Research in Archival Science: A Status Report

  • Carol Couture
  • Daniel Doucharme

Abstract

Although the keeping of archives is a very ancient practice, their study as an academic discipline is a recent phenomenon. For this reason, in the view of the authors, there have been, in the last ten years, no more than forty articles in French or English specifically devoted to archival research. This article offers a synthesis of the literature, so as to answer the question: How is archival research envisaged today? Explaining first the importance of research in archival studies and the role it plays in the development of the discipline, the authors then proceed to examine its subject matter, dividing it into nine fields: 1) The object and aim of archival science; 2) Archives and society; 3) The history of archives and of archival science; 4) Archival functions; 5) The management of archival programs and services; 6) Technology; 7) Types of media and archives: electronic records; 8) Archival environments; and 9) Specific issues related to archives. The article concludes with a discussion of methodology, education, and support to research.

 

RÉSUMÉ
Si l’archivistique est fort ancienne en tant que pratique, en tant que discipline elle constitue toutefois un phénomène contemporain. C’est ce qui explique, selon les auteurs de cet article, qu’il n’y ait eu au cours des dix dernières années pas plus qu’une quarantaine de textes en français et en anglais spécifiquement consacrés à la recherche en archivistique. Cet article effectue une synthèse de cette littérature afin, essentiellement, de répondre à la question de savoir comment l’on envisage aujourd’hui la recherche en archivistique. Précisant tout d’abord l’importance que possède celle-ci et son rôle dans le développement de la discipline, les auteurs en détaillent ensuite les objets en les répartissant à l’intérieur des neuf champs de recherche suivants : 1) Objet et finalité de l’archivistique; 2) Archives et société; 3) Histoire des archives et de l’archivistique; 4) Fonctions archivistiques; 5) Gestion des programmes et des services d’archives; 6) Technologies; 7) Supports et types d’archives: les archives électroniques; 8) Milieux d’archives; 9) Problèmes particuliers relatifs aux archives. Un volet portant sur la méthodologie, la formation et l’aide à la recherche vient compléter en fin de parcours cette typologie.

Author Biographies

Carol Couture
Carol Couture has been an archivist at the Archives nationales du Canada (1970–1972), an assistant to the archivist at the archives of the Université de Montréal (1972–1976) and director of the archives of the Université de Montréal (1976–1988). In 1988, he joined the École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information (EBSI) of the Université de Montréal, where he became full professor. He has taught principally in the archival stream within the Master’s program in library and information science. A former president of the Association des archivistes du Québec (1979–1980 and 1988–1989), he was a member of the Bureau of Canadian Archivists (BCA) (1988–1991), of the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA), and of its executive (1988–1991). He is co-editor of the collection Gestion de l’information at the Presses de l’Université du Québec. He has been awarded numerous prizes and awards, including the Prix Gérard-Morisset 2001, one of the Prix du Québec. He headed the École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information from 2001 to 2005.
Daniel Doucharme
A graduate in 1986 of the École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l'information (EBSI) at the Université de Montréal, Daniel Ducharme started his career as archivist at the École des hautes études commerciales de Montréal (HEC) between 1986 and 1988. Subsequently, he was at the Centre canadien d'études et de coopération internationale (CECI), a non-governmental organization where he worked respectively as librarian, as archivist, and as manager in various institutions in the Indian Ocean and in West Africa. Returning to Québec in 1994, he became records manager at the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) until he took a position at the Archives nationales du Québec (ANQ) in 1999. He has taught courses in the Master’s program at EBSI and in the Documentation Techniques program at the Collège Maisonneuve. He has also been employed as a consultant in Cape Verde, France, Senegal, Brazil, Portugal, Haiti, and Switzerland.
Published
2005-01-01
How to Cite
Couture, Carol, and Daniel Doucharme. 2005. “Research in Archival Science: A Status Report”. Archivaria 59 (January), 41-67. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/12500.
Issue
Archivaria 59: Québec's Perspective on Archival Science (Spring 2005)
Section
Articles

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