Archives, records, and information

terms, concepts, and relationships across linguistic cultures

Abstract

This paper is a lightly revised version of a talk that I gave as part of the seminar cycle Rethinking the Archive(s) / Repensar o(s) Arquivo(s) in Lisbon in March 2024. The organisers of the seminar asked me to speak about three terms that are central to our professional discourse: archives, records, and information. These terms give rise to a number of questions that I sought to address. What are the concepts that underlie them? How might they be related? How are the terms used in different languages and how are they understood in different linguistic cultures? Is there still a place for distinct understandings of archives and records in a world increasingly dominated by ideas about information? In attempting to answer these questions, it seems best to begin by considering the terms themselves. Each of them has a diverse range of meanings, and this paper aims to examine how the three words have been used in the past as well as how they are understood today. It begins by discussing historical and current understandings of archives. It examines the origins of the word records, its transformation from a purely Anglophone to a largely global term, and the challenges that arise in translating records from English into other languages. It then considers how ideas about information intersect with our comprehension of records and archives, and offers some concluding thoughts on the importance of records and record-keeping in the digital era of the twenty-first century.