Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - STEWART, William J.: Summary of Discussions
282 William J. Stewart the archival knowledge the architect should possess. In rebuttal, I would argue that the archivist should know something about architecture. As to the political authorities, the less intrusion the better. The archivist should not be deterred from his reasonable requests. Don’t let the architect put form before function when designing a new archives building. Function first, aesthetics second. That sums up my first observation. Next, I wish to say that I have learned a great deal from the experiences of other countries as recounted here, especially the formal papers of Mr Buch- mann, Mr Thomas and Ms Usón, and from the interventions and comments of the other conferees. There are two reasons why I came to Vienna: (1) to make friends and introduce China’s archival situation and (2) to learn of your experiences so that I might selectively apply them in my own country. Duchein: Thank you, Mr Yu-Cheng. All of us have been very pleased to have you with us and we thank you for giving us a view of a fast developing country and the concern that nation shows for its archives. Buchmann: Mr Duchein, you mentioned that you have proposals for resolutions. Do you wish us to draft proposals now to give to you or is this covered by your notes? Duchein: I want to ask the three rapporteurs and Mr Auer to sit with me just now to put them in form. I have the subject of the resolutions but not the final language. Has anyone a point to add as regards resolutions? Shortly we will read and discuss them. Meeting of the drafting committee Duchein: I apologize for the delay but it is always a difficult task to draft resolutions. Several proposals were too limited in scope to be treated as general recommendations. I must remind you that we are not an official body. We are only a symposium of experts, thus we cannot draft resolutions because we can resolve nothing ourselves. We can only make recommendations and those recommendations have to be addressed to the Executive Committee of the ICA. For that reason we have a problem with a proposal by Ms Kamba and Mr Benoit about inviting the governments to consult the archivists before choosing a site for construction of an archival building. We do not feel it possible to express a recommendation on that subject because we don’t know to whom this recommendation should be addressed. Should it be addressed to all the governments in the world? You see what I mean? It is not that the proposal is not important, rather the contrary, but can ICA do something on that point, Ms Kamba? Ms Kamba: If at some stage there is room for drawing guidelines on this
