Stepping off the paper trail? Rethinking the mainframe era at the Public Archives of Canada
During the 1960s and 1970s, Canadians increasingly used computers and computerized processes for government and business purposes. By the 1980s, some began to have personal computers at home. This thesis examines the experiences of emerging computerization by focusing on the Public Archives of Canada during this period. The 1960s saw the first computer projects at the Public Archives, although these efforts had mixed reviews. Many archivists feared that automated information retrieval would compromise the quality of their service, and professional position, while others argued that computers were a necessary efficiency to meet the growing demands on their institution. Overall, the decade of the 1960s was one in which many archivists encountered computers, computerized processes and computer records for the first time, and they responded with a range of feelings and reactions. By the outset of the 1970s, a select group of advocates proposed the concept of a Machine Readable Archives. When the creation of this division was approved in 1973, its staff members formed a distinct professional community within the Public Archives. They held a complex position as the computer "haves" of the federal archives and records management community, and the relative "have nots" in their communication with departmental computer personnel. The Machine Readable Archives became the hub of attempted communication and cooperation among all of these players, during the period of major technological development during the 1970s and early 1980s. By the time of the Machine Readable Archives' closure in 1986, computers were frequently used as an archival tool. A survey among archival leaders in the mid-1980s concluded that archivists, once a technologically conservative profession, had not only adopted the use of computers into their repositories, but most of them were optimistic about their profession's role in the evolving technological environment. Archivists' changing views of computers paralleled the increasing acceptance and familiarity of computer technology within Canadian society. To accommodate computerization, many Canadians adapted their work processes, and negotiated new work relationships. In Canada during these years, individuals responded to computers, personally and professionally, in complex and contradictory ways that reflected both reservations and excitement. The Public Archives of Canada, and especially the Machine Readable Archives, provide a significant focus to analyse this dynamic and changing milieu as Canadians engaged with the technological and cultural transformations of the era.
History, Canadian., Information Science.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3943.
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