In Sweden where my research is performed, most if not all schools on all levels use a digital platform to communicate with children and their parents. It could be any type of communication, from personal communication regarding a child to information regarding homework for a class, what you need to bring to the field trip, and so on. In Sweden, having a law regarding compulsory school attendance between the age of 6 and 15, and also having a rather strict law regarding who could access the information regarding, the information transferred through these platforms are both important and under restricted access.

The problem I investigate is when this system meets a child with special needs. Especially if that child and its parents are supported through different services. Having a support family that the child lives with during periods of time or an institution that the child stays at temporarily. Because of the restricted access to the digital platforms they are unavailable within such arrangements, forcing schools to choose other forms of communication – mostly in the form of analog “contact books”. There are also information security issues when communicating information regarding the child's medical needs through digital platforms.

These problems with the use of digital platforms have led to some ad hoc solutions in Uppsala municipality, which is the focus of my investigation. In this poster, I will explain the process of communication and the consequences regarding information security and preservation of archives when a system forces users to use analog communication where digital communication is the norm.

From November 2017 and forwards the mystical anonymous poster ”Q” filled their followers with messages regarding American politics acting like the person behind the Q was someone who had insight into both the intelligence community and the important political surroundings. Q posted on different image boards but as the amount of followers grew different web pages were created where canonical Q-posts (usually called ”drops” or Q-drops”) was preserved, numbered, tagged and interlinked. The QAnons – the movement formed around the messages from Q – were fierce discussants on the Internet occupying almost every possible social media platform. The movement reached it’s peak when the QAnons spearheaded the attack against the Capitol on the 6th of January 2021. During the autumn of 2020 almost all big social media platforms had started to purge QAnons, kickbanning them and thus removing their accounts and created content.

In January 2021 I started to preserve all Q-posts downloading them in raw text format and saving them as individual files and also saving them in picture format. It is a very interesting material, full of dog whistling, echo-chamber-like links to supporters social media and memes whose messages are very internal. Downloading the posts as text has given me a possibility to use different text processing tools to investigate the corpus. It has also given me an insight into what happens with preserved internet content when links suddenly are broken and the movement surrounding the content is banned. How do we preserve the content of a deplatformed movement? What are the limits of digital preservation of interlinked content created by a community?

Purpose: By studying marketing strategies of the global Weider Nutrition International Group, this study aims to analyse how the industry surrounding fitness equipment and dietary supplements interacted with fitness culture through marketing, advertising and consumption in 1950s Scandinavia. The emphasis is on how the Weider Group established their position as a world leader in sports nutrition through mail order partnerships and advertising using bodies and body ideals in their campaigns.

Design/methodology/approach: The Weider Group's marketing campaigns are studied through close reading of text and images in Scandinavian weightlifting and bodybuilding magazines in the 1950s, guided by a theoretical understanding of the body as a constant and ongoing project.

Findings: This study deepens the historical knowledge of market-driven aspects of sport and exercise. The market for nutrition and fitness products was internationalised in the 1950s. The study shows that cooperation between commercial and civic organisations played a major role in the enterprise of selling fitness and nutrition products.

Originality/value: This paper shows that in marketing the products, the advertisements - which appealed to both men and women - not only struck a tone of intimacy and desire but also cultivated a sense of insecurity and inadequacy, as well as individuals' responsibility for maintaining their own bodies. The latter was reflected in young men's letters to magazines in which Weider's products and training programmes were praised. For women, this opened up a previously male-dominated gym environment.

From November 2017, the mystical anonymous poster ”Q” filled its followers with messages regarding American politics. Q posted on different image boards and as the number of followers grew different web pages were created where canonical Q-posts (usually called ”drops” or Q-drops”) were preserved, numbered, tagged, and interlinked. The QAnons – the movement formed around the messages from Q – were fierce online discussants occupying almost every possible social media platform. The questions are – Will this corpus exist for future researchers? How do we preserve the content of a deplatformed movement? What are the limits of digital preservation of interlinked content created by a community?

