ulcc da blog

I spoke at the International conference on archives organised by the Sociedad para el desarollo cientifico de la archivistica s.c. (SEDCA) and supported by the International Council on Archives (ICA). It took place in the Sheraton hotel in the historical centre of Mexico City. There were around 400 delegates at the conference from near and very far from all over Mexico. It was interesting to note the cross section of professionals who attend the conference a mixture of lawyers, IT specialists as well as archivists and information specialists.

The first day of the conference took place on the ‘day of the archivist’ which takes place each year on the 27th of March in Mexico, celebrating our wonderful profession! It was SEDCA’s annual meeting and it was planned to coincide with the Spring meeting of the International Council on Archives’ Section for Professional Associations (SPA). Most members of the steering committee of the section contributed to the conference along with our Mexican colleagues. Contributions were received from Sweden, who informed us about the history of their freedom of information law which is the oldest in the world and present day restraints which exist – e.g. all records are closed until someone asks for them! We also heard from our Dutch, Japanese and Israeli colleagues who all gave very interesting presentations on the background to their country’s archives and archival systems. I presented alongside Colleen McEwen who gave an overview of the records management system developed in Australia called DIRKS. It is concerned with building more efficient and accountable business practices through the design and encouragement of good recordkeeping.

I followed on in Spanish with a presentation about digital preservation, adapting some of our material from the DPTP and providing an example or 2 from the mexican experience managing to fit in a slide of the fascinating Dresden Codex. Both our shows went down well, and I got lots of questions both from the floor and afterwards. I even used our new interactive approach with the group of 400 archivists. They were very keen to do group work and participate. Their main worries concerned adequate support from IT staff as well as building good systems to manage their digital material. Migration was being looked at by several orgnaisations.

At the end of a long day of a lot of debate, coffee and fabulous biscuits we had an awards ceremony where institutions which had demonstrated commitment to the process of improving their archives and their archivists’ working conditions were given an award. This was taken very much to heart by both those giving and receiving them. As we were packing up to leave we were surprised by the sudden appearance of around 12 men who starting singing and playing various instruments – violins, trumpets, guitars etc – mariachis! they had been organised as a surprise way to end the day.

More news on Mexico visit to come in particular on the SPA meeting which was very interesting.

Hasta luego,

Patricia

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