The National Archives of Malta is hosting the 41st International Conference of the Round Table on Archives, which will take place between 17 and 19 November. A considerable number of leading world archivists are coming to Malta to discuss the theme “Imagining the 21st Century Archivist: New Strategies for Education and Training”. Around 200 people, among whom are 188 delegates from 79 different countries, will attend the conference. These include 17 delegates from different countries in Africa, 11 from the Americas, 15 from Asia, three from Australia and 33 from Europe.
Next year the conference will be held in Norway and in 2011 it moves to Toledo. The high point for international archivists occurs every four years at the international congress, which will be held in Australia between 20 and 24 August 2012. Speaking to a few of the participating archivists gives some insight into this invaluable profession.
Paul Vogt hails from Liechtenstein, a very small independent principality located between Switzerland and Austria. With only 35,000 inhabitants (34 per cent of whom are foreigners) and an area of 160 square kilometres, it is the fourth smallest state in Europe.
“After studying history at the University of Zurich I became a teacher and in 1981 started working as a scientific assistant in the Liechtenstein National Archives. In 2002 I was promoted to National Archivist. In 1993 I was elected to Parliament and was subsequently re-elected several times.
I was a Member of Parliament until February. As an archivist I knew much more about the history and the administration of our country; on the other hand the archives could also benefit from my lobbying for cultural matters in Parliament.”
The archives in Liechtenstein is a small one and it is managed by a team of 12 people, eight of whom are part timers, while two have trained as professional archivists at Swiss and German universities. The oldest document in the Liechtenstein archives is a charter dating back to 1298. It is a letter of indulgence written on parchment and issued by some cardinals in Rome.
“People come to our archives for various reasons. About 50 per cent are civil servants – the only users who can borrow archival documents. All other users have to study documents in our reading room. The two most important users are historians and lawyers doing scientific research, but there are also journalists interested in old photographs, students writing a paper, architects documenting old buildings, or people researching their ancestors.
“While working with old documents you come across amusing and sad stories every day. It is the variety of documents that makes our job interesting. In modern documents you learn a lot about how politics works. In old documents you learn how people thought in earlier times. For instance, in the 17th century many people in our country were accused of being witches and between 1648 and 1682 over 200 people were burnt after a short trial. In 1682, the University of Salzburg was commissioned to give a legal opinion on all these trials. Though the professor in Salzburg believed in witchcraft, he declared all the proceedings in Liechtenstein as unjust and unlawful. Most of the ‘witches’ had confessed to using witchcraft under torture. Since all possessions of the accused passed directly to the Count, the only reason for all this cruelty was the Count’s need for money.”
Jackie Bettington is the president of the Society of Archivists in Australia. This is a non-profit professional association and her role is voluntary – a combination of Chair, CEO and contributor to many professional activities including publishing and education. The ASA has 900+ members working in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. Her actual occupation is that of consultant in archives and records management. Having attained her post after 15 years of volunteering in various roles and leading a number of projects, she is able to provide a thorough overview of the archival situation in Australia.
“Australia is an old continent with an indigenous culture spanning over 40,000 years. Working collaboratively with indigenous communities we aim to establish appropriate responses to their archival issues, namely oral traditions, record creation, access and ownership – all prominent areas of Australian archival endeavour. As a ‘young nation’ with a strong migrant history much archival work is concerned with understanding what it is to be Australian.
Our geographic isolation or ‘the tyranny of distance’, fascination with 20th century war, and the experiences of various waves and generations of migrants have shaped much of the investment and work in archives. Australia holds a leadership in digital record keeping with archivists here working predominantly with post 1950 records. Without a strong documentary heritage we are free to collaborate on strategies, technologies and practices for capturing, preserving and re-using archives for multiple purposes with colleagues in the cultural heritage and information management space.
“Archivists in Australia believe that if we do not get involved in the creation of records and design of systems, then many archives will be lost or unreliable/unusable sources of evidence and information. Archivists work with people who create records and business systems to ensure archival records are identified and preserved.
Archivists need to manage and control records at a finer level of detail and we believe archives do not need to be held in the care of a central Archival Authority.