The mysticism of the 19th and 20th centuries has often been perceived as a reaction towards the new fast, dense, and modern world. But is it not so that it thrives on the same material foundations, globalism, networks, and mass production of text, that built our contemporary global information society? In this article, thoughts found in the writings of the Swedish mystic and translator Baron Eric Hermelin are analyzed. Hermelin was born into a Swedish noble aristocratic family in 1860. After traveling through the British Empire as a soldier in his youth, he returned to Sweden with books and knowledge. Unfortunately, he spent most of his remaining life incarcerated in the mental hospital St. Lars in the university town of Lund in the south of Sweden. But from the hospital, he released translations of Rumi, Khayyam, and other Persian mystics as well as reflections on Böhme and Swedenborg. The analysis will use Eric Hermelin’s work and focus on the process of creating and delivering the texts of the Persian Sufis to a Swedish audience.

In response to the literature’s claim that there is an increasing gap between archivists and historians and a dwindling connection between the archival and historical disciplines, I investigate in this article how Swedish historians have related to archives and archival material as historical sources, in both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The study is based on one of Sweden’s leading journals for the discipline, Historisk tidskrift, published by the Swedish Historical Society. The term ”archive” is analysed from the journal’s start in 1881 to 2021. Following the historian Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, archives and archival documents are seen as the ”epistemic things” on which academic history can build its production of knowledge.

The fact that archives and archival sources have played a significant role in history’s evolution into an academic discipline has attracted little interest. This study shows that archival documents have been seen as the historian’s main primary source for most of the period studied. The texts examined in Historisk tidskrift only rarely analysed the archive’s original, internal order and creation process, but constantly praised the use of extensive archival material. Changing historiographical patterns did not result in the questioning of the archives’ pre-eminence as a primary source to any degree, even though the changes meant that new questions were posed of archival sources and new types of source materials were used by historians. An unreflective view of archival documents was evident in the romanticisation of archives as dark and disordered, an approach present in Historisk tidskrift throughout the period studied. There were value judgements about the historian’s ”tribulations” in the archives, and trips to archives and the ”treasures” found there were romanticised. This approach contrasted with how historians, adopting a positivist role model, viewed archives as authentic and true. Given this contradiction, I would argue the historical discipline should take greater account of the context in which the archival material was created, preserved, and arranged.

This poster is providing further explanations to the poster bearing the same name. The goal is to analyze the quality of links within the Q-drop canon, in this investigation with focus on the links to the microblog Twitter.com. Links to Twitter were harvested from the Q-drops and assessed individually regarding whether they were still existing or dead. The status of the Twitter-links were connected to a variety of categories. The conclusion being that a large part of the QAnon Ecosystem is damaged and no longer interlinked. Damage that will make it hard to understand the movement in the future. 

Swedish administrative law includes great possibilities to transparency for the general public. According to The Principle of Public Access to Information all completed documents at a government agency can by default be accessed by the public if not the agency can motivate legal secrecy. Their motives for secrecy must have a foundation in the Public Access and Secrecy Act. This legal tradition is very old and was introduced as early as 1766. During the COVID­19 pandemic (2020 and forwards) the work at governmental agencies have not been easy. Offices have been closed temporarily and contact with thepublic have been limited because of restrictions. The workplace has been moved from the traditional office space to digital environments as employees have been forced to work from home. The Public Health Agency, who have the main responsible to communicate with the public regarding matters of the pandemic, have had many requests for information during this time. In this paper reactions from media and the public regarding The Public Health Agency’s information management is investigated.

The digital era is accelerating and intensifying interventions in living bodies (Markley 1996, p. 4). Pictures and video clips can intervene with our privacy in a way that could chane our world. I will investigate four Swedish Revenge Porn-cases that were brought to court between 2017 and 2018. Revenge Porn is commonly known as non-consensual pornography – pictures or video material of a sexual nature spread without the portrayed persons consent (Dodge 2021). The verdicts will be analyzed from the perspectives of provenance (where do the pictures origin from?) and process (how did they travel before they became a legal matter?).

Bibliography:

Dodge, Alexa (2021) “Trading Nudes Like Hockey Cards: Exploring the Diversity of ‘Revenge Porn’ Cases Responded to in Law’, Social & Legal Studies, Vol 30(3). 

