Book chapter
The grey area of ephemera
iRMA Information and Records Management Annual 2010
RMAA
Information & Records Management Annual iRMA 2010
2010
Abstract
The public face of an organisation and its strategic goals are supported by the production of reports, brochures, posters, flyers, booklets. This material is known as ephemera or grey literature. In the private sector this material is treated in any number of ways, from being ignored after use to being considered a permanent record. Within the realm of government, all of this published material is scheduled in the relevant disposal authority or government directive as being part of legal deposit or equivalent and or being sentenced as archives. This paper examines the role of legal deposit in the collection of ephemera or grey literature.
Using the results of a preliminary study of the deposit of the publications under the statutory requirements produced by the National Archives of Australia, the State Records Authority of New South Wales and the State Records Office of Western Australia, this paper compares the collection of government publications, at the federal and state level as:
• Prescribed by legislative instruments such as legal deposit, government directives, government policy;
• Required by the relevant disposal authorities; and
• Produced by government bodies by the relevant legal deposit libraries as revealed by the library catalogues.
Finally, the paper reflects on the use of ephemera as an historical tool.
Details
- Title
- The grey area of ephemera
- Authors/Creators
- R.A. Cowan (Author/Creator)
- Contributors
- J. Douglas (Editor)
- Publication Details
- iRMA Information and Records Management Annual 2010
- Conference
- Information & Records Management Annual iRMA 2010
- Publisher
- RMAA; St Helens, Tasmania
- Identifiers
- 991005544552407891
- Copyright
- © Roberta Cowen
- Murdoch Affiliation
- Murdoch University Library
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
Metrics
240 File views/ downloads
65 Record Views