Book Reviews

Geoffrey Yeo. Records, Information and Data: Exploring the Role of Record-keeping in an Information Culture. London, UK: Facet Publishing, 2018. 208p. Paper, $94.00 (ISBN 978-1-78330-226-0).

What difference does it make if we are imprecise about how we use words? What difference does it make if we are unwilling or unable to distinguish among “records,” “information,” and “data”? Plenty, according to Geoffrey Yeo, in this, his latest attempt to think clearly and authoritatively about archival records “in an information culture.”

According to Yeo, as we have moved further into the 21st century, archival concepts and practices have tended to become subsumed under the big tent of “information.” As library schools have evolved into schools of information science and management, older concepts and practices have been reframed to fit into the world of digital information. However, according to Yeo, changes in the technologies of communication and information do not change the basic nature and purpose of records. “In the digital era, we still need records that have the power to underwrite accountability, to testify to past events and statements, and to sustain rights, obligations, agreements and commitments.” (37) Archivists and records managers need to keep doing what they have always been doing, though now in a digital era. Yeo spends much of his time trying to get his arms around the twin notions of “information” and “data.” This turns out to be a futile effort, though. He ends his review of the literature unable to offer anything definitive about either and so leaves the matter moot. They remain contested terms.

When it comes to archival records, though, Yeo finds his conceptual terra firma. Records have three characteristics that define their singularity. They are in the first place “representations”: that is, they represent something to be the case so that individuals can act. Here Yeo’s concern is to dispel the clichéd notion of records as dead, silent, and inert. On the contrary, records exist to make certain actions possible. They have an ongoing enabling function. Records are also “occurants,” meaning they capture something that has occurred and ended, something that is temporally bounded. Finally, records persist as stabilized forms in their archival settings. Records are not information, but they afford opportunities for information depending on the intentions of the person seeking them out. Whereas the principal concerns of an information manager in an organizational setting is to facilitate access to the most current information in an unstable and changing environment, the records manager/archivist is focused on capturing, stabilizing, and preserving past propositions.

For some reason, Yeo felt the need to introduce “speech act theory” to buttress his claims about records. But I found that to be digressive and not really necessary to his larger argument. Yeo’s book serves as yet another reminder that, while technology may be a disruptive force, it need not displace the basics. Digital records may be different from analog records, but they share in common those properties Yeo identified as intrinsic to all records. This is a smart work, which should be of use to students, faculty, and practitioners.—Michael Ryan, New-York Historical Society