Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER

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Maps and technical drawings in archives - special problems and special solutions

Frans E.Ch. Hoste, Altgemeen Rijksarchief

© LIBER and author
Published from: Bulletin Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, 28(1986)

To get this subject clear I have tried to keep this lecture short. So 1'll only give a brief explanation of archival terms and some definitions. The situation I describe is typical only of Dutch archives and does not necessarily apply for archives abroad.

Archives and archival maps in the Netherlands
To understand the term 'archival maps' we have to know something about archives; first of all, what is the 'raison d'être' -the reason for being- of records. They are kept for different purposes: legislative; financial; or more generally as a result of the activities of an institution. The 'task' of a certain institution generates records, which in turn show how this task was performed. The individual document or group of documents reflect the 'viewpoint' of the institutions. Records serve as a long or a short-term memory for a specific institution or person and are available through public archives to every interested person.
Maybe I should illustrate my point:
Why for instance, does the Dutch Topographical Service preserve a few copies of each map they produce? The principles of public archives are also laid down in a special law. From this we can obtain some definitions:
  1. An archive is the collection of records received or produced by an institution, person or group of persons on account of their activities and/or the fulfilment of their duties.
  2. A record is an individual document, or smallest group of related documents, which forms part of an archive.
  3. An archival map is an individual cartographic document or smallest group or related cartographic documents.
  4. A cartographic archive is the collection of cartographic records received or produced by an institution.
Before my definitions I used the words task and viewpoint. The fact that institutions perform a specific task has the consequence that the records are being formed in a specific 'structure'. The structure reflects the method of the institutions. After task and viewpoint, structure is my third keyword.
In Dutch archival practice we believe that we should respect the structure and the independence of every archive. Instead of one catalogue we make separate inventories for each archive. We can define inventory as a systematic description of the contents of one archive, reflecting its operating structure while it was still in use. History students are taught that they should try to identify with the people they study in the past. Inventories are tools to help researchers locate information but they also help them to identify with people of the past and understand the structure of thinking and operating in the past.

In the introduction to each inventory we explain the structure of the institution, its position in the hierarchy, its tasks and its history with special attention to changes in organizational structure. The introduction should also be a tool for the researcher: how do I find my information in this institution? When the archive itself is consulted, the picture is often not very bright. When the documents arrive at the Public Archive, they may be in a bad condition. Often the order of the documents may have been muddled. If we don't find a clue such as old registers, we will have to study the tasks of the institution in order to reconstruct the arrangement of different items. This arrangement could be called the general structure of the institution, but this does not help us to order smaller groups of documents. Therefore I have to introduce another key-word: affairs or stage of development.
A consequence of the task of an institution is that it deals with a sequence of 'affairs', some of them incidental, for instance, the building of a factory, and some of them more or less permanent, such as the maintenance of machines. Affairs give substance to the structure of the institutions and may be used as a guideline for gathering documents together into one item or one heading in an inventory.

In libraries you'll usually find bibliographic items in their final form. In archives you will find the process of thinking and operating, not only on the micro but also on the macro level. Any description of an item in an archive should therefore include the stage of development of the item, is it a concept or is it definite; for example, the archive of an architect enables a researcher to ascertain his way of thinking from different concepts to a definite plan for a house, and from the plan to the actual house with all the detailed changes for financial, practical and other reasons.

A description of a document or smallest group of documents should contain enough elements to enable it to be placed within the structure of the institution, at the correct stage of development, and to make it recognizable to the researcher.
In archives we only use five elements:
  1. Form: letter, list, topographical map, chart etc.
  2. Contents/message ( and often the name of the responsible editor).
  3. Date
  4. State of development
  5. Physical description: one sheet, a bundle, a volume.
Until now I have hardly talked about maps and technical drawings, principally because in my opinion there are few differences between written and cartographic documents, and certainly no major ones. There are some differences, however:
  1. Cartographic documents are edited in a special way and they require a special terminology to enable them to be identified.
  2. Their contents and message can be related to a geographic location.
  3. The material on which cartographic information is presented is often of an extraordinary size and composition.
  4. Cartographic documents are drawn to scale. This special element should be added to the description, thus making six elements.
Cartographic documents are often produced and used by a specialized group of officials and are kept in a separate filing systems. Such separately-filed groups of documents are the main source for map rooms in public archives.

Libraries and archives
The differences between libraries and public archives are gradually diminishing. There is, however, one main difference. The basis of the library collection is the individual book, map or other item. The basis for public archives is the separate archive of a specific institution. In libraries the classified and the alphabetical catalogue should enable the researcher to trace each item. In archives, the hierarchy of government bodies offers the first level of approach. The second level is offered through the structure of each institution. The third level is the description of items, individually or as groups.
As I said, the differences are diminishing. Both libraries and archives use classification schemes to order their collections, such as a Dewey or the Universal Decimal Classification.
Automation gives us the possibility of overcoming the limitations of such classifications, and enable us to trace individual items regardless of classification. When we consider that cartographic documents are relatively discrete compared with, for instance, series of resolutions of government bodies, this should be a stimulus to make computer-produced inventories of maps in archives and combine the descriptions of archival maps with those in libraries.

Automation in archives
In the administration of government bodies the computer is an accepted tool. It is used as a finding aid for information and it is used to store information. In the field of public archives we have not yet analysed all the possibilities of automation. Our first goal is to use it as a means of rationalizing the production of inventories. The traditional method of making inventories is to describe items on index-cards with improvised headings, slowly building up definite descriptions and headings. The initial work by hand is typed out and an introduction and indexes are later added to it. The computer, in our case a mini-computer or word-processor, gives us the ability to alter the order of the input descriptions and obtain printed copy without the need of the type-room. The addition of headings, and systematic use of underlining, assists us in the creation of structured inventory with mechanically generated indexes. In other words: our first goal is to economise on writing and typing and speed up the process of editing.
The result is still an inventory, but as a by-product we have also created a number of individual descriptions on floppy disk. The question arises, can we use those descriptions to put them in one big data-resource? Once we have a number of floppy disks with descriptions of archival maps from different institutions, its time to talk to libraries and documentation centres to discuss the possibilities of co-operation.

Combination of information resources in archives and libraries
As I said before the individual descriptions of items in archive repositories contain elements which fit them into the structure of an institution, and elements which can identify them to researchers.
We may ask, are there enough elements in our descriptions to make them uniquely identifiable when we remove the sheltered framework of our own institution and throw them into one big archival melting pot? I certainly believe this to be the case when it comes to archival maps and drawings.
In our description of graphic documents we supply the following elements: geographical area/location; date; creating authority; scale.
These together should be enough to identify documents even in a much more extensive system; on this optimistic note I would like to end this speech.

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