Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

3. Session / Séance. Sharing of Experience and Exchange of Staff / Partage d’Expériences et Echange des Personnes - Huyda, Richard: Coordination Research in Archival Sience and Dissemination of Professional Information / Coordination de la recherche en archivistique et diffusion de l’information professionnelle (english 231 - français 251)

3. Session/Séance: Marcoux- Huyda, Coordinating Research in archivai Science

However, won’t this minimalist approach constitute a type of „original sin“, the sequel for which we must forever support? Far from that! Let’s say that it only represents a step dictated by current necessity and simple logic. If we want to ensure a broad dissemination of professional information, we must identify it, describe it, and localize it. If we want, on the other hand, to rely upon stable and active partners, we must reduce to a minimum the burden that this represents for those possessing the least resources.

Having said this, nothing prevents us, once the process is well established, from attempting, with new supplemental resources, to progressively enhance the products and services born of this international collaboration. Also, would it not be wise to identify now the resources necessary in the medium and long term.

The Resources

The necessary resources are of three types: knowledge, funding, and equipment. Their relative importance varies according to the type of collaboration envisaged for such projects.

In the case of the dissemination of professional archival information, the centres devoted to this activity can not operate on the national and international scenes without the support of their host institutions. It is these institutions that habitually provide the financial, human, and materiel resources necessary to fulfil the mandates conferred upon them. However, as we have already mentioned, this mandate most of the time is limited to the needs of the parent organization and to the influence that it wishes to exert on the national archival community.

With these needs fulfilled, institutions are often hesitant to provide additional resources for projects that, according to them, surpasses their responsibilities. For most of these institutionsthe international scene is a more or less legitimate and occasional arena for action. When they must venture on to this terrain, they often are obliged to obtain supplemental resources from higher authorities. They rely, however, on the wisdom and opportunism (in the goodsense of the term) of the authorities within the parent organizations to know how to profit from such occasions. For example, governments often put significant sums of money at the disposition of private and public organizations for projects linked to the most current political, social and economic policy priorities.

Following this direct and institutionalized approach for obtaining resources, the one that springs to mind is the partnership approach. This approach embodies an indirect means of obtaining resources because each partner associated with a common project must contribute to it in a manner that will be mutually profitable. Here we are in the realm of „giving inorder to be given“ - and the exchange of benefits. What is interesting, however, is that the nature of each partner’s contribution may vary - one may provide expertise, another financial resources, another material goods, and yet another all three types; and the fact that each partner can derive benefit from this input will make the project continuously viable.

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