Markley,Robert (1996) “Introduction: History, Theory, and Virtual Reality”, in Markley, Robert Virtual Realities and its Discontents, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Hur vi än vänder och vrider på oss sitter vi fast i geografin. Inte bara för att den definierar den fysiska verklighet vi har omkring oss, utan även genom vanans makt. Hur ofta byter du resväg till arbetet eller affären? Hur ofta dyker du plötsligt upp på en plats där du aldrig varit förut? Vana och infrastruktur – det raster vi människor placerar över de av naturen givna topografiska förutsättningarna – styr i mångt och mycket var vi kommer befinna oss under livet. Av samhället färdigdragna vägnät, busslinjer och flygtrafiknav har en stark makt att bestämma vad vi kommer se när vi förflyttar oss. Det gäller alla, även Stig Bergling. En plats han fastnade på var Cypern och det var där hans spiongärning inleddes, genom en introduktion till underrättelsetjänstens praktik, och den avslutades även där med ett samtal till SÄPO och en begäran om att få komma hem till Sverige igen. Berglings spionage var komplext och skedde under flera perioder, mot flera stater och med fler än en uppdragsgivare. Det han är mest känd för är dock försäljningen av Fortifikationskoden, ofta benämnd Fo-koden eller Fo-pärmen. Berling kopierade detta register över Sveriges befästningar på sin arbetsplats vid Försvarsstabens Säkerhetsavdelning och sålde den till Sovjetunionen under en period när han var placerad som militärobservatör för FN i Mellanöstern. Priset var 8000 Libanesiska pund vilket då motsvarade 16 000 Svenska kronor. I dagens penningvärde runt 110 000 kronor.

Introduction

The social media platform Reddit is a contemporary context where we have an opportunity to identify problems experienced by people regarding different aspects of life. The platform is virtually anonymous which might make users discuss their problems more freely. Reddit is divided in subreddits where different subjects are discussed and the discussions are controlled by creators and moderators. I have identified a quite active subreddit targeted towards recovering addicts of benzodiazepines; r/benzorecovery.

Objectives

• To analyze strategies of recovery in user narrative
• To identify techniques commonly used and the how they are described
• To construct metadata in order to assess how frequent the discussion of a different techniques are.

Methods

Technically, what is done in this study, is adding mark-up metadata to different discussion. A rudimentary form of analysis suitable with a larger digital corpus where content metadata is added (Gilliland Swetland 2000). The metadata is constructed through a hermeneutical method in which the researcher analyses the subreddit.

Results

Answering question like:(Example)

DIY-tapering; different ways to limit drug use by using less.

1) how common are discussion of taperings in relation to other subjects?

2) Is tapering commonly discussed together with other subjects and techniques?

Conclusions

Using a method of categorization and metadata mark-up we could gain a good understanding of the problems among recovering benzodiazepine addicts. We will also have the possibility to identify concepts that addicts themselves discuss and relate these to professional concepts thus creating better possibilities of communication between professionals and clients.

In his article, ‘Discussions in social media regarding the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation’, Rikard Friberg von Sydow, Senior Lecturer in Archival Science, shares his findings regarding the dis-course on the new data protection legislation carried out on social media by groups of professionals before the GDPR entered into force. Analysing the discussions which took place in three Facebook groups of professionals particularly impacted by this new legislation (archivists, IT-professionals and communicators in the public sector), the author concludes that the discussions witness confusion and very varying levels of insight in the new legislation. The difficulties encountered by the groups of professionals studied in understanding the content and the impact of the new legal framework raise even the crucial question of the practicability and efficiency of the European data protection legislation, and furthermore, the question of the respect for the Rule of Law.

