Project MIRRA: Memory - Identity - Rights in Records - Access - Shepherd, Elizabeth; Hoyle, Victoria; Lomas, Elizabeth (Comma, 2021)
Many people who grew up in care have gaps in their childhood memories and unanswered questions about their early lives. In the absence of family photos and stories they turn to records held by the local authorities and charities that looked after them. Accessing these records is a practically and emotionally challenging process. Response times are often long and the records received are redacted because they include confidential information about “third parties’” who are often family and carers. The language and ideas contained reflect the prejudices and assumptions of previous times. Some files are extremely long and confusing, whereas others only have a few pages to cover a whole childhood. Records may have been lost or destroyed altogether. Very few services are available to support people through the experience. MIRRA: Memory-Identity-Rights in Records-Access is a participatory action research project carried out at the Department of Information Studies at University College London since 2017 that explores these issues. It considered how child social care records have been created, kept and used in public and voluntary organizations in England from 1970 to the present. The research is co-produced with care leavers in partnership with The Care Leavers’ Association and reflects on how what it is recorded about a childhood can affect the individual concerned throughout their life. This article republishes edited blog posts produced during the research project. The original blogs in full are available at https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/mirra/.
Keywords: Comma 2020 1-2, Archives and Human Rights, August 2021

Safe havens for archives at risk: a new international initiative - Sutton, David C. (Comma, 2021)
Over the years, internationally-minded archivists have had to consider the possibility of taking custody of archives from another country because the archives are at risk in their country of origin. The risks may take many forms, but archives in war-zones and other disaster areas, and archives at environmental risk (including risks of climate change) provide striking examples. The removal of archives from one country to another is always likely to be controversial, however, and even well-intentioned attempts at “archival rescue” in the past have been strongly criticized. It has been clear for a long time that international standards are needed. The “Guiding Principles for Safe Havens’” for Archives at Risk are a set of principles providing guidance on archival and ethical factors to be taken into account when planning the transfer of analogue or digital archives (or copies) to another institution for safekeeping. The principles have been drawn up by a group of experts in meetings held in Berne, Amsterdam, Geneva, and virtually, over the past four years, and have been endorsed and approved by various international organizations, including several ICA Sections. Past bilateral agreements between sending institutions and hosting institutions governing “safe haven” solutions have often failed to address fundamental questions, such as data protection, access, succession solutions, obligations to return or the often asymmetrical relationship between the sending institution and the hosting institution. The need for new and definitive principles is outlined in this essay, and the “Guiding Principles” themselves are then described, explained and justified.
Keywords: Comma 2020 1-2, Archives and Human Rights, August 2021; References - Boel et al. (2021), Archives and Human Rights

Introduction: Challenges of managing records and archives in Intergovernmental Organizations around the world - Katuu, Shadrack (Comma, 2021)