Introduction

In October 1947, Sir Hilary Jenkinson, the doyen of 20th-century English archivists, gave a lecture to inaugurate the newly established archival education programme at University College London. Jenkinson used this auspicious occasion to describe the curriculum that he thought appropriate for students of archives. In the part of his lecture devoted to ‘the attainments necessary for the Complete Archivist’ (Jenkinson, 1948, 14), he expounded the need for pros - pective archivists to study administrative history, diplomatic, palaeography and repository methods and techniques. He emphasised the importance of conservation and custody, and spoke of the use of records in academic research and the relations between the archivist and the historian. He also addressed the subject of evidence, and – in a resounding conclusion to the lecture – proclaimed the ‘sanctity of evidence’ as the archivist's creed.

But Jenkinson said nothing about information as a subject of study for archivists; it played no part in his proposed curriculum. Although he knew the word ‘information’ and used it occasionally in other contexts, he probably never expected that, over time, information would become a significant motif in archival discourse. Today, however, the study of information seems predominant. In the early 21st century, archival education appears to have found a home in the iSchools movement, which seeks to provide scholarly environments where ‘issues of information’ are addressed and expertise in the use of information is developed (Cox and Larsen, 2011, 13, 26). At University College London, the School of Librarianship and Archives (as it was called in Jenkinson's day) has been renamed the Department of Information Studies. It now claims to educate students for ‘the information professions’ and its website describes archives and records management as an ‘information discipline’.

These changes reflect wider trends that can be observed in contemporary society and in the world of record-keeping. In recent years, records management organizations in several countries have changed their names or adjusted their preferred terminology. The Records Management Society of Great Britain has become the Information and Records Management Society. The former Records Management Association of Australasia is now Records and Infor - mation Management Professionals Australasia. In the USA, members of the professional association ARMA International have also largely rejected the term ‘records management’ in favour of ‘records and information management’ as a label for their disciplinary practice.