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how information is obtained from them. The original registers, indexes and other finding aids of the office are ready-made instruments of information retrieval.
However, the original finding aids will answer only the questions they were designed to answer and frequently questions which the student wishes to ask of the records are quite different from those which the administrator had in mind. It therefore becomes part of the archivist's business to devise supplementary media in the form of guides, inventories, lists, calendars and select indexes to which the student can turn for further guidance.
Archives are highly significant resources and the most important of them are the archives of governments. Official archives constitute government's memory. They contain information on every aspect of its business, and this information increases in value and extent as archives are accumulated and preserved. "Public records define the relations of government to the governed. They are the immediate proof for all temporary property and financial rights that are derived from or are connected with a citizen's relations to a government, and are the ultimate proof for all permanent civic rights and privileges".
For these reasons if for no other, the proper management by a government of its current records and the conservation of its archives should be viewed by it not as a luxury or as a concession to academia, but as an essential object of national concern,
The last time I was asked to talk about the development of an archive office was in 1965 when I was in charge of the Central Archives of Fiji and the Western Pacific High Commission. It was comparatively easy because I then had nearly a decade of development to look back on. In this case it is more difficult because the Public Records Office, Hong Kong—hereafter referred to as P.R.O.—has been in existence here for less than eighteen months and we are standing a little too close to events to see what they really amount to in terms of progress.
The P.R.O. was established in July, 1972, and, as some of you will know, it forms at present a unit of the Colonial Secretariat under the general direction of the Home Affairs and Information Branch.
* Perotin, Yves, "A Manual of Tropical Archivology". (Mouton & Co., Paris) p. 20.
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how information is obtained from them. The original registers, indexes and other finding aids of the office are ready-made instru- ments of information retrieval.
However, the original finding aids will answer only the questions they were designed to answer and frequently questions which the student wishes to ask of the records are quite different from those which the administrator had in mind. It therefore becomes part of the archivist's business to devise supplementary media in the form of guides, inventories, lists, calendars and select indexes to which the student can turn for further guidance.
Archives are highly significant resources and the most important of them are the archives of governments. Official archives constitute government's memory. They contain information on every aspect of its business, and this information increases in value and extent as archives are accumulated and preserved. "Public records define the relations of government to the governed. They are the immediate proof for all temporary property and financial rights that are deriv- ed from or are connected with a citizen's relations to a government, and are the ultimate proof for all permanent civic rights and privi- leges".
For these reasons if for no other, the proper management by a government of its current records and the conservation of its archives should be viewed by it not as a luxury or as a concession to acade- mia, but as au essential object of national concern,
The last time I was asked to talk about the development of an archive office was in 1965 when I was in charge of the Central Archives of Fiji and the Western Pacific High Commission. It was comparatively easy because I then had nearly a decade of develop- ment to look back on. In this case it is more difficult because the Public Records Office, Hong Kong-hereafter referred to as P.R.O. --has been in existence here for less than eighteen months and we are standing a little too close to events to see what they really amount to in terms of progress.
The P.R.O. was established in July, 1972, and, as some of you will know, it forms at present a unit of the Colonial Secretariat under the general direction of the Home Affairs and Information Branch.
* Perotin, Yves, "A Manual of Tropical Archivology". (Mouton & Co., Paris) p. 20.
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