ARCH-COM 99-01
30 April 1999
34th
Meeting of the Archive Committee
Present:
L. Di Lella (Chairman); G. Veneziano
(incoming Chairman); L. Camilleri; X.
Daney; H. F. Hoffmann; A. Hollier (Secretary); K. Hubner; B. Pattison; C.
Pettenati; T. Pettersson.
Invited: F. Bonaudi; J. Ferguson; P.
Jenni
Apologies:
G. Lindecker; M. Sendall
Agenda (as approved at the
meeting)
1. Minutes of last meeting (ARCH-COM 98-02)
2. Record-keeping for ATLAS (P. Jenni)
3. New archivist, presentation of Programme of
Work (A. Hollier)
4. Visit to new archive storage area
5. Photo captions (F. Bonaudi)
6. Third report of WG on Electronic Archiving
(C. Pettenati)
7. AOB
8. Handover of chairmanship from Luigi Di Lella
to Gabriele Veneziano
9. Next meeting
1. Minutes of last meeting (ARCH-COM 98-02)
The agenda and minutes were approved without
changes.
2. Record-keeping for ATLAS (P. Jenni)
Peter Jenni gave an overview (see enclosure 1) of
the history and structure of the ATLAS project, and then moved on to discuss
some specific areas and their related documents. He stressed the size of the ATLAS collaboration (around 150
institutions, from 34 countries), and the democratic nature of its
operation. All aspects are discussed at
meetings, though not all information is in the public domain. The Collaboration
Board deals with all matters including elections. PJ keeps this documentation, which includes not only board
minutes, but also supporting documentation such as notes and letters. It is kept in an orderly manner, and so far
comprises about 28 volumes.
Management Notes are the personal notes of the
spokesperson, covering the full spectrum of subjects and including a good deal
of correspondence. Business is often
conducted in quite a formal way, particularly with the US ATLAS team, so a good
deal of documentation is kept. Around
12 volumes exist so far.
The Executive Board documents comprise about 30
volumes, including minutes (which are freely available within the collaboration,
and also notes and working documents written specifically for this body.
Documentation of Plenary Meetings is mainly in the
form of minutes (electronically available); but approximately one large volume
of paper copies of transparencies is also generated for each Plenary Meeting
and Atlas Week.
Publicly available documents are now electronically
accessible; these include notes, publications, photos, and technical documents
on EDMS. As well as this documentation,
which is centrally managed, there also exists a mass of information in the
collaborating institutions over which CERN has no control.
Some of the official CERN documents such as those of
the LHCC (Large Hadron Collider Committee) and RRB (Resource Review Board) are
also kept in paper form.
PJ concluded by stressing the confidential nature of
many ATLAS documents, and suggesting that for this reason the contact person
should remain the ATLAS spokeperson.
Discussion after the talk included consideration of
the need to print copies of publicly available information which was only
available online. CP agreed that this
was not necessary, since the Preprint Server and EDMS were considered to be
suitable systems for long term storage of electronic archives. CP asked if it would be possible to arrange
for the collaborating institutions to
submit more of their documentation to EDMS.
PJ felt that it would be impractical and unreasonable to insist on this,
but said that some had voluntarily started using the preprint server for the
sake of convenience. In any case, it
would not be desirable to overload EDMS with lower level documents that had
only local importance. The chairman
felt that it was better for the collaborators to be responsible for selecting
what was worthy of inclusion in the Archive, and PJ mentioned the good work
being done by many collaboration secretariats to organise their own records.
3. New archivist, presentation of Programme of
Work (A. Hollier)
AH briefly described her background in archive work
and then outlined her plan of work at CERN (see enclosure 2). She described how the Archive team is being
built up again after the break following the departure of Roswitha Rahmy and
Jennifer Paul. A new archive assistant,
Sandrine Reyes, was appointed in April for six months. We also hope to have a CESID student in the
autumn, and possibly a stageaire, and a CERN child for 4 weeks in June.
The immediate emphasis will be on fundamental tasks
such as sorting and cataloguing the backlog of unlisted material in the
Archive. This is time-consuming, basic
work, but it is necessary to stabilise the collection. AH considers giving a good service to
enquirers to be one of the highest priorities.
This requires a thorough understanding of collection and would be easier
if more of it were catalogued. The
exact size of this task is not yet clear, but it is unlikely to be completed
this year.
At the same time, it is necessary to establish good
working relations with the Divisional Record Officers in order to establish a
regular flow of documents to the Archive.
These are the people on whom the success of the CERN Archive largely
depends. Following the achievement of
Operational Circular No. 3, the next step is to put it into practice without
too much loss of momentum.
