• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.6
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• pp.225-262
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• 2002

Chief Consultant Archives Government Archives & Records Service -table of contents- 1. Introduction 2. Relationship of Historical Studies and Archive 3. Relationship of Archives and Archives 4. Conclusion; Historians, Archives, and Archivists, and Their Roles This essay is mainly written for historians who may have "little or limited experience" in dealing with archives and archivists in their course of historical research. It may sound very ridiculous to say that "historians have little or limited experience" in using archives but it is also true that many Korean historians have depended on various compiled editions of historical materials or personally donated and/or collected materials when they do research, rather than they would visit archives and search for the materials by themselves. This is the main reason for that the public archives in Korea have not served historians well and effectively, and vice versa, that historians have not visited archives sometime with no knowledge of archives, and have not requested opening of archives for their research. It is a simple fact that historian's study depends on the records he/she uses. Without records, there should be no history. Use of archives for historical research is a common thing and a must in modern archives. Records are selected to be preserved in archives for their preservation as well as their future use. Who select the records as archives? Archivists do mostly. Then, what are the criteria for the archivists to chose records as permanent preservable archives? Answers to this fundamental question have been provided by many historians and archivists. The closest answer may be that selecting archivists would be better trained and equipped with historical research and knowledgeable of the major trends in historical research. With his/her own experience of historical research and tracing the trends of historical studies and materials used in the historiography, they could chose better and appropriate records for future use using their prudence and discretion. It also means that historians have had influence on archivists in their selecting archives by providing the theme and context of historical studies of the time. Though not necessarily becoming a historian themselves, selecting or appraising archivists should understand the process of creating the records and should know how they become archives. This is a precondition to become a good archivist. But that's not all. They must know how the archives are used and what archives are used for what purposes. Among many other roles of modern archivists, selecting and describing the archives are the foremost tasks of an archivist. Archivists therefore developed modern methods to select future archives based on functional analysis and records series concept rather than a record file or item as a unit of selection. Historians are users or consumers of the archives held in the archives building or repository. The quality of their study depends on the "quality" of the materials they use. With the help of archivists not to mention of reference service, historians owe much to archivists in having an access to the materials they need, intellectually and physically. Too many closed archives and too long closed archives in the archives repository would benefit neither historians nor archivists. However, archivists can mostly react only to archive requests and demands made by historians for more wide accessibility. Using the FOIA, as in the U.S., or the Information Opening Act, as in case of Korea, historians can promote the use of historical materials as well as promoting accountability and transparence for the benefit to society as whole. In this context, it is vary desirable to establish a close professional relationship between historians and archivists even in the age of information society. At present, historians need more understanding of operation and importance of archives while archives administration need to realize the potential archival demands from research community and civil movement for clean government.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.10
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• pp.276-322
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• 2004

