selection. Some archives have selection staff who concentrate on the areas of acquisition and selection, others use a system of selection committees. But selection by consultation and committee is not necessarily a good thing. It is fraught with difficulty when sectional interests appear and squabbles break out between people from different disciplines. A short piece paraphrased from a book on Archive Administration written in 1922 by Hilary Jenkinson serves to point out the dilemma and;

"The archivist is concerned to keep materials intact for the future use of students working upon subjects which neither he nor any one else has contemplated. The archivist's work is that of conservation and his interest in his archives as archives, not as documents valuable for proving this or that thesis. How then is he to make judgements and choices on matters which may not be his personal concern. If the archivist cannot be of use, can we not appeal to the historian - he may seem the obvious person to undertake such a task. As soon, however, as the historian's claims in this connection are investigated it becomes clear that the choice of him as arbiter of the fate of archives is at least as open to criticism as that of the archivist. Must he not be regarded, where his own subject is concerned, as a person particularly liable to prejudice? Surely there will always remain the suspicion that in deciding upon a policy of archive conservation he favoured those archive classes which furthered his own special line of inquiry. The very fact that a historian is known to have selected for an archive is fatal to its impartiality".

Given the guiding principle that selection is of necessity a major concern of the archivist it is suggested that the people responsible for the collections are best able to judge what should be included, and all the ramifications of the selection decisions. Specially appointed staff in the archive can see the wider implications and if thoroughly versed in the aims and objectives of the particular archive are in a good position to select, but to be effective they must be carefully chosen, and they should have a set of criteria to work with.

Source
Adapted from UNESCO

Deferent Selection and Apraisal (Audio Visual Record)

By Helen P Harrison, Media Library Consultant, Open University, UK

What is selection.

Selection and its related activity; appraisal, are essential elements in collections management. Selection has an importance at all levels of collection from the lending or access situations, either by direct physical means or provision in data banks for electronic transmission, through to the national library and the archive. Selection is arguably the most important and at the same time the most difficult of all the activities of the archivist, curator or librarian, especially those dealing with audiovisual materials and imposes a discipline on the collector almost from the beginning. The very consideration of what to collect or how wide a range of material one includes in a collection is one of the first principles of selection.

Appraisal.

This has been mentioned already and although it is closely allied to selection it may occur on a different timescale and has a different purpose. It is the intellectual decision making which should precede selection: it is the activity which attempts to determine the value and disposition of records based on their administrative and legal use; their evidential, informational or research value; their arrangement and their relationship to other records. Appraisal is also aimed at determining the intrinsic value of the material, that is records which have qualities and characteristics which make records in their intrinsic form the only acceptable one for preservation. eg. The presentation of a musical work as a recording or a series of pictures produced as a motion picture has an intrinsic value in the form presented: a piece of textual information has its own value, regardless of the form. It is argued that this concept adds another dimension to the selection and appraisal of audiovisual materials, and it is often a difficult decision to make for technical reasons. The form (not the format) of presentation acquires a greater significance for audiovisual materials.

In theory appraisal should precede acquisition, in practice it seldom does with audiovisual documents. Appraisal is usually applied to whole collections or bodies of material; the audiovisual archivist seldom has this amount of material to choose from, and has to deal in what has managed to survive until the point in time he is able to collect or preserve the material. Selection in audiovisual collections is more akin to 'reappraisal' to rationalise the collection.

Sources
Adapted from UNESCO

Audio Visual Record From UNESCO defenition

Helen P Harrison, Media Library Consultant, Open University, UK

Although this paper is written in the context of the Memory of the World programme of UNESCO it is not intended as a recommendation of a set of criteria which the programme could adopt, rather as an analysis of the existing need and an illustration of how selection is carried out already in archives and collections. The type of collection, its purpose and the context in which it functions will influence the degree, level and philosophy of the selection process. It also deals with selection in Audiovisual collections and the parameters involved need some explanation.

The Memory of the World project will have different priorities to those in a single institution and will serve different ends - it is after all considering the Memory of the World, not a particular collection whether national, regional or specialised. The Memory of the World project will rely heavily on the existing collections to collect, preserve and make accessible material within their particular remits. The project has as its first task identification of the endangered collections, then selection principles will have to be employed to decide on priorities within those collections, which to save first - is it a case of moving them to safer areas, or better storage conditions, is it a question of physical preservation/restoration? Then selection of the most appropriate means of conservation. Some of the principles of selection or more appropriately in this case, appraisal, will stand comparison across most situations, others will not.

