This thesis sets out to explain how spheres of responsibility or
competences are assigned in the administration of government functions in
order to assess the ways in which archivists can come to terms with increasingly
rapid rates of administrative change in the performance of their work. It
examines statutes and government publications to present a picture of the
evolution of the competence of agencies of the government of Canada given
responsibility for carrying out activities in administration of the function of
agriculture.
It is found that knowledge of the assignment of functional responsibility is
essential to a number of archival tasks. It is vital to know all the bodies
participating in carrying out the function when appraising records. A vital part of
identifying the external structure of a fonds lies in determining the competence of
the agencies creating records in it, and this knowledge must be effectively
communicated in archival description. Finally, the concepts of function,
competence, and activity, if clearly understood, can guide the development of
vocabularies to assist users of archives to find loci of administrative action
relevant to searches they are undertaking.
Accumulating information about the functions, competences, and activities
of organizations and keeping it current can serve many purposes in the
administration of records during the entire life cycle. Organizations need this
information to control and provide access to records for administrative purposes
and to facilitate secondary access under freedom of information and privacy
legislation or for historical research purposes. The method of analyzing how
functional activity employed in this study can be used for all government
organizations in Canada.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/4955 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Stewart, Kelly Anne |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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