ICA/CAP Committee on Appraisal Meeting of 23 27 August 2004, Vienna, Austria Minutes

Present : Rosine Cleyet-Michaud, Cassandra Findlay, Virginia Castillo Sahun, Tom Mills, Markku Leppnen, Stephen Twigge, Vincent Doom, Also present : Shu Guoxiong, Director, Archives of Shenzhen (China) Absent : Paola Tascini, Antonia Herrera-Herredia The Committee is to have a new member: Luis Cermeno from Barcelona.

1. Activities of the Committee during the Congress at Vienna

Seminar : Appraisal: Process, criteria, sampling Tuesday 24 August 2004, 10.00am Rosine Cleyet-Michaud, Overview of the draft guide on appraisal, Cassandra Findley, Appraisal process, Stephen Twigge, Consultation as part of the appraisal process, Vincent Doom, Appraisal criteria, Markku Leppnen, Sampling.

Seminar : Appraisal in Municipal Archives, organised with the Section on Municipal Archives (SMA) Tuesday 24 August 2004 2.30pm There will be French and English translation for this session. The Director of the Municipal Archives of Pkin has supplied a text in English but will not be present. The seminar will be run by Vincent Doom and Ferdinand Opll, President of the Section on Municipal Archives. - Vincent Doom, Presentation on the guide on appraisal being developed by the CAP, - Ana Mara Herrero Montero, Municipal Archives of Oviedo (Spain), Appraisal of records in Spanish Municipal Archives, - Daise A. Oliveira, President of the Forum of Municipal Archives of Brazil, Appraisal of records in Brazillian Municipal Archives: new perspectives, - Martin Strzlinger, Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna, A new approach to appraisal in the Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna. Seminar : ISO 15489 Records management Tuesday 24 August 2004, 4.00pm - Rosine Cleyet-Michaud, Records management and historial archives. Seminar : Approaches to appraisal Wednesday 25 August 2004, 11.45am and afternoon - Tom Mills, in English,
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- Rosine Cleyet-Michaud, in French.

2. The future of the Committee and integration in the ICAs new strategic programme
The International Council on Archives has developed a new strategic programme for the future beyon the Congress of 2004. This programme consists of four priority areas. Committees will be mostly replaced by projects that will sit under one of these priority areas. Existing Committees will, however, complete work that is already underway The members of the Appraisal Committee considered how its work would fit under the priority areas. These areas are : 1. Advocy and promotion, 2. Electronic records and automation, 3. Preservation and protection, 4. Education and training. The Committee considered priority 3 and in particular point 3.2 to be most relevant to its work. That is, the preservation and protection of records and archives. This is a very broad theme, and it need not be limited to physical preservation. In fact the work of the Committee touches on most of the priority areas. This should facilitate collaborative work with other Committees / projects, such as the electronic records and legal matters Committees. The Committee prepared a text on how its work fits with the ICA pritory on preservation and protection:

Strategic objectives and priority areas of the ICA

Proposition of ICA CAP for placement in priority area 3.2 : Preservation and protection To protect and preserve records and archives it is necessary to determine what records to keep, for how long and how they should be managed. It is not possible to keep everything, even in the electronic environment. Cost, liability, accessibility, volume and redundancy are all reasons to implement systematic appraisal and disposal. Archives have a responsibility to select the small part of all records that are permanently retainedas societys memory. Current projects : - regularly updated bibliography on appraisal, - guidelines on appraisal. New project : - survey on the appraisal and preservation of personal files (records containing personal information) ; selective case studies ; recommendations on best practice.

This proposal regarding the future work of the Committee is to be sent to the ICA programme executive for consideration. During the Congress the Committee was also informed of the possibility of its work being managed under the new Section on professional standards and best practice, along with the work of other committees such as the Committee on Descriptive Standards (CDS). Future work could include the development of an appraisal standard. The Committee was generally in favour of this type of arrangement.

