The Bhavrachakra's potential for linking archival theories

Finally, my dreams have become less charged and are becoming something I can work with. My current dreamscape is around theories of managing records in transition.  I know...I got all tingly with excitement just writing that sentence. I don't think my dog shares my enthusiasm, though. Maybe if I wrapped it in duck ham? 

I confess these conversations may be going on elsewhere in the Heritage-sphere and Modern Records but I am not seeing them because you know - laundry, kids, confusing low-grade hijinx of online dating, which I'm so close to stepping back fully from to work with a matchmaker (excuse me whilst I just shake the piggybank for a moment)- and then there is the work stuff: with the world opening up, my 'permanent' archives gig busier than ever, iwork as an artist's model is picking up, plus there is the freelance work.  My head is teeming some days that I've made minor errors that are embarrassing - messaging the wrong people (nothing majorly errant, but still...embarrassing because it means my circuit board is overloaded.)

Now that Carpetgate is officially over and the only thing that took a knock was my ego whilst I tried to track down a refrigerator that could be delivered in the 11th hour (which I did and sold two ovens in the process, whilst I got to watch over the shop...it reminded me of going to visit my grandfather at Air City back in the days before his misogyny got the better of him, listenint to customers' needs and building a rapport), I finally feel like I want to try and give words to this idea. 

Now that I've said farewell to my lovely citrine door, I'm back to ruminating on posh-filing. The new door is grey. It does not fill me with excitement. But planning for its reinvention? Ah...this fills me with much excitement. So many options to choose from!  

But back to posh-filing and records management theory. 

We have these models of RIM management (such an unfortunate acronym, that one): the Lifecycle and the Records Continuum are the two main theories of the longevity of records.  

The first - the life cycle model - is aligned very closely to the life cycle model you may remember from 7th grade biology (never sure what Year that would be in the UK; the system baffles me here).   You create a record, you share or disseminate it, it moved around the cycle until it gets destroyed or transitioned to 'The Archives,' which also appears to be a euphemism for death in the models I've found. You can thank Theodore Schellenberg for that. I wonder if anyone ever called him Teddy? Probably not. I imagine him birthed in a lovely 3 piece suit and bow-tie, bristling with otter-like efficiency.  A quick and dirty definition of the life cycle in the archival context can be found on the Society of American Archivists online glossary, whilst I quite like this image of the life cycle from AIIM :

With Frank Upward's Continuum, the core 'work' of the record is the same, but the transition is different; the record doesn't stagnate but is handed off to begin a wider or more narrow version of a similar circuit. 

(http://www.interpares.org/ip2/display_file.cfm?doc=ip2_book_appendix_16.pdf)

With historic collections - especially those that are 'found,' its a bit more straightforward, how we manage them. Like anything, you can develop a process. Mine tends to look something like:

• interview the current keepers
• do a site survey to assess how much and what the content is, if a sense of original order is going to be ascertainable 
• ascertaining what the client (an individual, family, organisation) anticipate the end game being (are they opening the material for public access, planning to donate it, planning to digitize, using it for reference internally...there are so many options and combinations)
• evaluate how to move forward with opening the boxes (and repackaging, also a favourite. The hours I spend looking at boxes and archival tape...it's my version of porn, I have to confess). 

It's never as straightforward but it is almost always exciting.  

But what do you do with material that you accrue, acquire, inherit? Do you keep everything? Does everyone develop retention schedules? Should we?  And does everything need to be saved? 

An archivist's close friend is the bin. I'm going to get a lot of griping for saying that but it is true: we cannot save everything, nor should we.  As much as history is written by what gets left behind, so too is it written by what is missing, what is removed, what DID NOT survive.  This is where I've come to see the life cycle model and the records continuum as being linked, as creating a Bhavrachakra of records and archival material.  The more I dream and toy with this concept, the more I wonder about the possibilities of it being applicable across the cultural heritage sector.   I also begin to wonder if I need to get out more.