The QAnon-movement, a conspiracy theory and political movement gaining fame in the recent storming of theCapitol in Washington D.C in the beginning of 2021, see the messages from the source “Q” as their most importantsource of information. “Q” has posted short messages on different message boards (4Chan, 8Chan et cetera) sinceNovember 2017. The messages comment on contemporary political events and claim to foresee politicaldevelopment (Operation Q) Who the source, “Q” is, is not known, although speculations exist on the internet. Atleast we know that the person or persons making the posts seems to want us to believe that they have insight into thebackstage of the political scene (LaFrance 2020). Conspiracy theories, and the QAnon-movement, have beeninvestigated in the discourse of Information Literacy before. But then mostly from the perspective of the followerand his/her motives to be a part of the movement (Beene & Greer 2021). In this presentation the foundation of theQAnon-movement will be investigated: The posts or “dumps” from the source “Q”. This will give us a deeperunderstanding what the followers of QAnon really believe in. Knowing the structure and actual content of the “Q”-posts will help us understand the QAnons. A practical result of this might be a greater possibility to understand andcommunicate with people invested in the movement.Around 5000 posts that “Q” has made since fall 2017 are presented on different websites connected to the QAnon-movement. By performing a content-analysis it would be possible to answer questions such as who is mentionedmore – Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Or – how many times are networks of child-traffickers mentioned in theQ-posts? In this poster-presentation I will focus on references to other conspiracy theories; the Adrenochrome-conspiracy, “Truthers”, “Birthers” and False flag school-shootings. QAnon has been labeled a “big-tent-conspiracytheory” because it constantly evolves and adds new conspiracies to its belief-system (Roose 2020). Using a content-analysis we could gain knowledge whether these conspiracy theories are already present in the posts from “Q” or ifthey show up later in the process. Message spread by QAnon-followers follow a certain process in which Q-posts arediscussed by followers in blogs, Youtube-channels and podcasts mixed with a general conspiracist narrative.The content-analysis will be performed by converting all Q-posts to individual text-files. This gives us the possibilityto use a analysis-tool such as GREP to perform searches in all posts without the distortion of the QAnon-websitesown search systems (Grep Manual). A few relevant keywords per conspiracy theory will be used to find anyreferences to it among the vast amount of posts by the source “Q”.

The main focus in this article is to analyse representations of body and class in strength sport and boxing in a Swedish context during the period 1910-1960, as well as their deeper societal meanings. The concepts of profession, body and class are understood in close connection to the theoretical concepts of value and capital. This study's understanding of class and group affiliation differs from more traditional class analyses. It is argued for an in-depth understanding of how such processes take place and work through a broader concept of class. Representations are examined through magazines closely connected to the sports, as well as identification through autobiographies, written by prominent athletes during the early and mid twentieth century. The study shows a close link between these sports and manual labour. Physically strenuous work functioned both as a training regime in itself but was also presented as a way to be 'discovered'. However, the close connection to the working class and manual labour groups meant that physical strength came to be seen as something natural. Sporting success was also locked into body capital, which also had a relatively low exchange value in relation to other forms of capital.

The idea of “Birth Certificate Enslavement” is a conspiracy theory situated in North America and spread through the internet. It is connected to, among others the Sovereign Citizen-movement (SPLC 2019). There are examples of the conspiracy theory spreading, with active activists in Europe among other parts of the world. According to the believers, the creating of a birth certificate starts the life of an evil administrative doppelgänger to the newly born. A “corporate shell”. This corporate shell is then sold by the State to foreign investors as a form of financial security. One of the administrative proof of this, according to the believers of the conspiracy theory, is that the birth certificate is written in capital letters and that bond papers and watermarks are used. This part of the conspiracy, the “proof in the design of the administrative document” is connected to an interpretation of Maritime law that the sympathisers believe are valid regarding birth certificates (SPLC 2010). To analyse the conspiracy three research questions have been used. R1) References done in the video clip to public administration and archives - How are public administration and archives viewed in the message of the video clips? How are the employees of the agencies responsible for creating, storing and administrating birth certificates viewed. Are they in any way seen as recipients of the message in the video clips? Are there any appeals to confront the agencies or their employees. R2) References to other conspiracy theories - Are there any references to other conspiracy theories? Do they differ from video to video depending on the creator? One of the differences between various conspiracy theorists are that they put different “masterminds” behind the execution of the conspiracy. Aliens, Freemasons, Jews, Reptiles, the Catholic church, the Red shoe men and the Bilderberg group et cetera. According to previous research, people that believe in a conspiracy theory often believe in more than one (Silva et al 2017, p. 427) I here use the definition of conspiracy theory as “an explanation of historical ongoing, or future events that cites as a main casual factor a small group of powerful persons, the conspirators, acting in secret for their own benefits against the common good.” (Uscinski & Parent 2014, p. 32). R3) References to other political and administrative contexts than those connected to the United States of America - Are there any references to other political and administrative contexts than those of the United States of America? Do the proponents of the conspiracy theory believe that the theory interoperate with other political and administrative contexts or are they unique to the context of the United States of America?