Historical interest in China in 1930s has been mostly focused on political characteristic of the National Government(國民政府) which was established by the KMT(中國國民黨) as a result of national unification. It is certain that China had a chance to construct a modern country by the establishment of the very unified revolutionary government. But, it was the time of expanding national crises that threatened the existence of the country such as the Manchurian Incident and the Chinese-Japanese War as well as the chaos of the domestic situation, too. So it has a good reason to examine the characteristic and pattern of the response of the political powers of those days. But, as shown in the recent studies, the manifestation method of political power by the revolutionary regime catches our attention through the understanding of internal operating system. Though this writing started from the fact that the Nationalist Government executed the administrative reform which aimed at "administrative efficiency" in the middle of 1930s, but it put stress on the seriousness of the problem and its solution rather than political background or results. "Committee on Administrative Efficiency(行政效率委員會)", the center of administrative reform movement which was established in 1934, examined the plan to execute the reform through legislation by the Executive Council(行政院) on the basis of the results of relevant studies. They claimed that the construction of a modern country should be performed by not political revolution anymore but by gradual improvement and daily reform, and that the operation of the government should become modern, scientific and efficient. There were many fields of administrative reform subjects, but especially, the field of records and archives adminstration(文書檔案行政) was studied intensively from the initial stage because that subject had already been discussed intensively. They recognized that records and archives were the basic tool of work performance and general activity but an inefficient field in spite of many input staff members, and most of all, archival reform bring about less conflicts than the fields of finance, organization and personnel. When it comes to the field of records adminstration, the key subjects that records should be written simply, the process of record treatment should be clear and the delay of that should be prevented were already presented in a records administrative meeting in 1922. That is, the unified law about record management was not established, so each government organization followed a conventional custom or performed independent improvement. It was through the other records administrative workshop of the Nationalist Government in 1933 when the new trend was appeared as the unified system improvement. They decided to unify the format of official records, to use marker and section, to unify the registration of receipt records and dispatch records and to strengthen the examination of records treatment. But, the method of records treatment was not unified yet, so the key point of records administrative reform was to establish a unified and standard record management system for preventing repetition by simplifying the treatment procedure and for intensive treatment by exclusive organizations. From the foundation of the Republic of China to 1930s, there was not big change in the field of archives administration, and archives management methods were prescribed differently even in the same section as well as same department. Therefore, the point at issue was to centralize scattered management systems that were performed in each section, to establish unified standard about filing and retention period allowance and to improve searching system through classification and proper number allowance. Especially, the problem was that each number system and classification system bring about different result due to dual operation of record registration and archives registration, and that strict management through mutual contrast, searching and application are impossible. Besides, various problems such as filing tools, arrangement method, preservation facilities & equipment, lending service and use method were raised also. In the process this study for the system improvement of records and archives management, they recognized that records and archives are the identical thing and reached to create a successive management method of records and archives called "Records and Archives Chain Management Method(文書檔案連鎖法)" as a potential alternative. Several principles that records and archives management should be performed unitedly in each organization by the general record recipient section and the general archives section under the principle of task centralization, a consistent classification system should be used by classification method decided in advance according to organizational constitution and work functions and an identical number system should be used in the process of record management stage and archive management stage by using a card-type register were established. Though, this "Records and Archives Chain Management Method" was developed to the stage of test application in several organizations, but it was not adopted as a regular system and discontinued. That was because the administrative reform of the Nationalist Government was discontinued by the outbreak of the Chinese-Japanese War. Even though the administrative reform in the middle of 1930s didn't produce practical results but merely an experimentation, it was verified that the reform against tradition and custom conducted by the Nationalist Government that aimed for the construction of a modern country was not only a field of politics, but on the other hand, the weak basis of the government operation became the obstacle to the realization of the political power of the revolutionary regime. Though the subject of records and archives administrative reform was postponed to the future, it should be understood that the consciousness of modern records and archives administration and overall studies began through this examination of administrative reform.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.22
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• pp.157-199
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• 2009

The organization for managing records and archives did not emerge together with the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Such management became active with the establishment of the Department of Documents (文書科) and its affiliated offices overseeing reading and safekeeping of official papers, after the formation of the Central Secretariat(中央秘書處) in 1926. Improving the work of the Secretariat's organization became the focus of critical discussions in the early 1930s. The main criticism was that the Secretariat had failed to be cognizant of its political role and degenerated into a mere "functional organization." The solution to this was the "politicization of the Secretariat's work." Moreover, influenced by the "Rectification Movement" in the 1940s, the party emphasized the responsibility of the Resources Department (材料科) that extended beyond managing documents to collecting, organizing and providing various kinds of important information data. In the mean time, maintaining security with regard to composing documents continued to be emphasized through such methods as using different names for figures and organizations or employing special inks for document production. In addition, communications between the central political organs and regional offices were emphasized through regular reports on work activities and situations of the local areas. The General Secretary not only composed the drafts of the major official documents but also handled the reading and examination of all documents, and thus played a central role in record processing. The records, called archives after undergoing document processing, were placed in safekeeping. This function was handled by the "Document Safekeeping Office(文件保管處)" of the Central Secretariat's Department of Documents. Although the Document Safekeeping Office, also called the "Central Repository(中央文庫)", could no longer accept, beginning in the early 1930s, additional archive transfers, the Resources Department continued to strengthen throughout the 1940s its role of safekeeping and providing documents and publication materials. In particular, collections of materials for research and study were carried out, and with the recovery of regions which had been under the Japanese rule, massive amounts of archive and document materials were collected. After being stipulated by rules in 1931, the archive classification and cataloguing methods became actively systematized, especially in the 1940s. Basically, "subject" classification methods and fundamental cataloguing techniques were adopted. The principle of assuming "importance" and "confidentiality" as the criteria of management emerged from a relatively early period, but the concept or process of evaluation that differentiated preservation and discarding of documents was not clear. While implementing a system of secure management and restricted access for confidential information, the critical view on providing use of archive materials was very strong, as can be seen in the slogan, "the unification of preservation and use." Even during the revolutionary movement and wars, the Chinese Communist Party continued their efforts to strengthen management and preservation of records & archives. The results were not always desirable nor were there any reasons for such experiences to lead to stable development. The historical conditions in which the Chinese Communist Party found itself probably made it inevitable. The most pronounced characteristics of this process can be found in the fact that they not only pursued efficiency of records & archives management at the functional level but, while strengthening their self-awareness of the political significance impacting the Chinese Communist Party's revolution movement, they also paid attention to the value possessed by archive materials as actual evidence for revolutionary policy research and as historical evidence of the Chinese Communist Party.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.18
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• pp.3-36
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• 2008

