In his 1927 “Archeion” article, On issues of modern Polish archival science (Z zagadnień nowożytnej archiwistyki polskiej), the renowned Polish archivist Kazimierz Konarski wrote of the challenge of managing the “shapeless mass” of modern archives in the 20^th century. In this presentation, Canadian archival consultant and independent scholar Laura Millar examines the records and archives management challenge of the 21^st century: managing the “shapeless mass” of electronic records inundating governments and organizations in the digital age.

The “flood” of physical and textual documentation that Dr. K. Konarski faced a century ago has become a torrent of invisible, omnipresent, elusive electronic records – photographs, audio recordings, databases, AI-generated data, and more – stored in countless computer hard drives, cloud storage systems, and personal digital devices. How can the archivist manage digital sources that are both ephemeral and eternal at the same time? To ensure society has the documentary evidence it needs, L. Millar argues that archivists must our shift attention away from the care of static, “old” archives and focus more directly on the work of capturing and recording the present. The digital age may transform our methods, but our mission remains the same: to help society capture, protect, and make available for use essential sources of documentary proof.

Discussing archives as a cultural phenomenon entails viewing archives as epistemological sites rather than as sources. In the past two decades, this “archival turn” has been made in many disciplines. Anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, cultural and literary theorists, as well as artists, have developed various “archivologies”. Historians, however, by and large upheld the primacy of documents as historical sources, maintaining the tenet “No documents, no history” coined 125 years ago, in 1897, by the French: archivist Langlois and historian Seignobos, and translated into Polish in 1912. However, understanding archives as a cultural, social and political phenomenon also entails shifting attention from the actual archival document to its contextual history, a history encompassing the why, who, what, and how of archiving, all determined by societal challenges and technologies.

Protection of privacy is a key issue in determining the extent to which archival materials are to be made accessible to the public. But what is informational privacy; i.e., what are the elements of information found in any type of document or database that must be withheld to avoid intruding on the privacy of an individual? This essay first examines post-World War II international statements that reference privacy. Then it turns to statements referring to privacy issued by the International Council on Archives (ICA), the worldwide professional organization that represents the archival profession to UNESCO. Third is a brief look at several 21st century academic considerations of privacy, one each by a lawyer, a philosopher, and an historian. Finally, it outlines some of the contextual elements that help archivists manage sensitive materials, even without a final definition of informational privacy.

The European Coal and Steel Community established in 1951, the European Atomic Energy Community, and the European Economic Community, both established in 1957, built the roots of the European single market and are direct forerunners of today’s European Union. The vision of a united post-War (Western) Europe went far beyond economic considerations, as can be seen in the preamble of the Rome Treaties with its concept of “ever closer union”. It made the European Union a unique transnational political and cultural phenomenon based on common values and supranational decision-making processes. Archives hold the memory of the multi-levelled European integration process. European integration produced a new model of transnational archives with specific privileges, immunities and working methods. These archives preserve the legal acts, negotiations, correspondence, and documents produced by intergovernmental or nongovernmental European institutions and organisations and make them available to the public. The Historical Archives of the European Union play a central role in transmitting the memory, informing the public and fostering research on these diverse types of archives.

The article analyzes the development of archives through the lens of the McDonaldization created by Georg Ritzer. Since archives, like libraries, are deeply rooted in society, they can be analyzed from the perspective of ongoing social change. Referring to the various dimensions of McDonaldization – predictability, efficiency, calculability, and control – the author points to selected aspects of archival reality that exhibit the characteristics identified by Ritzer. Ritzer also pointed out that rationalized systems generate irrationalities and mention contrary tendencies that go (often intentionally) against the tide of the changes taking place. These two phenomena can also be found in the archival field. The article concludes that archives have undergone at least a partial McDonaldization. Nevertheless, the degree of change that has taken place in archives varies between the analyzed aspects. The article is based on an analysis of Polish and foreign literature, as well as the author’s observation of archives (mainly Polish). For this reason, the study uses a comparative, bibliographic, and observational method.

