Keeping Archives

Abstract

At somewhere between 1.4 and 1.5 kilos, the long awaited 3 edition of Keeping Archives is truly a heavyweight in archival literature. Indeed, the sheer size and mass of information is perhaps the biggest criticism that can be made about the book, but it offers beginners a thorough grounding in the basic principles, methodologies and tactics needed to successfully manage archives. It also offers more experienced professionals a manual which can act as a refresher in some areas and a starting point for the more specialised areas, such as caring for audio-visual materials. The numerous requests on the archives listservs for used copies of the 1993 second edition of Keeping Archives (numbering a mere 512 pages incidentally) testify to the value and relevance archival educators and the profession in general have placed on this work. It has now been updated to reflect the changes and challenges of managing archives in the 21 century. Authored and edited by well-known names in the Australian archives profession, it is a manual written by archivists for the archives workforce. As such it provides a comprehensive overview as well as enough history and theory to provide newcomers to the field with context and background in the specific core areas which the book covers. Examples and case studies are used well to give good examples of how the theory and methodology works in practice and there are plenty of checklists and action plans to guide readers who are tackling new areas in their own work. There are illustrations on most pages with photographs and screen shots as well as a set of delightful cartoons – some more relevant than others – but it is always good to break up the text. I did find that the text was too dense and would have preferred more white space – but given the 648 pages, this would clearly not have been economic. Some of the screen shots were too detailed to see and were acting largely as illustrations rather than serving to convey information. There are 18 chapters which are divided into four sections. ‘Getting Started’ covers the theory and principles in a nice first chapter which introduces archives to the novice. The section goes on to give good advice on where to start managing the archives, advocating initial survey work and developing policies. It also has two solid chapters on buildings and storage and preservation. The next section is ‘Managing the Archives’ which addresses appraisal, acquisition, accessioning, description, documentation programmes (actively creating records such as oral history Journal of the Society of Archivists Vol. 31, No. 1, April 2010, 73–80