Despite the institutional, organizational, and technological advances in the level of national records management that has occurred during the past several years, there has been no significant change in the condition of records management within individual public institutions, which may be an outset for records management. In order to begin the advance in national records management with overall innovation in records management by public institutions, it is necessary to distinctly set up the direction of innovation and a project to carry out. Also, a person in charge of records management, who is supposed to lead records management in each institution, should share the directions and projects. Against this backdrop, this study aims to define "the evaluation of records management" as a vehicle to establish a common goal for the innovation of records management and the role of a person in charge of records management as well as to develop evaluation indicators that might be applicable to all public institutions. With this aim, the study drew requirements of records management from domestic and overseas cases in the evaluation of records management conditions as well as the laws and standards of records management, and a roadmap for national records management innovation. Then, the study developed evaluation indicators by classifying the requirements according to three areas involving an organizational environment, records management job, and records management in the offices that create and file their own documents. The organizational environment area is concerned with the evaluation of the records management policy and the responsibility of an institution, and the evaluation of human resources and physical environment. The records management business area includes the measurement of the level of jobs, such as the records creation control conducted by the records management authority of each institution, the management of records schedules, the accession, preservation, and appraisal of records and their service, and the monitoring of records management. The area of records management in the offices is composed of the creation, registration, arrangement, and transfer of records as they are intended to be used during the monitoring of records management conditions. The study made it possible to measure all evaluation indicators with a quantitative evaluation method by clearly proposing the standard for objective and accurate evaluation.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.22
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• pp.77-114
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• 2009

The right to know is not satisfied merely by making or improving laws or systems. The right to know is a matter of culture rather than system. Nevertheless, consistent system improvement measures are required. There are many laws relating to the right to know. In particular, at the core are the Official Information Disclosure Act, the Record and Archives Management Act, and the Presidential Record Management Act. The fact that systems relating to official record management and presidential record management are related to the right to know is understood by the promotion of records and archives management reform after the year 2004, as a result of which the national archives management innovation road map was established. Reflecting the many opinions of the "Information Disclosure System Improvement Task Force" composed with participation of the government and the press after the participatory government's announcement of "Measures to Advance the Support System for News Coverage," amendments to the Information Disclosure Act have come forward with system improvement measures in connection with issues that had arisen until then. Such improvement measures have not resulted in actual improvements. This thesis proposes several system improvement measures, focusing on those that have arisen until now but have not been reflected in discussion, such as converting the concept of information non-disclosure into disclosure postponement, preparing and disclosing particular information disclosure standards, specifying personal information for non-disclosure, specifying and strictly applying any information that has not been disclosed for purposes of internal review, deleting non-disclosure items in stenographic records that do not have a reason to exist, and establishing limits and terms of non-disclosure. Of the most remarkable system improvement measures that have been made until now is our recognition that the right to know is not limited to the information disclosure system but that the "cause" of archive management should be systematic and scientific. In other words, the right to know is understood to establish not just accidential factors, such as with a whistle-blower, but the inevitable factors of systemization of production, distribution, preservation, and use of archives. Much more study should be pursued regarding disclosure of archives information. In particular, difficult issues to be resolved regarding reading records at permanent archives management institutions, such as the National Archives of Korea, or copyrights that arise in the process, require constant study from academia and relevant institutions.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.21
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• pp.169-246
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• 2009

