On the record


Interpreters have to be generalists who can turn their hand to any subject that might come their way. Some topics are readily comprehensible: agriculture, launching a new car or midwifery. But tell an interpreter he or she has to work at a meeting of archivists, and he’ll picture a gathering of slightly tweedy and bookish individuals who’ve emerged from the dusty university libraries they usually inhabit .
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Calliope members have organised the interpreters for the International Council on Archives (ICA) for a number of years. Its most recent meeting was held at the newly inaugurated Centre for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi at the end of November and their discussions provided a fascinating insight into the role of archives in the modern world. I have to admit it was a real eye-opener for me.

The official conference languages were English, French and Arabic and we interpreters had to draw on our experience of many subjects and general knowledge acquired at many meetings to provide the delegates with the excellent service they’ve now come to expect.

Delegates considered at length the rapid development of human rights law. Effective enforcement of human rights depends on written evidence of abuse and clearly governments with something to hide will go to great lengths to keep incriminating documents out of the public domain. The records the archivist protects are an important part of the checks and balances that free societies take for granted. Privatisation of public utilities – say water – is controversial in the developing world, but advocacy groups need more than a general feeling of injustice as a starting point for investigation. They must have access to the appropriate documents to find out exactly how privatisations have been carried out. Again, a job for the archivist or records manager.

Interpreters can act as accurate radars of global issues. Senior colleagues can remember when the subject on everyone’s lips was the Vietnam War, and it was later supplanted by South Africa. Other issues of the hour have come and gone and now no meeting can safely ignore good governance and globalisation. It is the job of records manager to chronicle these changes. Globalisation’s winners and losers must measure themselves against the yardstick of the pre-globalised world so it is important that the transformations wrought by this process are properly recorded and that the archives document the experience not only of those who gain but also those who see themselves as losers in the process of globalisation. Administrations around the world are considering how the use of electronic documentation systems can make them more accessible and efficient.

Nowadays many people wonder aloud what it really means to be French or Mexican or South African. A shared history is often the glue that holds together national identity and history is found in old buildings and fossils, but also in the documents that have been handed down to us by past generations. These include birth, marriage and death certificates, treaties, land registers, bills of lading, letters patent and private correspondence. Imagine how important saving such material becomes for a people trying to rescue their past. Protecting the documents of the past is as important as protecting the physical artefacts; both give us our modern identity .

Companies need to keep good records so they can understand their own past. In this era of mergers and acquisitions it is important for the merged companies to use an efficient records management system and guard against losses during the process of amalgamating two companies. The records manager faces a major challenge in bringing in electronic document management; the archivist also works to defend the company’s intellectual property rights in the form of its patents and literature within the technical field. These efforts help the company compete more effectively.

Corruption is a major problem worldwide and the solution is accountability. Politicians and leaders can only be effectively held to account if there is a clear paper trail of their actions – again a job for the archivist. Intergovernmental organisations like the World Bank, IMF and UNESCO are aware of the importance of archives and support efforts to institute effective record keeping.

I hope this short article has been a window into the world of the modern archivist. The interpreters worked hard on their preparation so they could meet the challenge of a meeting bringing together so many subjects and disciplines; we needed to master the fundamentals of the archivist’s art and grasp such basic terms as archives, records, collections or documents and understand the concepts governing the work of archivists such as registry principle and provenance. Our effort was rewarded with a fascinating glimpse into the world of the guardians of our past and future. Archivists are like interpreters in that they are not in the limelight and get little media coverage, but perform a vital task in the modern world.

Philip Smith
Calliope member in the United Kingdom

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