By Anais Lichtensztejn, MA in Archival Practice, University of Plymouth
I was a record reviewer working with legacy paper records, and I had, more than once, come across absorbing fragments of history in records that members of the public would not get the chance to learn about in the near future. Whenever a blanket closure was favoured over redacting, it felt unfair to society. Yet, there must be a way of reconciling the effort to redact with the devotion to give the public access to records in their entirety. And then an idea formed: what if instead of redacting sensitive content, the non-sensitive content was extracted?
The Record Reviewer
Being a record reviewer in a public body is a strange privilege. A typical day, in my experience, entailed reading records line by line to identify sensitivities. This is the review process and the gist of being a record reviewer: reading every day, one record after another. Once all the sensitivities had been identified, they were redacted from the record and the public was given access to a record free of sensitivities.
The benefit lies in the fact that a record reviewer will have seen all the contents of the redacted records. Of course, they cannot and do not go around talking about the sensitivities encountered; the sensitivities are sensitivities for a reason. The Public Records Act and the archives sector do the utmost to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act while still trying to give the public the information it is entitled to. The ideal result is a redacted record, and these tend to be provided, if—as stated in The National Archives guidance Redaction considerations—the effort required to redact is proportionate, based on factors such as the amount of time it would take to redact and the level of public interest. The idea is to invest effort wisely, as redacting is a laborious process.
But the real privilege the record reviewer has comes from having seen all the contents of a closed record—a record that has not been redacted but instead closed entirely, even if it had substantial non-sensitive content. Despite technically being eligible to view the non-sensitive content in it, the public will not get to see that content for a set number of years because a blanket closure has been applied. Blanket closures are applied when the effort of redacting outweighs the estimated interest in the records. This tends to occur when a record has frequent sensitivities, as the more sensitivities a record has, the more time it takes to redact it. The endeavour may ultimately not be worthwhile if there is no known interest in the record.
Extracting vs. Redacting
The idea of extraction theorises that rather than using effort to redact numerous sensitivities from closed records, effort be put instead into extracting the non-sensitive content from them. This idea would be one way to enable some form of access to closed records. If the effort to redact is great, then logically the effort to extract should be smaller. In other words, extraction should be the alternative method of making content accessible. This would require expanding current practice, as in addition to flagging sensitivities for redaction, non-sensitivities would also need to be flagged for extraction.
But what does extracting non-sensitive content actually mean, and how does it differ from redacting if both processes involve removing information from a record?
Simply put, redacting consists of removing sensitive information from a record. Methods include placing dummy cards in place of whole pages or putting in photocopies that have the sensitive information covered up. The removed originals containing the sensitivities, sometimes referred to as closed extracts, are separated from the rest of the record and closed for a predetermined period. The rest of the record, now clean of sensitivities, is open for public perusal. In more technical terms, the piece remains open, and the spinoff item with the sensitive content is closed.
Extraction, conversely, would entail removing non-sensitive information from a record that following the review and effort assessment has been classified as closed. Information is being withdrawn from the closed record instead of remaining withheld within it. The most direct method would be to remove the originals from the rest of the record and make them accessible, thus creating “open extracts.” In this scenario, the item would be open when the piece is closed.
Still, extraction does not have to be limited to the physical act of removing content from a record. Just starting with the simple goal of giving the public more information on a closed record could be deemed as a step in the right direction. Non-sensitive information could be extracted from a record and be made accessible to the public by creating accompanying documents that detail the non-sensitive content in the record, or by expanding specifically the catalogue descriptions of closed records to include more details. This would be done within the limits of what legislation allows.
Beyond Theory
Extracting non-sensitive information from closed records is not a flawless premise. Lots of parties would be affected by its implementation. For example, record reviewers may need to stray from solely reading and start taking notes to create catalogues, and new guidance would need to be created to accompany extraction procedures, just as there are guidelines that accompany redaction. Between the logistics of how to flag extracted content, producing guidance, and gauging public interest in open extracts, implementation of the extraction method will, ironically, require effort.
I presented this premise at the 2023 SfNP Research Showcase and this post is largely based on that presentation. I did not know how this idea would be received, but I have since received significant feedback from the attendees—for which I am more than grateful—that invites thinking beyond the simple aim of making closed records more accessible, raging from the potential it could have to reveal hidden voices to the possibility of integrating AI in this specific process. I am putting this idea out here, and I invite archivists and people working with public records to experiment with it or to take it as inspiration for finding ways to make their closed records accessible.
The New Archivist 