The national records management system of the Korean Government has been developed in a close relationship with changes in the administrative system. The national records management system established immediately after the establishment of the Korean Government, began to be reformed as a system with a new feature during the quick transition of the administrative system during the early 1960s. Particularly this new system holds an important meaning in that it began to cope with the mass production system of records and was established on the government level for the first time since the establishment of the government. Also this was a basic framework that defined the records management pattern of the Korean Government for the later 40 years. Therefore, this study aims to identify the origin and the meaning of the national records management system established during the early 1960s. At the time of establishing the government, the administrative system of the Korean Government was not completely free from the framework of the administrative system of the Chosen General Government. This was mainly because the Korean Government had no capability to renovate the administrative system. This was not an exception also for the national records management system. In other words, the forms and preparation methods of official document, an official document management process, and the classification and appraisal system used the records management system of the Chosen General Government without any alteration. Main factors that brought about the reform of the national records management system as well as the change in the Korean administrative system during the early 1960s, were being created in Korean society, starting from the mid 1950s. This resulted from the growth of Korean Army, public officers, and students of administrative science as being the intrinsic elites of Korean society through their respective experience of the US administration. In particular, the reform of the creation, classification, filing, transfer, and preservation system shown during the introduction of a scientific management system of the US Army in the Korean Army was a meaningful change given the historic developing process of Korean records management system history. This change had a decisive effect on the reform of the national records management system during the early 1960s. As the Korean Army, public officers, and students of administrative science, who had posted growth beginning in the mid-1950s, emerged as administrative elites during the early 1960s, the administrative system of the Korean Government brought about a change, which was different from the past in terms of its quality, and the modernization work of documentary administration pursued during the period, became extended to the reform of the national records management system. Then, the direction of reform was 'the efficient and effective control' over records based on scientific management, which was advanced through the medium of the work that accommodate the US office management system and a decimal filing system to Korean administrative circumstances. Consequently, Various official document forms, standards, and the gist of process were improved and standardized, and the appraisal system based on the function-based classification were unified on the government level by introducing a decimal filing system.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.14
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• pp.153-190
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• 2006

Externally, business environment in public institution has being changed as government business reference model(BRM) appeared and business management systems for transparency of a policy decision process are introduced. After Records Automation System started its operation, dissatisfaction grows because of inadequacy in system function and the problems about authenticity of electronic records. With these backgrounds, National Archives and Records Service had carried out 'Information Strategy Planning for Reform to Records Management System' for 5 months from September, 2005. As result, this project reengineers current records management processes and presents the world-class system model. After Records and Archives Management Act was made, the records management in public institution has propelled the concept that paper records are handled by means of the electric data management. In this reformed model, however, we concentrates on the electric records, which have gradually replaced the paper records and investigate on the management methodology considering attributes of electric records. According to this new paradigm, the electric records management raises a new issue in the records management territory. As the major contents of the models connecting with electric records management were analyzed and their significance and bounds were closely reviewed, the aim of this paper is the understanding of the future bearings of the management system. Before the analysis of the reformed models, issues in new business environments and their records management were reviewed. The government's BRM and Business management system prepared the general basis that can manage government's whole results on the online and classify them according to its function. In this points, the model is innovative. However considering the records management, problems such as division into Records Classification, definitions and capturing methods of records management objects, limitations of Records Automation System and so on was identified. For solving these problems, the reformed models that has a records classification system based on the business classification, extended electronic records filing system, added functions for strengthening electric records management and so on was proposed. As regards dramatically improving the role of records center in public institution, searching for the basic management methodology of the records management object from various agency and introducing the detail design to keep documents' authenticity, this model forms the basis of the electric records management system. In spite of these innovations, however, the proposed system for real electric records management era is still in its beginning. In near feature, when the studies is concentrated upon the progress of qualified classifications, records capturing plans for foreign records structures such like administration information system, the further study of the previous preservation technology, the developed prospective of electric records management system will be very bright.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.20
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• pp.151-212
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• 2009

