Toward a “Third Order” Archival Interface: Research Notes on Some Theoretical and Practical Implications of Visual Explorations in the Canadian Context of Financial Electronic Records

  • Victoria L. Lemieux

Abstract

This paper addresses challenges related to abstraction and representation of archival records and makes a number of theoretical and practical contributions to discussions in the archival literature on this topic. Reporting on an interdisciplinary research project aimed at creating a high-level interactive reference model of the Canadian context of financial electronic records, it contributes a framework for theorizing about societal context as a domain ontology and an approach to establishing the boundaries of societal context. It also draws upon information systems theory, in particular representation theory, to extend the theory of records as representations. It then moves on to discuss experiments in developing a prototype interactive visual representation of a domain ontology of the Canadian context of financial electronic records, suggesting that interactive visual representations that combine features of ontology editors and builders with features of tools for visual analysis may provide a good foundation for “third order” archival interfaces.

RÉSUMÉ

Ce texte aborde les défis liés à l’abstraction et aux représentations des documents d’archives et participe au débat sur ce sujet qui existe dans la littérature scientifique par un certain nombre de ses contributions théoriques et pratiques. Présentant les résultats d’un projet de recherche multidisciplinaire visant la création d’un modèle de référence interactif de haut niveau portant sur le contexte canadien des documents d’archives financiers numériques, il avance un cadre théorique au sujet du contexte sociétal comme ontologie de domaine et il fournit une approche pour établir les frontières du contexte sociétal. Il s’inspire également de la théorie sur les systèmes d’information, en particulier sur la théorie des représentations, afin d’élaborer la théorie des documents d’archives comme représentations. Il poursuit en abordant des expériences visant à développer un prototype d’une représentation visuelle interactive d’une ontologie de domaine du contexte canadien des documents d’archives financiers numériques, suggérant que les représentations visuelles interactives qui combinent des caractéristiques des éditeurs et concepteurs d’ontologie avec des caractéristiques d’outils pour l’analyse visuelle peuvent fournir des bases solides pour des interfaces d’archives de « troisième ordre ».

Author Biography

Victoria L. Lemieux

Victoria L. Lemieux is an associate professor in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and former director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre, both at the University of British Columbia. She is currently on leave at the World Bank. Lemieux is also director of the Centre for the Investigation of Financial Electronic Records, which she established in 2008. Her interest in financial records and their relationship to risk stems from her 1999–2001 doctoral research on the information-related causes of the Jamaican banking crisis (University College London, 2002).

Archivaria 78 cover
Published
2014-11-27
How to Cite
Lemieux, Victoria L. 2014. “Toward a ‘Third Order’ Archival Interface: Research Notes on Some Theoretical and Practical Implications of Visual Explorations in the Canadian Context of Financial Electronic Records”. Archivaria 78 (November), 53-93. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13721.
Issue
Archivaria 78 (Fall 2014)
Section
Articles

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