In June 2017 the Nordic National Socialist organization ”Nordic Resistance Movement” discovered that their web-shop, “Nordfront”, had been hacked and the customer data leaked on the Internet.

Later they admitted publicly to being hacked and soon there after the actual data base was released by the perpetrators. Online discussions and media reports followed. Politicians who had ordered merchandise from the web-shop had to resign and musicians who had done the same had their concerts canceled. Data hacking led to a political and cultural scandal in Sweden with consequences for those involved. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reactions in online forums from persons in the political sphere that was affected by the leak. How do commentators react when information that connects a person to a controversial, and in this case anti-democratic and racist, political organization, is spread on the Internet? How is the quality of the information valued from an information security perspective? How can the database-leak be analyzed with help from models of information security? The study will be done using a case study method, with the main focus towards the supporters of the Nordic Resistance Movement.

Flashback Forums is a Swedish discussion forum that have existed on the internet in different versions since 1996. Since after the millenium it has got a reputation being very active discussing contemporary criminal cases. The discussions are often harsh and vibrant, not minding any of Swedens laws regarding slandering or regulation of press, the servers being located to North America. Lawless or not – the forums have been involved in several criminal cases, supplying information that had not been found by the Police. Because of these cases Flashback Forums has gained a reputation among journalists, police and the public. It is now heavily used as a source of information by different agents in society. This makes it a powerful actor and information provider in Swedish society.

I am interested in how consensus regarding what is considered as a fact are treaten in the Flashback Contemporary Crimes-subforum (Underforumet ”Aktuella brott”). In order to have a flow of discussion, the participants need to have a common ground, some traits of an evidence being used to decide what is a proven fact and what is not. These traits should be possible to identify when analyzing the discussions. To get an understanding of this I will follow and analyze two different forum threads regarding two contemporary murders. What is considered a trusted source and what signifies that a source is seen as controversial? How is consensus built by those forum members participating in the discussion? I will use a process-based method in analyzing the threads, considering them as a process with a natural beginning (the criminal event) and a natural end (the solving of the crime). In this process a number of consensus-building moments will appear in the discussion. These will be in focus of my investigation and analyzed with methods related to hermeneutical and argument analyzing research. The result will be a number of rules related to consensus-building regarding facts in these particular forums.

