n order for
the record of the New Zealand government to be properly maintained there must be a strong institution to ensure that the records of government are managed from their moment of creation, and the
logical institution to carry out this vital function is the National Archives. But its heritage and historical functions
must also be recognised, promoted and properly funded because that institution
holds so much of the key evidence of our national identity.
At the Dunedin conference of
the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand in 1998, two speakers attacked the present inclusion
of the National Archives of New Zealand within the Heritage Group of the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs.
The papers by Mr James
Traue(1)
and the Hon. Dr Michael Cullen(2), M.P., varied in the details, but the burden of their case is not radically different from the arguments that have
been rehearsed over the past months and can be summarised as follows:
·
The inclusion of the National Archives
within the Heritage
Group represents a distortion of the true function of the National
Archives.
·
The purpose of a National Archives is
to keep Governments accountable as democracy demands, and the fact that the
National Archives also contains records of interest to a small minority of
people called historians is a secondary consequence.
·
A heritage focus will reinforce
old-fashioned images of the National Archives as concerned with the "dusty dead
files", whereas in fact the energies of the institution should be directed at
ensuring good record-keeping in Government as is consistent with the "continuum
model".
Two
other points are made. First, that the
motivation for the creation of the Heritage Group was, in Michael Cullen’s
words, to serve "as the 'white knight', providing protective cover for other
more exposed outliers of the Internal Affairs empire", namely the Historical
Branch and the Dictionary
of New Zealand Biography. Second, that internationally no respectable
National Archives is associated with heritage or cultural agencies, except for
an experiment in the state of Victoria which is cited repeatedly as an example
of the disastrous effects of such a linkage.
Obviously, I do not agree with this argument
and I believe at the very least it should be tested. Let us begin with the view that a heritage focus will distort the
National Archives' true function of providing accountability for
government. In my view the alleged
conflict between accountability and heritage is a false one.
For a start, the democratic principle that governments should be
accountable to those who elect them and that good records permit this to
happen is itself part of our heritage -
indeed it is at the very core of our history as a democratic society. Second, accountability means far more than
simply checking up on the decisions and processes of ministers and officials;
it is also about making this society accountable for the meanings and
traditions which over time it has bestowed on its members.
Here National Archives with its enormous range
and quantity of sources has a central role.
In this respect, it is worth quoting Sue McKemmish, Associate
Professor at Melbourne’s Monash University
School of Information Management and
Systems, in another paper at the
conference. She defined the role of
record-keeping in relation to accountability as "facilitating good governance"
and "underpinning accountability mechanisms".
That is as one would expect. But
then she added that accountability also involves "constituting corporate,
national and societal memory, constructing individual, community and national
identity, providing authoritative sources of information". In other words she defines accountability as
encompassing ‘historical and cultural accountability as they relate to memory
and identity’.
Historians in majority
This is the sense in which the vast majority of
users at National Archives are exercising accountability. If you go into the reading room at National
Archives, you will find very few readers of documents who are in the act of
facilitating good governance. There are
few journalists or auditors or even lawyers exercising their democratic rights.
The vast majority are historians, some of whom
are working, for example, on Waitangi
Tribunal cases and so in a very real sense are calling government to
account. But far more are exploring the
ways in which New Zealand society of the past in its collective assumptions,
behaviours and institutional practices is called to account for the legacy, the
long-term effects, the heritage, no less, which has been bestowed on the
society of today. There are people
looking at what New Zealand society did to women in the past, or to Pacific
Islanders, or to immigrants, or to those who were called to serve in war - all
these researchers are calling our history to account. Looked at in this way I find it very hard to draw sharp
distinctions between accountability and heritage.
James Traue |
It is time to get real about who the users of
National Archives actually are. The
vast numbers of users are historians, if we include family historians; and they
are not a minority voice as Jim Traue
would have had us believe. They are
working as the agents of the New Zealand people giving back to the people some
accountability for the decisions of the past, and they are giving all of us a
sense of identity and collective memory.
Third, it is entirely fallacious to assume that
those interested in heritage will not be interested in good record-keeping in
the present. Anyone who has worked
researching in National Archives knows only too well that the time spent in
trawling through files and finding aids bears fruit in relation to the quality
of the initial record-keeping. Records
which are comprehensive, well organised and accurately described are a sheer
joy to historians. The continuum model
is not a reason to separate accountability and record-keeping functions from
heritage ones, but rather the reverse.
The historical function requires really good record-keeping from the
moment of creation.
Fourth, what ultimately distresses me about the
strong distinction drawn between the accountability function and the heritage
function is that it leads to an evident contempt for the historical service
which National Archives provides and the historical treasures which it holds. In the eagerness to prove that National
Archives has nothing to do with the
"dust heap" of history, that it is not a museum, critics of the Heritage Group
have done a terrible disservice to the National Archives itself. For only narrow-minded philistines can possibly
think of history as a "dust-heap".