It is intended that the Archive will be integrated
more closely with the Library in future.
This will help to avoid duplicated effort as well as providing a more
unified user interface. The forthcoming
move of the collection to the main building will assist in this. Work relating to the move (planning,
re-arranging the collection to fit the new space, relabelling boxes, altering
the catalogue, and physically moving) is likely to take up most of the Archive
team’s time for the next five months at least.
AH expressed thanks to Jean-Loup Denblyden and Alan Ball for all their
assistance in enabling the move to go ahead.
AH has joined the Working Group on Electronic
Archives, and will contribute to finding solutions to this difficult and
pressing problem. (See item 6 below).
Last but not least, she will continue to facilitate
the Oral History project and the Photo Captions project. (See item 5 below).
AH said that managing the Archive currently relied
heavily on the archivist’s personal knowledge of the collection, so she had a
lot to learn, but she stressed her determination to build on the good work
already achieved in the CERN Archive.
Discussion included a suggestion that AH take the
opportunity of the move to review the Archive holdings and see if there are
items of lower historical importance which should be removed. AH agreed that this would be desirable, but
felt there was not enough time available.
In any case, she would prefer to improve her understanding of CERN’s
history and activities before embarking on this task. HFH stressed that it would be necessary to produce guidelines for
the divisions to advise them about good record keeping. CP stressed again the importance of electronic
record keeping, which will pose a serious problem in the future.
4. Visit to new archive storage area
This gave members an opportunity to see the new
storage area that had just been discussed.
5. Photo captions (F. Bonaudi)
The selection of suitable photographs from the
1954-1964 period, and the provision of captions for them, is well under way
(see enclosure 3). It should be
completed (including proof-reading) within three months. So far 550 photos have been processed. This represents about 5% of the total for
the 1954-1964 period, and they are selected according to criteria, which ensure
a representative and interesting collection.
Negatives are then scanned and entered onto the Photo Archive database,
which is the responsibility of Mme. Christiane Montarbaud. They can be accessed at http://alice.cern.ch/Photos. FB acknowledged the work of members of the
Photo Task Force and its collaborators.
Some names are currently under consideration to carry on the next phase
of the project.
Discussion included lively appreciation of the work
so far completed, and consideration of people who might continue it. Action:
FB, AH and GV are to contact potential volunteers in order to build a new team
to continue this project.
6. Third report of WG on Electronic Archiving
(C. Pettenati)
CP reported that activity had dropped since the last
Archive Committee meeting, following the departure of Jennifer Paul and the
delay before the arrival of the new archivist (see enclosure 4). However the WG had completed a questionnaire
for the WWW at CERN, and had begun examining the administrative databases,
starting with CFU (Contract Follow Up).
In March the WG had a first discussion of a CIS (Certified Information
System) for e-mail, which is being prepared by Arnaud Taddei in response to
user demand. The WG also heard an
interesting talk by David Bearman, one of the foremost world experts in
electronic archives. CP requested
financial support to enable the WG to maintain some external contact, in the
form of attendance at relevant conferences and a visit to a successful project
in the studied area. Action: GV and AH are to pursue this.
Discussion touched briefly on the question of how to
select the most important records for long term storage. One would not want to keep all e-mails or
all web pages in an Archive, even if it were possible to do so. [The fact that, in the computer world, the
word ‘archive’ is used with a more general, all-embracing meaning than that
used by archivists tends to lead to confusion in this area.] The question was also raised of what
should happen to electronic data for LEP (mainly engineering drawings) in the
future.
7. AOB
No-one has yet been found to replace Thomas Meyer as CMS contact person. Action: GV, CP and AH are to pursue this.
In answer to a question, CP stated that funding for
this year had been obtained thanks to an unexpected gift, but this was
certainly exceptional and support would be needed if staffing levels were to be
maintained in 2000.
8. Handover of chairmanship from Luigi Di Lella
to Gabriele Veneziano
On behalf of the DG, Hans Falk Hoffmann thanked
Luigi Di Lella for all his good work as Chairman of the Archive Committee, and
wished the new Chairman the best of luck in the post. He stressed the importance of archives, which encapsulate the
history and memory of an organisation, and he praised those who contribute to
keeping the memory of CERN.
9. Next meeting
The next meeting is scheduled for
Friday, October 15 1999 at 2.30pm in 40-R-C10
The meeting was followed by a short drink to thank Luigi Di Lella for his work as Chairman, and to welcome the new Chairman Gabriele Veneziano. Guests: Roswitha Rahmy and Sandrine Reyes.