Archival systems and record management models in an international context (part II)

Abstract

This article, originally presented in the Pre-Congress Seminar of the 14th International Congress of Archives (Seville, 2000), analyses the feasible integration between the notions of archival system and records management into the Latin American doctrinal field. Therefore, the article begins by defining the concept of archival system –including the impact of the General Theory of Systems–, the evolution of its implementation in Latin American countries and in the Caribbean and its most outstanding characteristics. The work continues by analyzing the concept of records management, its beginnings in North America, its principles and most important features, its impact on international archival institutions (UNESCO, International Council on Archives), on the existing international models (establishing a typology among original models, second-generation models, models by assimilation and models in construction, in front of the features of institutional models) and on the conceptual approximation in Latin America countries. In conclusion, the author proposes an approximation between the two concepts through a reflection on the notion of «records management policy» –precisely its «program» element– defined by Carol Couture and Jean Yves Rousseau (in Les Archives au XXe Siècle, published in montreal in 1982), which helps to enlarge the traditional view of the life cycle of records from types of archives (current, intermediate and historical) up to a consideration in phases (active, semi-active and inactive). Despite the time since it was first written, this article maintains its permanent actuality, with the publication in 2001 of norms ISO 15489-1 and 2, about records management –and related normative development– to unify the practice and development of records management and archival systems in the world; this work offers indispensable elements for a reflection previous to its interpretation in the different national contexts, evidently necessary, to consider before the application of these international norms