The PARBICA Bureau has continued to meet regularly by teleconference this year, with our disembodied voices joined across the great Pacific Ocean thanks to the gracious technical hospitality of the National Archives of Australia. We met on 16 February and 27 April 2006.
PARBICA 11 Follow-Up and Recordkeeping for Good Governance
Sometimes it seems that there is almost as much work after a conference, as before it! We have thanked all our sponsors and reconciled the accounts of our Nadi conference. Ken Scadden assisted us by compiling excellent and useful reports on participants’ evaluations of the conference and on the short survey of members’ needs and interests (published also in this issue). To follow through on our strong statements at PARBICA 11, the PARBICA President has written letters to all heads of government of Pacific Islands Forum countries, communicating the importance of recordkeeping as a pillar of good governance in our region.
ICA Project Proposals and Meetings on Congress 2008 and Executive Board
The Bureau has also discussed how to make PARBICA’s activities and projects visible in the ICA programme and which PARBICA projects might be nominated as ‘ICA projects’. As I write this, Seta is in Tokyo representing our region at the main meeting of the ICA Executive Board for 2006. With ICA’s support, I was also able to attend meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 6-8 February 2006 to assist with preparations for the 2008 International Congress on Archives. Thanks to input from a number of members, I was able to pass on messages about your priorities for the programme and for assistance.
PARBICA Projects
Work has started on thePacific Archives Reader to celebrate PARBICA’s 25th anniversary, led by Karin Brennan and Ewan Maidment. We’ve also been discussing a project to develop a Recordkeeping for Good Governance Toolkit of manuals, guides and brochures that can be used to support promotion of records management, improved systems and training in multiple Pacific Island countries. All going well, sponsorship for the toolkit will be confirmed this year and work can begin in earnest in early 2007.
Building Collaborative Relationships
A number of professional associations have been in contact to ask how they provide more support archives and records services in the Pacific region, including the Australian Society of Archivists (ASA), the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ) and the Records Management Association of Australasia (RMAA). The Bureau has also been in regular contact with Abel Caine at the UNESCO Pacific States office in Apia, and I have met with Lawrence Zwimpfer of New Zealand who was recently elected chair of the international intergovernmental council of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme (IFAP).
Conference on Archives and Tsunami
Seta has been invited, as PARBICA President, to participate in an ICA international archives gathering on “Tsunami and Archives : The Unexpected Possibilities”, to be held on 17-18 July 2006 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Memberships
Our Membership Officer / Assistant-Treasurer Mark Semmler has been doing sterling work on updating our database of membership contact details, as well as reconfirming the status of PARBICA members in ICA. As a result, a new edition of the PARBICA membership directory will soon be winging its way to you all.
We are about to start on a drive to increase PARBICA’s memberships, offering the Compendium of Pacific Archives Legislation as an incentive for institutions and individuals to join the PARBICA family. Meanwhile, at our April 2006 meeting, the Bureau was delighted to welcome as a new member:
- James Lowry – Australia (category D, individual member
Evelyn Wareham
PARBICA Secretary General