Archives

What are archives?

Archives are the documentary by-product of human activity retained for their long-term value.

They are contemporary records created by individuals and organisations as they go about their business and therefore provide a direct window on past events. They contain primary source materials. They can come in a wide range of formats including written, photographic, moving image, sound, digital and analogue. Archives are held by public and private institutions and individuals around the world. Tocsin-Bang holds archives of textual, audio and video formats.

Characteristics

For archives to be of value to society they must be a trusted resource. To achieve this they must have the following qualities:

• Authenticity - the record is what it claims to be, created at the time documented, and by the person that the document claims to be created by.

• Reliability - they are accurately representing the event, although it will be through the view of the person or organisation creating that document.

• Integrity - the content is sufficient to give a coherent picture.  Sadly not all archives are complete

• Usability - the archive must be in an accessible location and usable condition.  Earthquakes, hurricanes and war, for example, can all render archives useless.

If an archive is going to be authentic and reliable then we need to preserve its context to understand how, why and who created it, its content and its format (the way that it is presented as a document).

What we should remember is that at no point can we regard an archive as ‘the truth' (whatever we mean by ‘truth'), only as a contemporaneous record from an individual or organisation with a particular level of involvement and point of view. As users of archives we must be aware of this context when interpreting archives as well as how our own experiences and culture affect our reading of an archival resource.

Archives have several characteristics:

• They are only retained if they are considered to be of long-term historical value. This can be difficult to assess but what it means is that archive collections do not and cannot hold every document ever created.

• They are not created consciously as a historical record. Their strength is that they are a contemporaneous record and must be viewed in the light of who drew up that document and why.

• Documents do not have to be ‘old' to be an archive, just no longer required for the use for which they were created.

• They come in a wide range of analogic and digital media - not just paper documents. Archives encompass written documents, electronic resources (including web sites and email), photographs and film, and sound recordings.

Sources

You may now have realised that archives are all around us and perhaps they are so prevalent that we fail to notice them, like the air we breathe. As we can see archives can come from many sources including:

• Government - supranational, national, regional, local

• Courts and judicial bodies

• Businesses

• Trades unions and workers bodies

• Religious organisations

• Universities and schools

• Military bodies

• Theatres, film makers and performing groups

• Charities, campaigning bodies and voluntary organisations

• Communities

• Families

• Individuals

To see the sheer depth of archives why not look at the Memory of the World Register? This is managed by the United Nation and highlights some of the world's finest archives and is being added to all the time.

Using archives

Good research relies on appropriately selected primary sources, and uses these sources to critically explore academic questions. This allows researchers to make conclusions which seek to advance debates within a given discipline.

The information and evidence found in archive documents can be used for this purpose in the following ways:

• to demonstrate a point

• to test a theoretical question

• to develop an argument

• to critique an argument

• to propose a new line of thought

Critically analysing archive material

There are several key issues to consider in relation to archive records:

• Gaps in the record

• Inherent format bias

• Author bias

• Researcher subjectivity

• Perspective

How to Cite Sources

Citing your sources is essential in academic writing. Whenever you quote or paraphrase a source (such as a book, article, or webpage), you have to include a citation crediting the original author.

Failing to properly cite your sources counts as plagiarism, since you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

When do you need to cite sources?

Citations are required in all types of academic texts. They are needed for several reasons:

• To avoid plagiarism by indicating when you’re taking information from another source

• To give proper credit to the author of that source

• To allow the reader to consult your sources for themselves

A citation is needed whenever you integrate a source into your writing. This usually means quoting or paraphrasing:

• To quote a source, copy a short piece of text word for word and put it inside quotation marks.

• To paraphrase a source, put the text into your own words. It’s important that the paraphrase is not too close to the original wording. You can use a paraphrasing tool if you don’t want to do this manually.

• Citations are needed whether you quote or paraphrase, and whatever type of source you use. As well as citing scholarly sources like books and journal articles, don’t forget to include citations for any other sources you use for ideas, examples, or evidence. That includes websites, YouTube videos, and lectures.

NB

You usually don’t need to cite common knowledge. This is information that you can assume most people know, or can easily discover, such as the fact that Lisboa  (Lisbon) is the capital city of Portugal.

---

---