Reflections
Event Information
Description
This COSI seminar will be in two parts, and conclude with drinks and nibbles. The first part will feature the authors of Recordkeeping Informatics for a Networked Age (Frank Upward, Barbara Reed, Gillian Oliver and Joanne Evans) introducing the concept of recordkeeping informatics and reflecting on implications for the future. The second part will feature Adrian Cunningham, reflecting on a long and illustrious career in archives:
Pledging my Time: Reflections of an archivist who lost a prejudice, but found a vocation.
After 36 years of working with archives, Adrian Cunningham recently retired from full-time, paid employment - though not from the world of archives. In this talk Adrian will reflect on how he, like so many of us, fell accidentally into the mysterious world of archives and discovered a life-long passion and a sense of higher purpose that has sustained a varied and sometimes turbulent career. His journey started in the Mitchell Library in Sydney, continued in the Manuscripts Section of the National Library in Canberra, before making the leap from private to public records at the National Archives of Australia and, most recently, Queensland State Archives. The ASA has always been an important part of Adrian's life, and this talk will reflect on his exciting years on ASA Council in the 1990s - a time that included the 'logo wars', the Heiner debate and the campaign to save the Noel Butlin Archives at ANU. He has been privileged to work with an amazing cast of fellow professionals, both locally and internationally, on matters as diverse as personal records, electronic records, descriptive and metadata standards, macro-appraisal, digital preservation, documenting Australian society, and recordkeeping for good governance in the South Pacific. He will conclude with some thoughts on how the profession has changed since 1981 and observations on some current (and in some cases perennial) issues, opportunities and challenges.