University of Zadar Department of Tourism and Communication Science Archival Institutions, Outreach and Media and Public Relations Goran Pavelin, PhD

The changing role of archives Juridicial – administrative justification socio – cultural justification Archival science founded in early legitimization in statist theories and models Public sanction for archives has changed to Eric Ketelaar‘s memorable phrasing of the people, for the people, even by the people Archives offer citizens a sense of identity, locality, history, culture and personal and collective memory.

The changing role of archives Archivist is starting to think in terms of the process of governance, not just of governments governing What is governance? Citizen state interactive relationship should be reflected in other jurisdiction by interaction with users The challenge for archival science today is to preserve recorded evidence of governance. What is the task of archivist today?

Advocacy and outreach Increasing access to nation's archives Changing perception within communities Meaning of archives? How do we perceive it now? Archives have an image problem. What is image? What is identity? (the way I percieve myself) What is brand? (what makes me different)

Advocacy and outreach What are the problems today? How can we make the existence of records a natural part of people's consciousness? Archival advocacy – successfully publicizing what we do, we should be able to take oppurtunity to discuss our role with enthusiasm – plead, support, champion, intercede Promotion of archives: advocacy + public relations techniques What is advocacy? What are public relations?

Public relations is the management of communication between an organization and its publics (Grunig and Hunt, 1984). Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends (Cutlip, 2006) Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. (Institute of Public Relations, 2004)

Archivist and public relations Archivists should be more imaginative about how records can be used and more open to wide public use. „Work of archivist serves a universal human need to connect among people and across time through acts of memory.“ Andrea Hinding More than any lecture or essay on recreating the past, records reanimated allowing us to enter it, to see, hear, almost touch or smell a distant place or event. Archivist and public relation: He uses the capacity of records which connect, enlarge and move us to release imagination and it is the greatest alley in reaching for the public. Too little overlooks the power of document to transform the moment.

Advocacy and outreach Organisations should approach their promotional activities in a planned and systematic manner, with the clear view of the objectives, not ad hoc or reactive way. Public relations include strategic communication: by developing strategic coordinated public programs and advocacy, by focusing on the user of records in the broadest sense

Advocacy and outreach The benefits of the successful advocacy: survival generation of funding increased fundig leads to development of services and broadening of your user base increased use leads to generation of wider support and appreciation of archive sand contributes benefits to the wider society fuller realisation

Organisational planning When planning public relations it is important to think strategically and managerially Management includes new area of terminology When planning our business we need to convince people and speak their language and use it properly There are specific terms which we use when we want to demonstrate our understanding of chosen environment

Organisational planning Mission – it expresses purpose, business and values of the organization – mission statement Goal – it is consistent with the overall mission – it offers a bit more detail – three or four broad aims Objective – consistent with goal - specific and measurable target Policy – it is useful to develop a policy for most of the archival functions you identify – what has to be done and why Strategy – it describes how something has to be done and in what order

Organisational planning and internal communication towards users Ways of communication in an organization: Face to face communication   Events Printed communications Electronic communication Computer communications Organizational communication

Stakeholders Stakeholders are persons, corporate bodies or defined groups with an interest in the present and future activities of the archive service. Stakeholders include those with a financial interest, officeholders, executives, employees, suppliers, customers, local community. Archive services – depositors and future users

Stakeholders Defining the nature of the interest that each group of stakeholders has in your service is the first step in planning how to satisfy it. You should perform in line with your stated mission within the permitted budget. Elected representatives have the responsibility to be able to justify your service to their particular constituency. Funding agencies – should be persuaded to support you.

Stakeholders Meeting the performance targets The media – supplying information to local newspapers, radio and television. Enter the wider community's consciousness The diverse groups and other direct users of the service – the internal clients, scholarly researchers, theteachers, students, geneaolgists, local historians and other professionals and the general public.

