The records continuum model The records continuum model (RCM)  was created in the 1990s by Monash University academic Frank Upward with input from colleagues Sue McKemmish and Livia Iacovino as a response to evolving discussions about the challenges of managing digital records and archives in the discipline of archival science. The RCM was first published in Upward ’ s 1996 paper "Structuring the Records Continuum – Part One: Postcustodial principles and properties". Upward describes the RCM within the broad context of a continuum where activities and interactions transform documents into records, evidence and memory that are used for multiple purposes over time. Upward places the RCM within a post-custodial, postmodern and structuration conceptual framework. Australian academics and practitioners continue to explore, develop and extend the RCM and records continuum theory, along with international collaborators, via the Records Continuum Research Group (RCRG) at Monash University. Theory and influences The RCM is a representation of what is commonly referred to as records continuum theory, as well as Australian continuum thinking and/or approaches. These ideas were evolved as part of an Australian approach to archival management espoused by Ian Maclean, Chief Archivist of the Commonwealth Archives Office in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Maclean, whose ideas and practices were the subject of the first RCRG publication in 1994, referred in a 1959 American Archivist article to a "continuum of (public) records administration" from administrative efficiency through recordkeeping to the safe keeping of a "cultural end-product". Maclean ’ s vision challenged the divide between current recordkeeping and archival practice. Peter Scott, a contemporary at the Commonwealth Archives Office, is also recognized as a core influence on Australian records continuum theory with his development of the Australian Series System, a registry system that helped identify and document the complex and multiple "social, functional, provenancial, and documentary relationships" involved in managing records and recordkeeping processes over spacetime.
The records continuum model The records continuum model (RCM) is an abstract conceptual model that helps to understand and explore recordkeeping activities. It was created in the 1990s by Monash University academic Frank Upward with input from colleagues Sue McKemmish and Livia Iacovino as a response to evolving discussions about the challenges of managing digital records and archives in the discipline of archival science. The RCM was first published in Upward ' s 1996 paper "Structuring the Records Continuum – Part One: Postcustodial principles and properties". Upward describes the RCM within the broad context of a continuum where activities and interactions transform documents into records, evidence and memory that are used for multiple purposes over time. Upward places the RCM within a post-custodial, postmodern and structuration conceptual framework. Australian academics and practitioners continue to explore, develop and extend the RCM and records continuum theory, along with international collaborators, via the Records Continuum Research Group (RCRG) at Monash University. Theory and influences The RCM is a representation of what is commonly referred to as records continuum theory, as well as Australian continuum thinking and/or approaches. These ideas were evolved as part of an Australian approach to archival management espoused by Ian Maclean, Chief Archivist of the Commonwealth Archives Office in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Maclean, whose ideas and practices were the subject of the first RCRG publication in 1994, referred in a 1959 American Archivist article to a "continuum of (public) records administration" from administrative efficiency through recordkeeping to the safe keeping of a "cultural end-product". Maclean ' s vision challenged the divide between current recordkeeping and archival practice. Peter Scott, a contemporary at the Commonwealth Archives Office, is also recognized as a core influence on Australian records continuum theory with his development of the Australian Series System, a registry system that helped identify and document the complex and multiple "social, functional, provenancial, and documentary relationships" involved in managing records and recordkeeping processes over spacetime.
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is an abstract conceptual model that helps to understand and explore recordkeeping activities. It
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