These days, the work of digital archives and preservation, not to mention the broader worlds of archives and records management, is guided by a heady internationalism. Attend any large gathering of specialists and you will hear International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards numbers and rarely-spelled-out acronyms for metadata schemas rhymed off with ease and mutual understanding across borders. Standards like OAIS, ISO 15489, and PREMIS create shared vocabularies and frameworks that encourage a sense of global community among professionals. In 2017, I was lucky enough to hop on a plane, land in Kyoto for the International Conference on Digital Preservation (iPRES), and easily converse with Japanese archivists because of this lingua franca (alongside a little help from Google Translate). But standards are nothing without adoption, and their actual use happens in very situated, local contexts, interpreted by humans living in specific places at specific times. The Nordic Model of Digital Archiving makes a compelling case for studying the theory, policy, and praxis of records and archives at a regional scale. Drawing together threads of historical context, current practice, and innovative thinking from across the Nordic countries, the contributions to this collection will interest a broad audience of scholars and practitioners engaged in digital records-related fields and beyond, from government recordkeeping and service delivery to web archiving, linked data, and participatory archives. The first topic is government recordkeeping, the volume’s predominant focus. This is a key feature of the Nordic model, as the editors define it, which has emphasized a strong preference for a centralized control of public records that is not easily transferable to private records. Contributors provide useful snapshots of archival contexts, practices, and challenges in Denmark (chapter 2, Marianne Rostgaard); Sweden (chapter 3, Samuel Edquist); Denmark and Sweden (chapter 4, Ann-Sofie Klareld and Marianne Paasch); Sweden and Norway (chapter 5, Herbjørn Andresen); Norway (chapter 8, Martin Ellingsrud); Finland (chapter 7, Pekka Henttonen); and Iceland (chapter 17, Ragna Kemp Haraldsdóttir). These essays will appeal to practitioners and academics engaged with public records as they offer succinct introductions to the positive aspects and limitations of their respective national recordkeeping regimes. The writers consider digital archival practice not at the level of files and formats but at the higher level – the ways that legislation, policies, and standards (both national and international) contribute to or hinder effective digital records capture, management, preservation, and access. However, they share an understanding that the specific challenges and opportunities that digital records present must no longer be afterthoughts but are now integral to all planning and execution of records management and archiving programs. Another common concern among these authors is the legacy of centralized registry systems commonly adopted in European jurisdictions (though digital records management systems are also arguably a type of register). While registry systems, where metadata about records is recorded in a single place, have the advantages of both control and transparency, they have proven challenging to maintain in the face of the proliferation of digital records in formats like email correspondence. Greg Bak’s comparative essay on digital archival practices at national public archives in Canada and Denmark provides a bridge between these larger-scale examinations of public recordkeeping and a set of essays that focus more closely on digital records themselves. In the same vein as his two previous articles on the history of Canadian digital archival discourse, Bak’s essay carefully considers the consequences of early decision-making on the actual outputs and progress of these two digital records programs to the present (no surprise: the Danes mostly did it better). The six additional chapters fill in important gaps and pose excellent critiques. Olivia …