Museums are producing new value and being redefined as places that reproduce context, as the process of globalization are being reflected in museum activities. The new additional functions and roles to the traditional mission of museums allow artworks to find potential functions of art archive and meseum. At the same time, the public has faced originality and aura of an artwork by viewing the physical subject. However, with the appearance of a new digital object, the initiative of viewing has moved over from the artwork to the hands of the public. Now, the public does not go to the museum to see an artwork, but has started to adopt to an opposite paradigm of bringing the artwork forward to the screen. Therefore, they are not satisfied any longer with just seeing an artwork, but demand more information about the artworks and reproduce it as knowledge. Therefore, this study aimed to find types and characteristics through definition and range selection of art archive at this point where the value of art archive is enhanced and systematic management is required, and to present record management methods according to art archive structure and core execution function. It especially stressed that the basis of overall art archive definition was in an 'approach' paradigm rather than a 'preservation' paradigm, and embodied various application methods of digitalized art records. The digital object of an artwork was recognized as the first materialization of an actual artwork, and the digital original of an artwork was presented as the core record. Art archive managed under physical and intellectual control were organically restructured focusing on digital original copies of artworks, which are the core record in a digital technology environment, and could be provided to users in forms of various services that meet their demands. The beginning of systematic management of such art records will become a first step to enhance historical value, establish art cultural identity, and truly possess art culture.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.19
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• pp.153-192
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• 2009

Appearing newly on June 1894, Gaboh regime enforced modern reformation policy. In light of archives' management, it was totally different from before. Government established individual department of record management in every division and proclaimed a legislative bill which was stipulated about record management process. They modified archives' form including peculiar declaration of the name of an era and use together with Korean and Chinese. Also they tried to conserve the original copy of the archives. As King Gojong announced the Great Han Empire(Taehan Cheguk, 大韓帝國) on October 1897, he reinforced Gaboh regimes' weakened royal authority and enforced reformation policy which was designed for himself. First he abolished the administration which restricted royal authority, and established new department called Euijungbu(議政府). To restrain the royal power, he separated the Royal House and government and reinforced Gungnaebu(宮內府). In addition, King Gojong enforced the policy which he can manage directly about troops, policies, and finances. Consequently, He established Wonsubu(元帥府), Kyungbu(警部), and made direct belonging of an emperor. Also, department called Naejangwon(內藏院) tried to levy many kinds of taxes directly to build up the financial foundation under the emperor. The record management system of Great Han Empire succeeded to that of Gaboh regimes Times'. First, government and powerful organization directly under the emperor set up the department of record management. Euijungbu (議政府) and governmental department, of course, Gungnaebu(宮內府), Wonsubu(元帥府), Kyungbu(警部), Tongshinwon(通信院), Jikyeahmun(地契衙門) which support the right of an emperor established document division and record division individually. To carry out government's service effectively and systematically, it was considered effective to divide record management department. Moreover, despite the difference between the divisions, they were separated into current record division and non current record division. Generally, document department took charge of acceptance, sending and crafting of current document and archives department was eligible for preservation and compilation of major document and eternal conservation document. This seems to consider life cycle of the record and keep the evaluation of record in mind. Finally, perception for the record management has revealed to modern configuration.

• The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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• no.25
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• pp.3-46
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• 2010

Digital records management is one whole system in which many social and technical elements are interacting. To maintain the trustworthiness, the repository needs periodical audit and certification. Thus, individual electronic records management agency needs toolkit that can be used to self-evaluate their trustworthiness continuously, and self-assess their atmosphere and system to recognize deficiencies. The purpose of this study is development of self-certification toolkit for repositories, which synthesized and analysed such four international standard and best practices as OAIS Reference Model(ISO 14721), TRAC, DRAMBORA, and the assessment report conducted and published by TNA/UKDA, as well as MoRe2 and current national laws and standards. As this paper describes and demonstrate the development process and the framework of this self-certification toolkit, other electronic records management agencies could follow the process and develop their own toolkit reflecting their situation, and utilize the self-assessment results in-house. As a result of this research, 12 areas for assessment were set, which include (organizational) operation management, classification system and master data management, acquisition, registration and description, storage and preservation, disposal, services, providing finding aids, system management, access control and security, monitoring/audit trail/statistics, and risk management. In each 12 area, the process map or functional charts were drawn and business functions were analyzed, and 54 'evaluation criteria', consisted of main business functional unit in each area were drawn. Under each 'evaluation criteria', 208 'specific evaluation criteria', which supposed to be implementable, measurable, and provable for self-evaluation in each area, were drawn. The audit and certification toolkit developed by this research could be used by digital repositories to conduct periodical self-assessment of the organization, which would be used to supplement any found deficiencies and be used to reflect the organizational development strategy.