The authors set themselves the goal of indicating the places in the archival holdings where texts of a private nature are present. They used the ego-documentary theory developed in European science since the midtwentieth century. It makes us pay attention to narrative sources (diaries, journals, memoires, correspondence) in the first place. It also allows you to extract privacy from official sources in which a person is forced to tell the story of his life, express his individuality and identity. Court testimony is of particular importance in this context. It is an important component of the archival holdings, and at the same time the source basis for many fundamental scientific works on the history of the mentality of all social groups, including those marginalized. They notice untapped sources such as CVs (biographies) attached to official files or petitions submitted by private individuals to the authorities. They draw attention to the fact that all archival entities, such as fonds, collections or archive holdings, may be self-documentary in nature. This applies to private archives, but to some extent also official ones. It is a difficult problem to capture the private character of archives in the archival description. The authors indicate the usefulness of creating source and archival studies characteristics of classes of archival sources in terms of the possibility of ego-documentary research.

Personal files are documents, collected by the creating agencies, which reflect the course of a career path in each workplace. The source documents from the studied records are treated as egodocuments, because their authors tell stories about themselves. Preserved documents can be used to create biographies, analyse historical facts present in the lives of individual people, provide information about the surrounding world or help explain various complex processes – economic, sociological, etc. This article attempts to analyse personal files from the perspective of anthropological research, which in a certain way helps to get to know a person, their experiences and their understanding of reality. 

The purpose of the article is to comprehend the essence of the concept of “diplomatic archive” and to review documents, which were created in the activities of Polish diplomatic and consular institutions and/or are related to the development of Polish-Ukrainian interstate relations, preserved in state archives in Ukraine. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, determinism, and special scientific methods of scientific heuristics, information analysis, and source criticism. The scientific novelty of the study is determined by a comprehensive analysis of the composition and content of the Polish segment in “the Ukrainian diplomatic archive” – documents generated in the activities of Polish diplomatic missions and consulates in UNR/UkrSSR and materials on surveillance of Polish diplomats in the UkrSSR during 1918–1991. Conclusions. The Polish segment in the Ukrainian diplomatic archive is not a complete set. These are documents related to contacts of the Polish mission with the authorities and institutions of the host country: drafts and texts of treaties and conventions; authorization documents of the heads of Polish diplomatic missions and consulates; official correspondence of the highest state level; documents generated in the course of activities of Polish diplomatic missions and consulates in the host country; documents related to the implementation of consular functions; audiovisual documents; materials of special services’ supervision and materials of party control over the activities of Polish diplomatic missions and consulates. It seems important to create a common archival and information base on the composition and content of Polish and Ukrainian diplomatic archives.

The reviewed paper is a unique position in the literary works of the Polish archives of the last three decades, since it presents the three perspectives of the archival field: its theoretical basis, standpoint of the archival practice, and praise of amateurishness as an inducement to undertake any archival activities. Not only did the author discuss the current achievements of the archival science and explain its scientific character, scope, internal division and terminology used by the archivists, but he also presented an innovative concept, a reflection on seeking new ideas in the archival science and their practical applications, as befits a monograph. In the book, this pioneering role is played by the passages concerning the redefinition and restoration of the process model of forming archival collection, as well as theory of collections, the essence of which is the principle of respecting the entirety, created naturally by creators, systemically separated from each other, which comprises not only archives, but also library and museum objects.

The article puts forward a proposal of new archival science – anthropologised archival science. The new archival science is discussed in the context of changes in the understanding of archives as the practice of collecting, storing and providing access to archival collections. The modern understanding of the archives has been grounded in the naturalistic approach to thinking about the world and people. The key factor shaping the naturalistic understanding of archives was the socio-cultural context, specifically the emergence of nation states and bureaucracy. In the 19^th century, the archive, just like other elements of bureaucracy, came to be understood as free from context, discussion, ideology, or in a broader sense, culture. The 20^th century has changed but little in such an approach to archival science. Only slight adjustments were made. The proposal for a new archival science goes beyond these adjustments. It is a shift towards its cultural understanding, on the grounds of anthropological understanding of culture.