Remin  University  of  China

 Hu Hongjie

Professor  of   Archives   college

Chief  Editor of Archives  Science Bulletin

我偶然发现中文如果翻译成了外文反而更利于在我们国家传播。因此，特将我在第15届国际档案大会上的发言（PPT）稿摘发于此，以飨读者。

Introduction (The Basic State).1

lAccording to a statistics issued by the International Federation of Periodical Press (FIPP) in 2000, there are more than 76,000 kinds of periodicals all over the world, with 8725 of them published in China.

lThe earliest archival periodical in China came into being in 1951 as a sort of internal publication operated by the state archival administrative authority.

lAccording to a report from the National Conference on Archival Periodicals held in May 1992, the number of open archival periodicals has reached 25. If all the official periodical publications issued by archival administrative agencies at various levels are also counted, the number would surpass 70.

Introduction (The Basic State).2

lThe Chinese archival periodicals differ in their forms and orientations. They can be defined into two large groups in terms of publishers: those published by administrative agencies  and those published by academic bodies.

lThey can also be grouped into three types based on publishing form: open publications both at home and abroad; open publications within the country; and internal publications. The circulation also differs considerably.

Introduction (The Basic State).3

lIn the following, I’ll describe further characteristics of Chinese archival periodicals in order to draw a picture for you of their status quo and functions.

lFirstly, a majority of Chinese archival periodicals are operated in administrative settings and carry an obvious feature of executive approach.

lSecondly, the academic influence of Chinese archival journals needs to be improved.

lThirdly, Chinese archival periodicals are valuable sources of historical materials.

Introduction (The Basic State).4

lIn a word, archival periodical press in China is a field of large range and variety. Different publishers, column settings, contents and audiences would vary the functional areas of periodicals. Those published by archival administrative agencies at different levels and of various kinds embody the guidance of archival work by offering policy instruction and working experience, enjoying the executive authority. Those published by scholarly organizations play their roles in particular fields. Generally, the former enjoys much wider social influence than the later in terms of scale and functional form. This is a basic characteristic of archival periodicals in China.

Sample Study

lChinese archival periodicals feature different advantages in policy, scholarship and historical resources, which are reflected by columns and contents.

lI chose two model archival journals in China and try to survey the articles they published during the period of 1991 and 2000, and then to examine the distribution of a certain type of articles with typical significance in the core archival journals. By doing so, I want to describe further the status quo of archival journals and the tendency of archival theoretical articles.

Sample 1: China Archives

lInitiated in 1951 as official periodical of the State Archives Bureau of China (renamed as the State Archives Administration of China in 1993), China Archives is designed to advocate the national archival policies, to encourage professional researches and to introduce archival working experience. Its regular columns include office records and archival work, work of archives, scientific and technical archive work, business archive work, preservation and conservation, international archival scene, archival studies, administration of archival endeavors, archives and society, regulations and standards, profiles, etc..

lBetween 1991 and 2000, China Archives published a total of 120 issues, carrying more than 4320 contributions. I first made a search of all the titles of the contributions with keywords of six traditionally archival operations: acquisition, arrangement and classification, appraisal, statistics, preservation, access. I then retrieved out 5 articles relating to archival acquisition, 6 dealing with arrangement, 17 about archival classification, 3 regarding statistics, 17 addressing access, 33 discussing preservation and conservation, and 12 devoting to appraisal.

lTable 1: Chronological distribution of China Archives articles

Sample 2: Archives Science Bulletin

lInitiated in 1978, Archives Science Bulletin was in its early years a joint journal of the Chinese Archives Society and the Archives Department (upgraded to Archives College in 1995) of Renmin University. Since 1987 it has turned into a bi-month journal for archival scholarship and archival education independently edited and published by Archives College of Renmin University. Its regular columns include special contribution of the issue, hot topics, documentation studies, modernization of archives administration, business archives management, scientific and technological archives management, development and use of archival sources, preservation and conservation, archival theory, practical field, teaching and learning, laws and regulations, external exchanges, foreign experience, archival history, doctorial dissertation, and graduate forum.

lBetween 1991 and 2000, Archives Science Bulletin published a total of 60 issues, carrying 1714 contributions. I also did a keyword retrieval of the titles of these articles according to the traditional archival operations, and found 5 papers dealing with archival acquisition, 1 about arrangement, 22 relating to classification, 2 discussing archival statistics, 28 examining access to archives, 16 regarding preservation and conservation, and 14 exploring appraisal.

lTable 2: Chronological distribution of Archives Science Bulletin articles

lIt is not difficult to find from the two tables that weather it is articles on archival preservation, which is on the top, or articles on archival statistics, which is at the bottom, both are of small number. This situation is probably caused by two reasons. Firstly, the variety and diversity in contents of archival journals couldn’t allow extensive coverage of articles on any particular subject. Besides, it is only by taking the form of this “variability” that a periodical can satisfy the needs of a wide range of authors and readers. Another possibility might be that archival work itself is also increasingly enriched and expanded. Traditional expression and theory are not enough to cover realities or practical activities of archives administration, and therefore being gradually replaced by new and more effective representation. In order to prove this assumption, I made a random search on the key words frequently appeared in the titles of contributions carried in China Archives and Archives Science Bulletin. Table 3 & 4 show the results

Sample 3: Research Papers on Archival Information

lIt is worth to note that there has been an increasing coverage of the subject on archival information in the sample journals. Another survey also confirmed the fact. A research conducted by two faculties from the Department of Information Management of Nanjing University Zhou Linxing and Luo Hui reported that, from 1990 to 2002, 13 major archival periodicals listed in the Database of the Chinese Scientific and Technological Journals published a total of 235 papers about archival information.

Table 5: Chronological statistics of research papers about archival information during 1990 and 2002

Two Notes

lThe publication of archival periodicals itself proves the social need of the products. The way of archival periodicals to satisfy this social demand, or in another word, the functional form of archival periodicals in a certain field represents their irreplaceable social function. In fact, the social function of archival periodicals is an irreplaceable advantage of archival periodicals in a certain field of society.

lFirstly, as particular media, archival periodicals play an important role in activities of archival administration.

lSecondly, archival periodicals should find their position in society in order to create wider influence.