ARST 575G

1. ARST 575G Financial Records: Theory & Practice

2. Agenda • Why a course on financial records? • What are financial records? • Lenses on financial records • Context (record as object) – various contexts – personal, public and private • Deep Structure/Internal Nature of the Record • Semantics of the record • Diplomatics • Relationship of structure & context • Physical Form of the Record • Review of syllabus • Basic theories, concepts and terms that will inform our understanding of financial records

3. ACA Proposal “Many of the records in the archivist’s care have a financial nature. In order to appraise, arrange, describe, communicate them, archivists must be knowledgeable about the character of financial activities and processes, financial terminology, and accounting methods.”

4. Aim of the course To take “a great leap into the informational void surrounding financial records, striving to correct the most egregious custodial failing of those who try to ignore the dark and threatening world of numbers...”(Kennedy, 1998).

5. Aim of the course • 1) equip newly “minted” archivists entering the profession such as yourselves with the knowledge and skills to deal effectively with the management, as necessary, and preservation of financial records; • 2) to use the study of financial records and financial contexts of records creation and keeping as a means to test and potentially expand or revise current archival theory and practice; and • 3) to explore how knowledge of financial records in context can lead to greater understanding of the factors that generate or inhibit economic stability and the viability of financial institutions.

6. Topics • The character of financial activities and processes • Financial terminology • Basic accounting concepts and methods, • The financial system • The practices of major financial institutions • Theories of financial processes, • Examination of financial statements • Financial books, and types of financial documents and their relationships

7. What are financial records? • Yeo and the “representational” theory of the record • Records represent “occurrents” in a specific domain, some better than others (what I call the “good” records theory) • Knowledge of the domain is critical to understanding the records, judging their representational quality, etc. • Acquisition of domain knowledge is something I refer to as “contextual analytics”

8. What are financial records • A financial record is a persistent representation of a set of beliefs about financial activities or other financial occurrents, taking place in a certain domain of discourse, created by participants or observers of those financial occurrents, or by their proxies; or sets of such representations representing particular financial occurrents. • We can then ask the further question, what does it mean to say that something is financial. In my Archivaria article, I contend that an activity or other occurrent may be considered financial if it has to do with money.

9. Money, Finance, Accounting and Economics • Money • Anything that is generally accepted in payment for goods and services or in the repayment of debts. • Finance • The science that describes the management of money, banking, credit, investments, and assets. • Accounting • To provide a record such as funds paid or received for a person or business. Accounting summarizes and submits this information in reports and statements. The reports are intended both for the firm itself and for outside parties. • Economics • A social science that studies how individuals, governments, firms and nations make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants. Economics can generally be broken down into: macroeconomics, which concentrates on the behaviour of the aggregate economy; and microeconomics, which focuses on individual consumers.

10. Money, Finance, Accounting and Economics • Accounting • To provide a record such as funds paid or received for a person or business. Accounting summarizes and submits this information in reports and statements. The reports are intended both for the firm itself and for outside parties. • Economics • A social science that studies how individuals, governments, firms and nations make choices on allocating scarce resources to satisfy their unlimited wants. Economics can generally be broken down into: macroeconomics, which concentrates on the behavior of the aggregate economy; and microeconomics, which focuses on individual consumers.

11. Market Capitalism

12. Next Class • Select target institution for assignment 1 • Read assigned reading and prepare brief in-class presentation • Prepare one question you would like the class to consider in relation to your reading. It should be something that allows them to reflect on the reading on the basis of what you present in class.