The fact is that this generation of New
Zealanders has begun to discover the extraordinary richness of its own history,
and has begun to realise that you cannot understand yourself unless you
understand your past. The search for
personal or collective identity,
whether iwi, group or national identity, has produced a growing fascination with our past. The wonderful response to Jamie Belich’s television series
on the New Zealand Wars, not to mention the spectacular sales of the New
Zealand Historical Atlas, points to a nation which is discovering its
past.
Most important
collection
In this awakening, National Archives has a huge
role to play. The fact is that the
National Archives contains the most important collection of documents in the
country, arguably more significant than those great collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library. It contains a huge and unique collection of
maps and plans, over a thousand pieces of war art, an extensive holding of
photographs and the most important historic collection of the nation’s films. To underplay these holdings at this time of
an awakening interest in our nation’s heritage is both stupid and
irresponsible.
It is very hard to argue, for example, that the
collection of National Film Studio titles
needs to be urgently converted from nitrate stock to safety film on the grounds
of accountability. How do these films
make governments accountable in the narrow sense? They don’t. But if you
see your mission as preserving the nation’s heritage, as enforcing a much wider
sense of accountability, then it is easy to argue that those films should be
saved because they are at the very core of national identity.
The unfortunate effect of a deliberate choice
to de-emphasise heritage is that New Zealanders will simply be deprived of
access to these items which are so important to who we are as New Zealanders.
There will be no energy put into making heritage available. The fact is that
much urgently needs to be done in this
respect. Not only do the films
need converting to safety stock; it is almost impossible to use the photograph
collection, most of which is neither on display nor catalogued. As for the documentary holdings, the finding
aids have become over the years a scandal to those of us used to the digital
services provided at libraries throughout New Zealand and at archives around
the world.
Here we come to the nub of the issue. Why are these treasures not easily
accessible to the people of New Zealand?
It is not because the staff is unwilling - they are unfailingly helpful and enthusiastic - but primarily
because the National Archives has been historically under funded. The institution has not had the resources
which its status demands.
When we established the Heritage Group there
was an urgent need to do something about this situation; creating the Heritage
Group was one way of doing so. The fact is that the major items of expenditure
required at National Archives involved the protection and accessibility of its
historical holdings. It is true that
much would be gained by attracting additional resources for the
statutory/regulatory group in its monitoring role of record-keeping. But huge expenditure - of many millions -
was called for to protect the holdings of Archives House from fire, earthquake
risk and leaks. Almost as large sums
needed to preserve the historic films, to store and provide catalogues for the
photograph collection and to provide users with finding aids.
Government will
invest
In my view, the likelihood of public and
political support for funding on this scale is much greater if it is seen as
protecting the heritage of the country than if it is tied - in some cases by an
obscure logic - to providing accountability for government. Over the past decade, successive governments
have shown a willingness to invest in enhancing a sense of heritage important
to the nation’s identity. The major
investment in Te Papa, the Museum of New
Zealand, is the best example of this; and indeed if we compare the financial
support going to the National Archives with that going to the other national
heritage institutions, the Alexander Turnbull Library and Te Papa, then there
is no doubt that the Archives comes off worst, despite the fact that its
heritage assets are at least as important as the other two. Why is this? Is it
perhaps that the heritage argument has not been used effectively on behalf of
National Archives?
Further, over the past three years, first the
Coalition Government and now the National Government have explicitly argued for
the importance of heritage goals. The
Coalition Government claimed that one of its Strategic Result Areas was to
develop programmes "which stimulate and affirm New Zealand’s evolving identity
and cultural heritage". Today’s government has as an overarching goal, the
statement: “We are proud of our New Zealand identity and will celebrate, foster
and protect our cultural, natural and historical heritage.”
The urgent desire for a strategy which would
attract funding to protect and make accessible the holdings of the National
Archives was one major reason for the inclusion of the National Archives in the
Heritage Group. Another was the hope
that these goals would be facilitated through the synergies with the other
heritage units of the department. If
the National Archives was to awaken a heightened public consciousness of its
assets, then the particular experiences and talents of the Historical Branch
and Dictionary staff could only be useful, while those units in turn would
benefit from close relations with National Archives, its skilled archivists and
its rich sources. Exhibitions,
genealogical projects, publications, web-sites might be expected to follow.
The argument, promoted by Michael Cullen, that
the reason was to protect the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography and the
Historical Branch is absurd. Both units
are quite capable of rising or falling on their own records. Their achievements over the last decade are well known and they do not need
protective help. If Treasury is looking for savings and wishes to recommend
their cessation, it will not make the slightest difference in what group they
are located.