What are Audiovisual materials?
What constitutes audiovisual material? It has to be admitted that no two people quite agree on the definition of 'audiovisual', much discussion is being devoted to the topic, but no positive definition has emerged. There are several definitions of the term including those for working purposes and those for legal purposes but it is difficult to pin down. One definition which has been generally accepted is that in the Kofler study, where, to paraphrase:

Audiovisual materials are to be understood as visual recordings (with or without soundtrack) and sound recordings irrespective of their physical base and the recording process used. This definition is meant to cover a maximum of forms and formats, including films, filmstrips, microfilms, slides, kinescopes, videograms, optically readable laser discs, magnetic tapes, discs, soundtracks or audiovisual recordings. Such definitions do not include the still photographs which many regard as an audiovisual medium.

While a suitable definition is being worked out it is easier to mention those audiovisual materials which will be considered here. The paper will consider the moving images of film and videogram, the sound recordings and the still images in whatever format or on whatever carrier they may appear now or in the foreseeable future, including the electronic formats which are seen as high density storage media with an increased capability of access and transmission or distribution (copyright and neighbouring rights notwithstanding).

The properties of the materials can limit the selection process and set some of the options. Each of the materials has its own physical characteristics and carriers and this will influence selection and present different challenges on different timescales. There are three elements in audiovisual documents and some or all have to be accounted for in the selection process. There is:
a) the information content
b) the artefact, or carrier
c) the aesthetic content

Much material is collected for its information content, as a record of an event, cultural, sporting, political, educational. The most obvious of the av materials would be newsreels and newsfilm, but documentaries and straightforward recordings of cultural events may be included eg. a concert performance, ballet, opera or dramatic work recorded as the event happens.

The artefact or carrier will designate the form of the audiovisual and it will also, for technical reasons frequently influence selection. Can this material be replayed in the collection which acquires it, or is the carrier so esoteric it has only antique value and the capacity to fill storage space; is the carrier in good physical condition or will it be subject to transfer and/or restoration before or on receipt or is the damage irreparable. This has inevitable cost implications and also implications for damage and disaster to the rest of the collection - the canker present in one item, may spread to others if stored untreated and without inspection. The carriers add another dimension to the collection. Audiovisual collections have to maintain a range of playback machinery to suit the various formats acquired. Material has to be collected and stored in a form which will be accessible for as long as required, or at least will be available for easy transfer when its useful life in one format comes to an end.

The last factor is extremely important when considering artworks whether it is a fine film, selected for its performances, photography, dialogue or direction; or a particular performance of a musical work chosen for the interpretation of an instrumentalist, singer or conductor or for the ensemble playing, or a photograph chosen for its aesthetic quality as an example of a particular photographer's work, its subject content or as a record of a unique event. All too often we hear that what we should be trying to preserve is the information content and cramming work into dense formats in order to preserve more of it at the risk of losing its intrinsic quality. Audiovisual collections may include several interpretations of the same work, or several records of the same event carried in different types of document: a film or video version, a sound recording, series of photographs and so on.

Although there are many collections in which audiovisual materials may be found, in the context of this paper we will be concentrating upon those collections which maintain long-term goals of retention, preservation and access to the audiovisual heritage. In effect these are archival institutions or those collections which have an archival function.

An AV archive has been defined as: an organisation or department of an organisation which is focussed on collecting, managing, preserving and providing access to a collection of AV materials and the AV heritage. This will include collections of national importance, housed in national archives and libraries as well as the many smaller collections housed in other libraries and archives. A specialist national collection may only collect one material eg. a film archive or a television archive. Other institutions hold smaller, but unique collections of material in single format, and there are other collections of national, regional, local or academic importance which may concentrate on one or two materials: the moving images, the still images and the sound recordings, or they may have a mixture of the materials. The collections involved here can often be regarded as the collections of last resort, they are available for access, but have other functions such as the collection of unique or original material which is being conserved and/or preserved for posterity.

But archives are not storehouses or dumping grounds for material in the hope that it may come in useful some day - when that day comes with audiovisual materials unless they have been correctly selected stored and conserved, the material may have disappeared into a sticky mess or a pile of rust.

Some form of records management is essential to impose an order upon the record and make it manageable and accessible to future users of the archive, whether these users are researchers, browsers, those with a commercial concern to reuse the material or interested members of the general public. Archivists are not store-keepers. They must impose a discipline of management on their collections, and one of the more important disciplines will be the selection process. Selection, like management, is not an exact science, nor is it an art. It can be argued as more of an art than a science, but I prefer to consider selection as a craft, practised to achieve certain ends with suitable criteria or guidelines to meet these ends.

There are inevitable constraints placed on any archive which make it necessary to adopt selection policies. These constraints may be basic and arbitrary ones such as space for storage or the high cost of storage, or they may be constraints imposed by the available resources in terms of people and time as well as financial resources to prepare the material for storage, conservation and subsequent access.

Source
Adapted from UNESCO