Sarah Green, University of Melbourne [email protected]

Sarah Green, University of [email protected]

Seekers, gatekeepers, cartographers: The Find & Connect web

resource

The Find & Connect web resource

www.findandconnect.gov.au2

www.findandconnect.gov.au

http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/

http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/

Seekers (care leavers), gatekeepers and cartographers

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“These records are wide ranging, and can be of little importance, or it can be life changing. Records are not records per se, they are the fabric of people’s past lives, their raison d'être.

The difficulty for record holders (the gatekeepers) is not knowing what is important, or if a certain phrase or sentence can change a person’s understanding to their past, and/or will begin the healing/grieving process.”

“Find and Connect are to me, the cartographers (mapmakers), and this role is pivotal to the care leaver when seeking records, where to start is always the first question.”

Greg Baker, care leaver, 2 October 2012


Seekers (care leavers)

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“On request for information about myself while in St Brigid's [from 4 to 16 years of age] I was sent one sheet of paper giving me a date of entry. I think that sums it up correctly, these institutions hold no memory, no photos, no medical, school reports nothing, and yet somehow we are meant to become model citizens, HOW?” (Submission 314)

“That 60-year-old book contained hundreds and hundreds of lost children's names...and nothing else. I felt I was being ridiculed again” (Submission 22)


Seekers (care leavers)

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“Individuals who approach the archives to find documentation of injustice committed against themselves are very often strangers to the archives. They have never been to an archive before; they do not know how to use our finding aids; they may not even understand the record’s bureaucratic rhetoric. They represent a new kind of user, signifying something new, something unknown, something strange—and sometimes even frightening.”

Valderhaug, G “Memory, justice and the public record”, Archival Science, March 2011, Volume 11, Issue 1-2


Gatekeepers (record holders)

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Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into the storage and management of ward records by the Department of Human Services, 2012, pp.12


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“You’re kind of gathering information from here, there, everywhere, and sometimes it can just be you know, even on gut instinct, in terms of workers that have worked there for a long time, and kind of realised where some of these records come, and might just remember, “Oh I actually remember getting one of those records out of using this method.” So a lot of it sort of depends on how good the operator is with their system, which is a real pity …”

Victorian Ombudsman, Investigation into the storage and management of ward records by the Department of Human Services, 2012, pp.25



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“With little archival training and a lack of organizational support those given the task of managing the archives are ultimately being asked to reinvent archival principles on their own. When their exposure to archives consists of dealing with access requests it is clear why an index would be seen as a top priority and documenting people rather than records the logical place to start.”

Melissa Downing, archivist, Reflections on the Records Access Documentation Project (RADP)



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The cartographers (Find & Connect)

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“Find and Connect are to me, the cartographers (mapmakers), and this role is pivotal to the care leaver when seeking records, where to start is always the first question. What alternatives are available are also important to the care leaver as a means of tracking down the same answers.”

- Greg Baker, care leaver, 2 October 2012


What is the role of the State-based Historians

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• Conducting historical research– Finding information about Homes

– Discovering and adding new Homes

• Locating surviving records– Liaising with record holders and updating information

about records and access

• Putting it all together– Histories, record listings, photographs, oral histories and other

online resources


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“To me, this duality of Find and Connect, as an information portal between the care leaver and record holder, will always be difficult and complex, and a role which will never satisfy everyone.”

- Greg Baker, care leaver, 2 October 2012


Sarah Green, University of Melbourne [email protected]

Documents

Transcript of Sarah Green, University of Melbourne [email protected]