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3. Bibliography
The bibliography has been complied by Markku Leppanen and Cassandra Findlay and is now available in draft form on the website of the ICA. Not all abstracts and translations of abstracts are, however, complete. A colleague from the Netherlands sent congratulations to the Committee and some comments on titles to be included, including requests for more German articles and more internet references. We should include URLs for articles where possible. We need to decide whether a hard copy version will be produced or not. Responsibilities for further work on the bibliography were assigned : Virginia Castillo Sahun can do some translations of abstracts from French into Spanish Rosine Cleyet-Michaud and Vincent Doom can do some translations of abstracts from English into French Cassandra Findlay to look at how to complete the index Jurgen Treffeisen will be contacted to supply German references and abstracts Markku will coordinate new additions to the bibliography, and will ensure it is up to date

4. Appraisal guidelines
The contributions of the authors of the sections of the gudelines on appraisal were discussed. Tom Mills on different approaches to appraisal Rosines comments : will be difficult to translate into French is too historical and lacks examples from Latin American countries further explanation is needed to define strategy and approach or one must be used over the other there is a need to be clear on roles: archivist and records manager, and to explain that there are differences from one jurisdiction to the next does risk assessment belong in this introductory section? (it was decided to leave it in) add a subtitle in functional appraisal : Variations on the functional approach add a paragraph on ISO 15489 add inserts in boxes explaining some of the concepts eg. DIRKS, PIVOT, macroappraisal Rosine proposed the following structure for this section: Bases for the choice of an appraisal strategy 1. Introduction 2. Different approaches - prioritising by records - prioritising by functions and activities - prioritising by documentation of a theme or territory - prioritising by risk
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3. Choice of appraisal strategy - how - recommendations of ISO15489 Cassandra Findlay on the process of appraisal Rosines comments : the multi-authority function is more about several agencies performing a particular function eg. law and order is performed by Court X, Police Department, Court Y etc.. personnel management etc should be considered separately, as administrative or horizontal functions, not mulit-authority need to add detail on the advantages and disadvantages of different timing expand on the concept of appraisal being about analysing business abd regulatory requirements to determine what records to create clarify the meaning of disposal as this is not used in all jurisdictions Vincent Doom on appraisal criteria Vincents text will be translated by Patrick Kadell. Something is to be added about understanding historical research and writing methods in conducted appraisal. Rosine is having Vincents section translated into English and she will send it to the English speakers. Markku Leppnen on sampling Markku should use his 2002 version, with the case study on prisoners files for the guidelines The choice of sampling method section needs information on how the choice depends on hte method of filing / classification Remaining work on the guidelines Introduction : Definitions, history (Vincent Doom) Legal envrionment (Rosine Cleyet-Michaud et Cassandra Findlay) General principles: 1. Different approaches (Tom Mills) 2. Processes : who, what, when. Implementation and documentation of appraisal decisions (Cassandra Findlay), consultation (Stephen Twigge) 3. Criteria (Vincent Doom) 4. Sampling (Markku Leppnen) 5. Appraisal in the electronic environment (Stephen Twigge) Case studies : - Related records of elections in France (Rosine Cleyet-Michaud) - Documentation strategy in the State of New York (Tom Mills) - Appraisal as part of the design of a new system for Fisheries (Cassandra Findlay) - Appraisal in Spain (Virginia Castillo Sahun with Ana Mara Herrero Montero)
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- Prisoner files in Finland (Markku Leppnen) - An example from the UK (Stephen Twigge) Case studies will also be sought for the Natherlands, Canada, Germany, Poland, Tunisia, China. Case studies not to exceed 3 pages. The guide will be published in French, English and Spanish. It will be published on the ICA website in English and French in June 2005.

5. Calendar
Introduction and general principles: - January 2005, send sections to Rosine Cleyet-Michaud - January to April 2005, sections on ICA website for comment - April to May 2005, finalisation of sections, - June 2005, publication of guide. Case studies : - April 2005, send to Rosine Cleyet-Michaud. The case studies will not be placed on the ICA website for comment.

6. Next meeting
The next meeting of the Committee will be in London in April or May 2005 at the National Archives of the UK.

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