“Australia’s development of the concept of the ‘records continuum’ (rather than life cycle of records) and related innovations have blurred the concept of the ‘archival threshold’ and the distinction between the work of records managers and archivists. Supported by legislation, these concepts are implemented to improve the quality of records management and the resulting archives. Governments in Australia have developed strong legislative and regulatory frameworks that have also moved archivists into broader information management, which will enable us to more readily identify and protect archival records.”
André Porto Ancona Lopez started working in archiving in 1989 while at university. He never considered archiving as a career until he became involved in organising cumulative documentation of historical value – the holding of the Mario Pedrosa Documentary Centre of the Working Class (CEMAP).
“In 1990, I specialised in archival organisation and at the same time became responsible for access to documents at the CEMAP. Eventually, I became director of the Historical Archive of Amparo, a small city with 60,000 inhabitants, 170 km distant from São Paulo, the capital of the most populated and industrialized state of Brazil. During that period I had the opportunity to assist at the Iberian-American encounter of Municipal Archives on Alcobendas, a small city close to Madrid, in Spain. The encounter, lasting 15 days, was very important in my formation. I was in charge of Amparo’s archives until 1994, when I started my career as a history professor at Maringá State University (UEM). Dealing with archives and being a history professor was a great experience.”
In 1995 André Porto Ancona Lopez was appointed professor of the archival course at the University of Brasília, and currently lectures in Research Methods.
“Archives and documents are everywhere. It is just a matter of putting on the right glasses to understand the world. It is very important to train new and good archivists, to have good archives and build a national archival policy. Unfortunately, in Brazil, we have few archives, most of them with only a historical perspective. Our national archive is situated 1,200 km from the capital and on the whole the population does not have any idea of what an archive is.”
In 2000, while a professor at UEM, he worked with a commission to improve the university’s archival system. Only a small number of official documents related to daily university tasks dated before 1991 were available. Through research, the commission discovered masses of old documents stacked in a corner of a deposit full of chemical and construction materials. “The documents were contaminated by rats and rat poison and could only be transported by construction workers using trolleys. The process was not quite smooth, much to the detriment of these old documents – being a rainy day, many documents got soaked and others were blown away by the wind and lost forever. Nevertheless, the damage caused by the bad transport made up for the imminent destruction they were exposed to, not only because of conservation issues but also because the university did not know of their existence. Unfortunately, this kind of scenario is rather common in Brazil and, in most cases, there are neither ‘raiders of the lost holding’, nor workers to help transport invaluable documents to a more suitable location.”
Charles J. Farrugia is the National Archivist, and has been working at the National Archives of Malta for 20 years. He undertook his professional studies at UCL in London between 2000/01.
“Working in archiving is exciting because although public perception on archives is not that high, the more you delve into the subject, the more fascinating it becomes. In a National Archives environment you come into contact with documents from every discipline. You tackle constitutional documents, hospital records, and old photographs. Behind every document there is a creator... we do not deal with shelves, dust and old paper but with records of people’s lives. Even the reading room work is exciting... you meet so many scholars, people from all walks of life and students who painstakingly develop research. We have helped innumerable people find a photo of a deceased grandfather or a mother they never saw. We have also facilitated the lives of hundreds in getting pensions from foreign countries.
There is the academic side of it as well – I was lucky enough to have the opportunity of establishing archives training at the University of Malta. Having students who come to the first lecture with a very vague idea of what archives is, and eventually attending their graduation, is my greatest satisfaction in this field so far.”
Mr Farrugia describes how archiving has evolved into a challenging profession that also embraces records managers. “No public administration can handle electronic records, data protection or freedom of information without archivists and records managers. I do envisage many more job opportunities in this sector locally and there are wider opportunities abroad. It is not a profession that will make you rich, but one that guarantees life-long learning and job satisfaction.”
There are things that need to be changed. Mr Farrugia talks about the ethos of several people who are not aware of the social value of archives. “I do acknowledge archives are specialized and ‘mysterious’ institutions in most countries, but the situation here is much worse. Calling yourself an archivist in Italy would not create as many blank faces as it does here. It is a question of cultural awareness which is so lacking in Malta.”
