Digitizing Archival Records: Benefits and Challenges for a Large Professional Accounting Association

  • Monica Kenely
  • Brad Potter
  • Brian West
  • Phillip Cobbin
  • Steven Chang

Résumé

With antecedents extending to 1886, CPA Australia is one of the world’s most significant professional accounting associations. Reflective of its long history and widespread influence, the organization holds an extensive and diverse archive that evidences both its own development and the general evolution of accounting and business practices. This article presents a case study of a project to digitize selected aspects of this archive. Informed by perspectives on managing archives in the digital era, the benefits and challenges of digitization are presented. A key benefit was enabling access to digital images while preserving rare and fragile original records and documents. However, challenges arose in prioritizing the items for digitization, and this necessitated the development of a model, taking the form of a decision matrix. The CPA Australia case study will be informative for other organizations seeking to use digitization as a means to overcome the dilemma associated with providing access to archival materials while also ensuring their preservation.


RÉSUMÉ

CPA Australia, dont les origines remontent à 1886, demeure une des sociétés professionnelles de comptables les plus importantes au monde. À l’image de sa longue histoire et de son influence très étendue, l’organisation détient des archives considérables et diverses qui font preuve à la fois de son développement et de l’évolution générale de la comptabilité et des pratiques d’affaires. Cet article présente une étude de cas d’un projet pour numériser certains aspects de ces archives. Fondé sur des perspectives sur la gestion des archives à l’ère numérique, on y présente les avantages et les défis de la numérisation. Un avantage clé est de permettre l’accès aux images numériques tout en préservant des documents d’archives originaux rares et fragiles. Cependant, des défis ont surgi lorsqu’il fut question de déterminer quels documents numériser en priorité, d’où la nécessité de développer un modèle qui a pris la forme d’une matrice décisionnelle. L’étude de cas de la CPA Australia intéressera d’autres organisations qui cherchent à se servir de la numérisation comme moyen de surmonter le dilemme lié à la question de donner accès au matériel archivistique tout en assurant sa préservation.

Bibliographies de l'auteur-e

Monica Kenely

Monica Keneley is a professor of finance in the Deakin Business School, Deakin University, in Victoria, Australia. She has researched in the areas of business and insurance history. The nature of her research relies heavily on archival resources. She has published in journals such as Business History, Enterprise and Society, Business History Review, Labour History, and Accounting History.

Brad Potter

Brad Potter is an associate professor at the University of Melbourne. His research encompasses financial accounting and disclosure as well as accounting history. Examples of his current research projects include accounting and reporting choices made by small and medium-size entities and the application of accounting and reporting approaches in understanding corporate social investment and sustainability. Many of these projects require significant access to diverse archival resources.

Brian West

Brian West is a professor of accounting at Federation University Australia, in the state of Victoria. Prior to commencing his academic career, he worked in a public accounting practice. He is the joint editor of the journal Accounting History and has published in a broad range of academic journals. In 2008, he was the recipient of the American Accounting Association’s Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award.

Phillip Cobbin

Phillip Cobbin is a senior lecturer in accounting at the University of Melbourne. He began his career in a big-four chartered accounting firm. His major research interest is the intersection of accounting history and military history. He has published in Accounting History, Accounting History Review, Accounting Historians Journal, Abacus, and the International Journal of Auditing.

Steven Chang

Steven Chang is a librarian at Western Health, which manages three public hospitals in Melbourne. He has a Master of Information and Knowledge Management degree. Prior to his current role, he was part of a University of Melbourne research team involved in the digitization of archival records. He is the joint editor of the Australian library journal Health Inform.

Archivaria 81 cover
Publié-e
2016-05-06
Comment citer
Kenely, Monica, Brad Potter, Brian West, Phillip Cobbin, et Steven Chang. 2016. « Digitizing Archival Records: Benefits and Challenges for a Large Professional Accounting Association ». Archivaria 81 (mai), 75-100. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13559.
Numéro
Archivaria 81 (Spring 2016)
Rubrique
Articles

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