Recordkeeping, Ethics and Law: Regulatory Models, Participant Relationships and Rights and Responsibilities in the Online World

Citation

Todd, M. (2007), "Recordkeeping, Ethics and Law: Regulatory Models, Participant Relationships and Rights and Responsibilities in the Online World", Records Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2007.28117bae.002

Recordkeeping, Ethics and Law: Regulatory Models, Participant Relationships and Rights and Responsibilities in the Online World

Livia IacovinoSpringer Archivist’s Library2006ISBN-10 1-4020-4691-XUS$109Keywords: Professional ethics, Records management, Law, SocietyReview DOI 10.1108/09565690710757922

This book, a reworking of Livia Iacovino’s PhD thesis, makes a valuable contribution on a number of levels. It reminds of the necessity of seeing records management and archives in their juridical context, it discusses the communities of participants in business activities in the online world and also the communities of participants in how traces of those activities are managed. Further, in going behind the law to the jurisprudence it makes a strong case for the existence already of significant commonalities of approach across jurisdictions and maps these to similarities in different archival theories and traditions. The result is a proposed model for regulating the contemporary online world.

Livia Iacovino was one of the contributing authors of Archives: Recordkeeping in Society (Eds. McKemmish, Piggott, Reed and Upward and reviewed in RMJ Volume 16 Number 1 by David Ryan) where she wrote on “Recordkeeping and juridical governance” (Chapter 20). In that and the present work, she argues that formal law cannot properly be understood without comprehending the communities it was developed for and the social, moral and ethical relationships between their members.

This is a deeper comparative analysis. Not surrounded this time by the papers of other Australian archivists and taking a consciously international and comparative approach, the effect strikes this reviewer as demonstrating even more clearly than Recordkeeping in Society that as a research methodology the records continuum has come of age. Whether it has done the same as a basis for moral, ethical and juridical frameworks will depend in part on the reaction of others to Iacovino’s arguments. Certainly, stressing the substantial commonalities between continuum and other archival thinking renders the former more backbone than it sometimes has. It might even rescue it from an inevitable association with an archival postmodernism not easily mapped to juridical systems.

As will by now be apparent, this is a substantial book for the advanced practitioner, PhD student, teacher or scholar in our field and related disciplines, particularly law. For records professionals, it amply repays investment in study as it enables the conceptual joining up of what can often seem disparate issues. For example, seeing privacy as well as intellectual property as a moral right (Chapter 4) or grappling with the (im)materiality of records and whether the law treats them as property (Chapter 5).

It would be possible to use it as a reference source (there is a good index and a wide ranging bibliography) but the reader wishing to do this would first need to be aware of some of the terminology, perhaps by first mastering the introduction and early chapters, and to have some interest in understanding the concepts. The close linkage of diplomatic science to specific civil law systems has been articulated extensively before, as has its application both within common law systems and to contemporary records. What is less familiar is the substantial intellectual discipline displayed of mapping comparative archival science to comparative law.

Meeting direct legal requirements may well be onerous in some sectors, but the art of an effective records management programme often lies in getting the less categoric requirement understood and systems designed to manage records accordingly in a coherent programme. This is particularly demanding with new ways of doing business online. After Iacovino has set out an analysis of the current difficulties in regulating the internet, the final chapter proposes an alternative model based on the legal and social relationships expounded earlier in the book. This is where the most practical application of the underlying research could lie. The most helpful examples of moral obligations are the discussions of the doctor/patient relationship (Iacovino has published previously on healthcare records) and the citizen/government relationship and the differences with “consuming” other services. It also provides food for thought on our own profession. The participant relationship diagrams are clear and helpful.

A couple of minor quibbles about terminology. Whilst the book takes an international perspective, and in preparing it from her PhD Iacovino has inserted many non-Australian examples, the title adopts the Australian usage of the term “recordkeeping” as the societal activity of recorded memory in its broadest sense. The scope of the term with reference to recordkeeping professionals is explained in the first sentence of the introduction, but the thoroughgoing significance of this might not dawn on some readers until much later. It is also slightly jarring to have the discussion of “webs” of relationships when discussing internet regulation. It is difficult to suggest better terms.

We ought also to note the moving of the important Archivist’s Library series from the Kluwer to the Springer Imprint. The presentation is mostly unaffected apart from a change of spine logo. There are some minor production issues with the copy I acquired: some paragraphs have unintended italicised text that should have been picked up at proof stage, though it is not too distracting (pages 153 and 172). This book is longer (at 303 pages) than the previous volumes, but not significantly more costly. It still represents a significant investment compared to many other records management texts, albeit not legal ones. It is well worth it.

Malcolm ToddParliamentary Archives, Westminster, London, UK