Being directly involved in the organisation of CITRA Malta 2009, Mr Farrugia has three important messages. “The first is directed to locals and people in top positions. We want these people to understand that archiving is not the hobby of a few people who love dusty old records. We are not booksellers. We are not antiquarians. Archiving is a profession that Maltese society cannot do without. One can go digital, one can use technology, but no technology can give you the professional input that archivists and records managers are trained for. The second message is for the international archives community. Although small in size, Malta has a wealth of archival records that need to form an intrinsic part of our cultural tourism niche market. The third message is political. Malta plays an important role through its central position in the Mediterranean and its EU membership. There is also the Commonwealth dimension. I have just completed my first year out of four as chairman of the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers. In all this Malta can use its infrastructure to build bridges and share expertise.”
Commenting on the state of the National Archives of Malta in Rabat, M Farrugia says, “The greatest challenge the National Archives faces at present is the need for room to expand. Contrary to what most people think, a national archive is not only about the archives of the Knights, but also about government documents (even electronic). Future generations have the right to expect that we invest and take care of the records they will use in their research. We also want more trained human resources to cope with the backlog of cataloguing as well as face the challenges that electronic records will bring.
“Contrary to what most people think, archival work does not leave you much time to browse through the documents and research for yourself. But we do come across interesting projects. One of the impressive ones was a research spanning a number of decades on motor neutron disease. The British specialist behind this project opted for Malta as the size of the country and the intermarriages allowed him a good case study. He recounted so many anecdotes of what his search for records was like in the various parish archives. These projects are long-term ones where archives are visited regularly over a number of years. Other finds are one-offs linked to a particular event. A case in point was the discovery of a photo of one of the ex-presidents of the Malta Football Association. It was at a time when the Centenary Stadium was to be inaugurated and the organizers were keen to have the whole set of photos of distinguished presidents. We managed to find the missing picture from our passport application records.”
Mr Farrugia also describes the oldest document in the Maltese language – ‘Il-Cantilena ta’ Pietru Caxaro.’ “This was a very exciting discovery made by Godfrey Wettinger and Dun Mikiel Fsadni in the notarial archives in Valletta while researching Maltese names during the 1960s. This poem, dated circa 1470, was found in the records of Pietru Caxaro who was a notary with a very romantic disposition. Apart from being an amusing read, it is a linguistic statement indicative of a highly developed language even at that time.”
The National Archives of Malta is situated in Rabat in a 14th century building that originally was the Santo Spirito Hospital, one of the oldest in Europe as proved by the earliest known document traced in Palermo and dated 1372.
In the early 1970s the national archives were collected in Casa Leone in Sta Venera. In 1987, the Public Works Department took over the archives as these were then considered, as being antiquities and hence its responsibility. An eventual change of concept passed the responsibility to the Education Department.
New legislative reforms saw the first law on archives being drawn up in 1990 and one part of the national archival material was officially moved to Santo Spirito Head Office, another to the Banca Giuratale in Mdina and a third part pertaining to Gozo was moved to the National Archives Gozo Section.
Archives is a specialised sector different in nature and concept to libraries or museums. The National Archives is not open to the general public for viewing and only attract a small selection of people seeking very particular information. This building stores public records and all that was created by public entities apart from notarial archives, and birth, death or marriage documents which fall within the realm of the Public Registry.
The archives houses the Photographic Collection, the Passport Collection, the Colonial Period Collection including a considerable number of Letters Patent and official decrees concerning changes within the Constitution of Malta, a collection of despatches dating from 1800 to Independence, and a collection of documents belonging to the Office of the Prime Minister dating back to 1921,
Find out more about the National Archives of Malta by visiting the new website
www.nationalarchives.gov.mt
Information about CITRA Malta 2009 can be obtained from www.citra2009.ica.org, by e-mailing citramalta@gov.mt or by calling the National Archives Head Office, Hospital Street, Rabat, Malta on 2145 9863.
