<p>The purpose of this study has been to examine the archival management at the 14 Student Nations in Uppsala. This may be relevant to study to extend the research in the field that Berndt Frediksson calls “empirical archival science”. Another reason is that the Student Nations hold a unique position as organisations and their archivists holds a unique position from a professional point of view as they mostly consist of students without professional archivist training. I have mainly focused on why the archival management at the Nations looked as they did. The main method that was used in the study was semi-structured interviews where I interviewed the archivists at all of the Nations.</p><p>The functions of the archives of the Nations were the same as for other societies, with the exception that these archives also were used by officials and other members as a support for finding ideas about how to run the Nation today in several ways. The archival regulations and practices that were generally followed by the Nations were the same as for societies in general, that is, among other things, the use of “Allmänna arkivschemat” (the Swedish standard archival finding aid subject heading system) and other Swedish archival standards. Many Nations also had articles specifying the tasks of their archivists. The methods used in the archival management varied to some degree between different Nations. Concerning how well the archives was being managed they were generally managed a little defectively, even if this varied between the Nations. This was because the archivists were not professionals, and this was probably inevitable because the Nations like many other societies probably cannot afford to consult skilled professionals for this. Despite this there were a few things that could be made better. The unique position held by the Nations as organisations could generate new perspectives on archival management, and not only concerning societies.</p><p>This is a one year master’s thesis in archival science.</p>

<p>I have for my one year master's thesis worked on arranging and cataloging the archives from the missions stations of Musana, Congo-Brazzaville and Sundi-Lutete, Congo-Kinshasa, belonging to the Swedish Missions Church (Svenska Missionskyrkan). The archives contained records written in Swedish, French and Kikongo, from primarily the years 1910 until 1961. Records have though been found that adhere from both prior to and after these years. These archives are deposited at the Swedish National Archive and it was therefore important to take the opinions and regulations of both parties into consideration, as well as relying onto archival theory.</p><p>The archives were initially scattered and had in some parts been organized by an archivist without formal schooling. The major difficulties in this work has therefore been to establish the provenance – to which creator the documents belonged to, and also to decide to which degree the principle of the original order should play a part. After considering different theories, I decided to respect the secondary order for the correspondence, since rearranging it would disrupt the concordance in the work already done by researchers.</p><p>To still make the archives accessible for the users in its existing order it required me to be aware of whom the user of the archive is, probable areas of research and how these archives are used. This information was then used when writing the archival description and the scope notes in the inventory. I have also taken decisions based on what is practically possible; it has because of regulations not been possible to physically bring the archive to one unit. Also, the circumstances of a shared custody of the archives also determined, in practice, how the inventory could be written.</p><p>This is a one year master's thesis in Archival Science, at the university of Uppsala, Spring semester of 2010.</p>

I have for my one year master's thesis worked on arranging and cataloging the archives from the missions stations of Musana, Congo-Brazzaville and Sundi-Lutete, Congo-Kinshasa, belonging to the Swedish Missions Church (Svenska Missionskyrkan). The archives contained records written in Swedish, French and Kikongo, from primarily the years 1910 until 1961. Records have though been found that adhere from both prior to and after these years. These archives are deposited at the Swedish National Archive and it was therefore important to take the opinions and regulations of both parties into consideration, as well as relying onto archival theory. The archives were initially scattered and had in some parts been organized by an archivist without formal schooling. The major difficulties in this work has therefore been to establish the provenance – to which creator the documents belonged to, and also to decide to which degree the principle of the original order should play a part. After considering different theories, I decided to respect the secondary order for the correspondence, since rearranging it would disrupt the concordance in the work already done by researchers. To still make the archives accessible for the users in its existing order it required me to be aware of whom the user of the archive is, probable areas of research and how these archives are used. This information was then used when writing the archival description and the scope notes in the inventory. I have also taken decisions based on what is practically possible; it has because of regulations not been possible to physically bring the archive to one unit. Also, the circumstances of a shared custody of the archives also determined, in practice, how the inventory could be written. This is a one year master's thesis in Archival Science, at the university of Uppsala, Spring semester of 2010.

The purpose of this study has been to examine the archival management at the 14 Student Nations in Uppsala. This may be relevant to study to extend the research in the field that Berndt Frediksson calls “empirical archival science”. Another reason is that the Student Nations hold a unique position as organisations and their archivists holds a unique position from a professional point of view as they mostly consist of students without professional archivist training. I have mainly focused on why the archival management at the Nations looked as they did. The main method that was used in the study was semi-structured interviews where I interviewed the archivists at all of the Nations. The functions of the archives of the Nations were the same as for other societies, with the exception that these archives also were used by officials and other members as a support for finding ideas about how to run the Nation today in several ways. The archival regulations and practices that were generally followed by the Nations were the same as for societies in general, that is, among other things, the use of “Allmänna arkivschemat” (the Swedish standard archival finding aid subject heading system) and other Swedish archival standards. Many Nations also had articles specifying the tasks of their archivists. The methods used in the archival management varied to some degree between different Nations. Concerning how well the archives was being managed they were generally managed a little defectively, even if this varied between the Nations. This was because the archivists were not professionals, and this was probably inevitable because the Nations like many other societies probably cannot afford to consult skilled professionals for this. Despite this there were a few things that could be made better. The unique position held by the Nations as organisations could generate new perspectives on archival management, and not only concerning societies. This is a one year master’s thesis in archival science.

The student club archives in Uppsala are interesting because they occupy somewhat of a special position as a community archive. Their archives occupy a unique position from a professional point of view, as they usually are handled by students who lack archival education or even some general knowledge of archives. The situation for the student club archivist is special because it can be people without prior knowledge who will take care of the archives. When these people take on the role of an archivist, they shadow the professional archivist role when they have to manage an archive at their office similar to a professional archivist. There is also a problem about how to define the word archivist. There is a large gap in the definition of an archivist since both a professional and a hobbyist can consider themselves as an archivist. But where does the boundary between a hobby archivist and a professional archivist part? This aspect contributes to the possibility of a student club archivist to identify as an archivist even though they have a voluntary based position. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the archivists at the student club identify with their position, if they identify themselves as archivist, what the learning of the so-called professional identity looks like and examine the problems that can arise with regard to the archives being conducted on a voluntary basis. Hopefully, this study can contribute to a greater understanding of how the professional identity of the archivist position in non-profit community archives can be manifested in the non-professional person, and how it extends the aspect of identity formation and community that community archives are often associated with when it comes to research on community archives. This is a two years master's thesis in archival science