Stakeholders – according to the research of the author Stakeholders of the Zadar State Archive Scientific researchers: Historians (records of the Early Middle Age to the end of the Second World War), objectives – Zadar, Zadar area, and also Adriatic communes Art historians Geographers (cartographic materials) Fewer number: sociologists, ethnologists and antropologists, linguists and researchers from other scientific fields (usage of whole or part of archive records)

Stakeholders – according to authors research The most frequently used records: records of the Adriatic communes, notarial records, records of Venetian rule, family records, records of the first and second Austrian government, and French government.

Stakeholders – according to authors research Other researchers come to archive are not regular users – search of family trees or evidence for the protection and realization of individual rights: historians amateurs (local history, the history of their cities and villages – record of cartography, cadastral maps, population census. Students most frequently of geography, archeology and history of art because of seminars, graduate or doctoral thesis Lawyers, journalists, employees of local and government institutions Users who live abroad, but their ancestors lived in this area and had important role in political, cultural, military and social life of the Dalmatian cities and villages. Most often used records are those of Venetian rule, cadastrial maps of Dalmatia.

Funds used while researching in the State Archive in Zadar a) Venetian rule (1409-1797) b) First Austrian rule (1797-1806) c) French rule (1806-1814) d) Second Austrian rule (1814-1918) e) First Italian occupation of Dalmatia (1918-1922) and Italian rule in Zadar (1920-1943) f) Archival materials from 1945 till today g) Monastery and church records h) Old archives in Dalmatian cities i) Personal archives and family archives

Collections used in the State Archive in Zadar a) Register of births/ deaths/ marriages b) Maps c) Plans and drawings d) Manuscripts e) Photos f) Publications g) Miscellanea h) Thematic collections (musical material) i) Collection of photocopies from foreign archives

College students in Zadar– according to the research of the author Table 1 Number of students who visited State Archive Zadar Visits to State Archive Zadar Yes No Number Percent 71 91% 7 9%

College students in Zadar– according to the research of the author Table 2 Did they use records and which kind of records Archival materials Records Electronic records Yes No No. Percent Perc ent 67 86% 11 14% 13 83% 65 17% 39 50% 50 %

College students in Zadar– according to the research of the author What was the purpose of researches which you conducted while using the materials from archive Seminar 9 Final thesis 5 Magister thesis 2 Disertation 1 Publication of an article Book Genealogy or family tree 15 Film, radio, TV programm Research for operative jobs 6 Personal interests, hobbies Table 3 Purpose

Specifiy which of the following sources you mainly used when identifying fund/collection in your research Refrences, citations in published works 8 10,26% Guides, funds, register, lists 5 6,41% Bibliographies 1 1,28% Professors 25 32,05% Colleagues 3 3,85% Archivist, archive librarium 13 16,67% Librarian in other institution 0% Information from a proffesional organisation (for example, genealogist, Hrvatski plemićki zbor, Hrvatsko grboslovno i zastavoslovno društvo) TV, radio, newspaper Archive publication Archive exhibits General knowledge, assumption Table 4 Sources

College students in Zadar– according to the research of the author Table 5 Previous knowledge about archives Are you familiar with the information about the archival materials and other sources for search on the public part of the system ARHiNET? Yes No No. Percent 13 16,67 65 83,33

College students in Zadar– according to the research of the author Which of the following portals do you use when accesing archival sources? a) Croatain cultural heritage 6 46,15% b) Monasterium 1 7,69% c) Archives Portal Europe 3 23,1% d) Europeanea 2 15,38% e) Newspaper Archives f) Internet resources for genealogy Table 6 Accessing portals

College students of Zadar– according to the research of the author Research statement General conclusion is that college students in Zadar are not familiar with the online materials which they could use as part of their researches. According to this, the State archive in Zadar should discover student’s identities and their habits, their difficulties in finding of necessary information and they should allow them more flexible approach towards archive sources. Beside the fact, that archive should be connected with the Department for information sciences, others should be gradually included. Together they should try to carefully plan their own programs in which all of them could be included.