Doing something to lift the profile and funding
of National Archives and improve its services to customers were the major
motives, and if the past months of the group’s existence is any indication, the
strategy is working. In that time the
Heritage Group has gained almost $NZ2,000,000 ($US1,000,000, approx.) from the
Department for a new roof, earthquake strengthening and fire protection in the
National Archives in Wellington; it has obtained a further $3,000,000 which
will climate control one floor of records in the building and provide storage
on another floor for the next twenty years; and it has won the first substantial
investment of funding for the computerisation of finding aids. In addition the
units of the group have combined in the production of a web-site, NZhistory.net, which draws upon the
research and writings of the Dictionary and Historical Branch alongside
National Archives’ photos and paintings.
In April 1999, the site attracted over 200,000 hits.
These successes have not been to the diminution
of the important role of the National Archives in monitoring record-keeping. Over that time, a Local Government Schedule
and a full appraisals review have been completed; and the Department has pushed
consistently for the important place of the National Archives in regulating
electronic records policies throughout Government. This has been articulated especially by the Secretary for
Internal Affairs, Roger Blakeley, at a Chief Executives’ group
developing IT
policy for government.
Overseas examples
Finally, it is worth looking at the examples
from overseas. Almost nowhere else, we
are told, do respectable archives align themselves with heritage - other, that is, than in the disastrous
example of Victoria, Australia. So I
started looking at web-sites to see if this was true. I started at the Public
Record Office, Victoria’s archives where, so we are told, they have been
taught the folly of their ways. Yet on
opening the site in 1999 we find two strap-lines, “Managing Victorian
Government Documents” and “Preserving Victoria’s Heritage”.
We go to the two neighbouring states. In South Australia, we open the page
for the State Records of South Australia and
immediately find the following strap-line, “Welcome to State Records home of
much of South Australia’s rich and colourful heritage”. At the New South Wales State Records Office we learn that
“State Records operates as one of the State’s cultural institutions within the
Arts portfolio”, alongside the Art
Gallery, two museums, the State Library,
the Opera House and the Historic Houses Trust. The agency defines
its various roles as "a coordinating agency of Government; a provider of
services to the people and Government of New South Wales, and the protector and
preserver of the State’s archives as an irreplaceable part of our collective
memory and cultural heritage".
 |
So, then I went further afield to Canada, where
I found that the National
Archives is part of Canadian Heritage and where its web-page introduces the
institution in this way: “The National Archives of Canada preserves Canada’s
archival heritage.” We take flight
across the Atlantic and land first at the National Archives of Ireland that
turns out to be part of the Department
of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. We finally land at the Public Record Office in London. In response to the question, “Why we are
here?” the answer is “We are the Nation’s memory, the national archives for
England, Wales and the United Kingdom”. And to the question “Why we do this?”,
the answer is “The records provide information which is needed and used:
·
“For historical and genealogical research
·
“To ensure government accountability to the people over time
·
“To help government in decision making
·
“As legal evidence.”
So, for the holiest of holies, the Public
Record Office, historical and genealogical research is not a subsidiary part of
their function. It is the first one
cited. The point is clear enough. It is simply untrue that overseas archival
institutions regard their historical or heritage functions as subordinate or
unimportant. They are all proud to
claim their role in documenting the identities of their country or state. All that the Heritage Group is claiming is
that the heritage and historical functions of our National Archives must also
be recognised, promoted and properly funded.
Independent Crown
Entity
This is not to say that the heritage function
should be the only or even primary function of the National Archives of New
Zealand. Maintenance of its records management role is especially pertinent at
this moment when conventions about electronic records and their storage are
being established. Because of this role, I have always and consistently argued
that the National Archives should be an independent crown entity which is not
part of a department. If the National
Archives is to perform the audit role of overseeing government records then
there is the danger of a conflict of interest if the Chief Archivist is also part
of a department. To this extent, I fully
agree with the sentiments of the other speakers who advocated an independent
status for the Archives. Roger Blakeley
and the Department of Internal Affairs have also promoted this viewpoint and in
its submission to the Historic Heritage Review the Department argued that the
National Archives should become a Crown entity reporting to a Minister of Culture and Heritage.
If Crown entity status does arrive, then I hope
that it gives us a National Archives, which has the funding and the status to
carry out its twin functions. One will
be as the record-management authority for government, respected, influential
and able to ensure that electronic records throughout government are securely
protected in an orderly searchable form, so that there will be a seamless
transition from departmental search engines to archival finding aids.
The second function will be to display and make
accessible its wonderful treasures from the past - so that whether it is through
visits to the web-site or in queues of people at its exhibitions and displays
of the Treaty, the National Archives is respected and well-known as one of the
great storehouses of our national heritage.
All New Zealanders coming to Wellington
will be expected to visit the National Archives just as Americans know they
must visit their own National Archives.
These
hopes for a proud and authoritative National Archives require in the end
political decisions which politicians must take. At this point in time the National Archives remains within the
Department of Internal Affairs, and while it does so I believe that it is
appropriately sited within the Heritage Group.
The results of that positioning over the past months speak for
themselves.
Explanatory notes
"New Zealand Archives should stay separate" 
New Dawn for the
National Archives of New Zealand 