This month the digital fun doesn’t stop and we're wrapping up our Spotlight series with one last interview on digital archives! We hope the Spotlight series provided a helpful showcase of the rich spectrum of archival work over the last year with our monthly features on different types of archives. In today’s post, the In the Field blog chats with Siham Alaoui, PhD in archival science and public communication, and a sessional lecturer in archival science at Université Laval, Québec.  

Q: Can you briefly tell us about your academic and professional path?  

I have an interdisciplinary PhD in archival science and public communication from Université Laval (which I have earned recently, at the end of November). I also hold a master’s degree in information science from the University of Montreal (2015) and a bachelor's degree from the School of Information Sciences (École des sciences de l’information, Rabat, Morocco), which I obtained in 2013. Since Winter 2022, I have been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses related to records management at Université Laval. I am interested in digital transformation and its impact on recorded information management practices. I will use information here as a generic word standing in for documents/records, datasets, and personal data, as in the digital universe, information exists as a whole and, at the same time, consists of fragments that can easily be combined in various ways to conduct several activities.  

Before that teaching experience, I worked as an archivist and a librarian in various contexts, chief of which is the Higher Institute of Translation Studies (Rabat, Morocco). Assuming roles as an archivist and a librarian helped me develop an interdisciplinary perspective on how information professionals (archivists, records managers, and librarians) manage information. More precisely, it made me realize those specialists need to collaborate and federate their expertise for better information management.  

Q: What brought you to the field of archival studies and practice?  

I have always been interested in studying something that combines culture, management (business), and technology. In 2009, after gaining my high school diploma, I was looking for an undergraduate program that fit my expectations. I found the interdisciplinary program offered by the School of Information Sciences (École des sciences de l’information) in Rabat (Morocco). I took an array of courses meeting the multidisciplinary nature of information science as a discipline. I had courses related to archival and library sciences, IT, communication, management, marketing, sociology, and history, among others. Hence, after graduating from this School, I had a very diverse background that helped me a lot both as an academic and a practitioner.  

Q: What does an average day look like working with digital archives?  

As a sectional lecturer, teaching both undergraduate and graduate students is a great opportunity to develop communication skills, especially when it comes to students who are not familiar enough with the foundations of archival science. In the automation paradigm, which stands for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support records and archives management processes, there is an urgent need to update archival curricula to meet the present expectations of the labor market. To this end, undergraduate students need to develop basic skills related to the way AI tools function, as well as the foundations of data science, since in the automation paradigm, archives are viewed as big data, because AI tools extract data from unstructured corpora to identify patterns and generate archival outputs (e.g. metadata, classification codes, etc.). For graduate courses, I always encourage students (who already work as archivists and records managers) to share with me the challenges they encounter in their professional world regarding the integration of AI features into archival processes. I enjoy discussions with them, as most of them come from various contexts (ex. government, universities, firms, etc.) and deal with different types of digital archives and records.  

Moreover, I have always advocated for collaboration between archivists, records managers, and professionals of other disciplines that deal with information in their daily practices. In fact, when we speak of information governance, we usually refer to a multidisciplinary framework where information professionals collaborate and establish a dialogue with other disciplines (e.g. library science, computer science, data science, compliance, etc.). Yet, communication experts are often neglected and not identified as stakeholders in this information governance. Let’s not forget that communicators also manage information as a ‘message’. They use templates to formalize documents and apply specific rules to make information (e.g. documents, data) publicly available online. In the context of open governance, advocating for transparency and inclusion of various stakeholders in public decision-making, the availability of information at the right moment to the right person is fundamental. This information should meet archival criteria (e.g. authenticity, accuracy, reliability), as well communication (e.g. relevance, up-to-date, public image management, privacy), and technological criteria (e.g. interoperability). So, I think it is necessary that archivists and records managers collaborate with communication experts to ensure that proactive disclosure of information meets some key principles like transparency by design and privacy by design. That being said, I have based my teaching philosophy on this necessary collaboration between the two specializations to make students aware of the importance of collaboration in the digital universe. I believe it is a good strategy because, at Université Laval, archival curricula now are managed by the Department of Information and Communication, rather than the Department of History.  