Outreach and public relation activities Publications The office guide Annual reports Regular newsletters Education pacs Posters, postcards and other items

Outreach and public relation activities Talks, visits and open days Public speaking is an important tool for advocacy. Talks may be costly in terms of preparation nd presentation time, and travelling costs in relation to the number of the people in the audience. Inviting specific groups to visit is arguably a better way of enabling you to explain how an archive works: people are often captivated by watching conservators at work and seeing original documents in situ.

Outreach and public relation activities Education and learning The potential for getting the message across to schools and colleges is enormous, given the size of the audience. It introduces the idea of archives to children at an early age, supports the curriculum and offers new methods of teaching to teachers.

Outreach and public relation activities Supporters groups May become involved in fundraising, volunteering or acting as a pressure group on its behalf Exhibitions Artefacts often capture the imagination more readily than documents, and partnership with museums can be useful, where documents can be displayed alongside contemporary objects.

Outreach and public relation activities Usability of web pages : an extension of your existing services, providing the same information in digital form as you currently do non digitally provide added value to texisting services, perhaps by enabling e-mail advancce ordering of documents or sale of goods by e-commerce to reach new users by encouraging people both to visit your archive and to use your site as the chief means of access Provide access to archival networks Provide an international 24/7 service even though office closes at 5pm

Outreach and public relation activities The media To promote a positive image of public archives you might consider developing a strategy that uses the newspapers, radio and television to promote a positive image of public archives. Local newspapers are often glad to have a copy from a credible source

The media Basic publicity activities What are the goals? The most publicized acitivites in archives should be announcements of: The receipt of new accessions The opening or availability of collections

The media The necessary materials Learning to work with the media means speaking their language and using formats for the presentation of information that conform to industry standards. The basic formats: news releases and broadcast media News releases – the information in news releases answers six basic questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

The media The necessary materials The news release versus the feature story Feature stories are ussually appropriate for only one or two media outlets. Photograph releases A photo release in which the text of the release or caption focuses solely on the image itself is very effective.

The media Press kits – kits should provide information about what the institution does, who uses it, and what is currently happening in it. brochures sample clippings fact sheet schedule of upcoming events photographs

The media Approaching the Media Using the juornalists five W‘s and the H as a guide, plan a long-range strategy to attract media attention Aims: Internationally circulated, nationally circulated, regionally or locally circulated, technical trade publications and scholarly journals, specialty magazines

The media Contacts Does archive have an public relations office? Someone has to nurture the relationship with the media. There has to be adrema (a list of journalists, media of different kind. The task of each archivist is to coordinate public relations and to develop their own list of press contacts and provide journalists and editors with up-to-date archival programmes.) Timing is everything.

The media Attracting attention Following questions should be answered: Is the story interesting? Does the story hold my attention? Is there relevance to a specific group of readers/ viewers? Is there any potential for interesting visual backup? Is this story worth feature or only a few paragraphs?

The media Meeting the press Staff members who become known as local experts or spokespersons on a topic may be called upon to appear on radio or television shows. Archive should have educational programs included which teaches staff to speak media language. On national level strategy should be developed to include communicational sciences in the study programmes for archivists.

The media Tips for meeting the press Assume that no one knows what an archive is Expect to have less than you wanted Be yourself Wear comfortable clothing Request a tour Know the format Take a friend

The media Press conferences News of tremendous importance; a rare or unsual find in a collection, or something ground breaking for a new building In case of mishap, such as theft or a loss – tough questions about organizational responsibilities

The media Press conferences Few tips for press conference: choose a site in advance that will provide for crowds electronic equipment a backdrop that will appear favourably in print or on the air provide short piece of information (not the whole story) to encourage reporters to come prepared with questions spokesperson should make brief inital statement and anticipate specific questions

Conclusion In the era of globalization and technological developments, archives cannot exist as isolated institutions, exclusively dedicated to the professional and research activities of a few people The key role of archives, therefore, should be raising awareness and spreading knowledge about the importance of archives to cultural heritage, and the richness of archival material and its significance to society

Thank you for your attention  gpavelin@unizd.hr