Q: What is your favorite thing about working with digital archives? What are some of the challenges that are unique to digital archives?  

Working with digital archives as well as teaching courses about them is quite interesting. As I previously said, recorded information is fragmented in the digital world, where a record exists, and, at the same time, datasets and personal data can be easily extracted from the record as a whole. Considering this aspect, metadata should be captured with these various documentary objects to make sure the links between them are described to make it easier to retrace the activity/process that generated them. However, this measure is not always easy to apply, especially where the same record is ‘owned’ by various administrative units. This is particularly the case of datasets, and more precisely, operational data. In this context, the management of datasets as records raises particular challenges, such as ensuring the archival quality of these objects, and, at the same time, their granularity and intelligibility to allow their reuse in various contexts. If we want to consider datasets as records, they should meet these requirements to enhance their discoverability. They are also to be contextualized with appropriate metadata describing the context and the links between datasets related to the same activity. What is the level of granularity that should be required to make datasets reusable by other users? How can we integrate dataset management into retention schedules? Whose needs should be taken into consideration while defining retention rules associated with datasets as records? In the context of open governance, internal and external users demand fair access to open data, which means that their informational needs should also be taken into consideration. How can archivists collaborate with users to understand their needs in order toopen up datasets that meet their expectations? These are some questions that should be addressed in the current context of open governance.  

Q: What do you wish the public understood better about digital archives? What do you wish other archivists understood about digital archives?  

As an academic, I teach my students to become more aware of the importance of the archival intervention of data as records. To this end, I develop pedagogical content that can help my students realize that data should be included in archival objects, that is, records. This is particularly interesting in the era of automation, and more specifically, generative AI (GenAI), where we address data quality issues and their impact of spreading disinformation. Datasets used for algorithms’ training should be authentic, reliable, accurate, and complete, which clearly justifies the need for archivists to be implicated in the design, implementation and use of AI systems. Moreover, with the evolution of the juridical context regarding AI, some records/archives are to be captured for accountability and transparency purposes. Let’s think about algorithms, reports, assessment results of the inputs generated by AI systems, among others. All those digital records should be managed by archivists and records managers. All in all, archivists and records managers should prove their added value in the management of datasets as records, as well as in helping organizations comply with the legal environment related to the design, implementation, and use of AI systems. They should also collaborate with other experts, like data scientists for the assessment of datasets, and with communicators to ensure algorithms are made publicly accessible online for transparency purposes.  

Q: Can you tell us about a project you’ve been working on lately?  

I have published some articles related to automation as the fifth archival paradigm, completing the famous four paradigm shifts illustrated by Terry Cook (2013): Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community. In my article “Peut-on parler de l’automatisation comme cinquième paradigme archivistique?” (Can we speak of automation as the fifth archival paradigm?), published in the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, I consider that, in the automation paradigm, archivists will have the role of IT experts who need to get involved in the way algorithms are designed, training data are chosen and AI systems are designed and implemented. I show the way automation will complement the four archival paradigms, rather than replace them. This article is based on personal reflection rather than a project per se. I have also recently authored an article entitled “Artificial intelligence and records management in contemporary organisations: what cultural aspects are required? Insights from the Information Culture Framework (ICF)”. The article was published in Records Management Journal.  

References  

Alaoui, S. (2024a). Peut-on parler de l’automatisationcommecinquièmeparadigmearchivistique?. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, 47(1), 18-34. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/cjils/2024-v47-n1-cjils09364/1112106ar.pdf  

Alaoui, S. (2024b). Artificial intelligence and records management in contemporary organizations: what cultural aspects are required? Insights from the information culture framework (ICF). Records Management Journal (Ahead of print). https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/rmj-08-2023-0041/full/html  

Cook, T. (2013). Evidence, memory, identity, and community: four shifting archival paradigms. Archival science, 13, 95-120. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10502-012-9180-7  

Dr. Siham Alaoui. Photo by author.