Purpose: Using a case study method, the article investigates the impact New Public Management (NPM), through outsourcing has had on the management of government information at the Swedish Transport Agency. In April 2015 the Agency outsourced its IT-operations to IBM company. Some of the IBM sub-contractors had not been cleared by the Swedish Security Service. This exposed the Agency’s information to risk. By outsourcing the IT operations, the General Director of the Agency deviated from the laws governing government information such as the Swedish Security Protection Act, the Personal Data Act and the Publicity and Secrecy Act. Design/methodology/approach: The researcher has applied a case study method as the investigation focuses on a phenomenon in a real-life setting. The case study method entails the use of past studies, which facilitates the exploration and understanding of a complex issue. The phenomenon under investigation is NPM’s impact, through outsourcing, on the management of public information at the Swedish Transportation Agency. Findings: Outsourcing should be foregone by well-formulated contracts that should put into consideration the management of government information and the involvement of all stakeholders such as records managers/archivists, IT personnel, heads of departments, lawyers and business analysts. Outsourcing risks to compromise the two tenets of democracy that is, accountability and transparency which are central to Swedish public administrations’ operations. Research limitations/implications: The study is limited by the fact that it only presents the views of the archivists. This was, however, purposely done because their voice was missing during the discussions that followed after the data breach scandal had become public knowledge. Additionally, archivists are supposed to play a major role in the management of government information at Swedish institutions. Further research that will involve different categories of employees might give a deeper and better understanding of the impact that NPM, through outsourcing, is having on the management of government information and what implications this might have on issues of trust, transparency and accountability. Practical implications: The study demonstrates the need for well-formulated outsourcing contracts that will include information management clauses. It is of crucial importance in a democratic society that access to government information is not compromised as institutions endeavor to achieve efficiency and high-quality service delivery. Social implications: It is government information that gives citizens knowledge about the various processes of government institutions. It is therefore of paramount importance that government information is not left in the hands of unauthorized companies that are involved in the outsourcing activity but should be securely managed and guarded, as the opposite might pose privacy and national security challenges and hence undermine the trust that citizens have in government institutions. Originality/value: The search that the author conducted confirmed paucity in research that discusses issues related to NPM, outsourcing and the management of government information. This paper is therefore a contribution to the discourse from an archives and information management perspective.

Many public sector organizations today use social media to communicate with the citizens. In Sweden, where government information is strictly regulated there have been several discussions regarding these organizations use of social media as the content is considered governmental information. In this paper I will analyze two city archives (Stockholm City Archive and The Regional Archives for Gothenburg and Region Västra Götaland) instructions regarding their use of social media in general and the application Instagram particulary. These instructions will be analyzed through a theoretical framework containing provenance, preservation and reusability. Instagram is particularly interesting because the main communication is done through pictures which can be hard to preserve, hard to record the provenance regarding, but that people often are eager to reuse. In the end two models for a practical preservation of Instagram content will be presented. Two models of preservation that take provenance and reusability in account.

In Sweden all public organizations such as municipalities and government agencies have to treat their information flow carefully. Every document that is created or received by a public organization is perceived as an official document (“Allmän handling”). Such document must be released to the public on demand if the information in it is not subject to any secrecy regulations. In the legislation the definition of a document is very broad – it could be any type of information that a public organization holds. Automatically generated logfiles, maps, pictures, virtually anything that is perceived as information can be an official document. These types information is also supposed to be preserved in an archive, if there not is a regulation from the National archives or other qualified agency that states otherwise. This makes the discussion regarding preserving social media relevant.

Instagram provides a possibility to download all posted content from your user account. This has been a feature in the Instagram Application since April 2018. The result is a zip-file with a series of files in JSON-format. These files contains all likes, messages, captions et cetera that has been generated through the account. The zipped content also contains all pictures and videos the account has posted, and all direct messages (pictures or videos) that the account has had sent to it. There are also independent scraping tools that let you download content from accounts that you don’t are the owner off.These types of scraping tools are off less interest in this study, but could be useful for public organizations if they collect content from other users or in cases were a public organization has lost control over an account. There is no research yet that mentions Instagram, but scraping through API, application programming interface, the programming interface that social media suppliers offers for professional users, have been recommended as an archiving tool for Twitter.

The theoretical foundation of this study is the concept of provenance as it is used within the discipline of Archival Science. The goal is to discuss preservation solutions that will enable us to preserve reusable content with its provenance intact. The reason to search for such solutions is to cater both to contemporary and future users of the preserved content. Provenance, or respect des fonds, is a key concept in archival theory. There are multiple aspects of provenance but one is that what we call an archive is the natural accumulation of an organization. It is not – as in the case with a library – a collection of information, collected by the organization. It is the administrative accumulation of an organization, the mail sent to it and the protocol on which its representatives have written their decisions. To keep the provenance is to let the accumulated administrative material in an order close to its original order. Material from different organizations should not be mixed when they reach an archival institution, they should be kept sorted in relation to their original accumulator. Reusability and preservation are two other criteria that are used beside provenance.

The two largest cities in Sweden, Stockholm and Gothenburg are the only ones that seem to have any instruction for archiving Instagram content. These instructions, which differs in some ways have been analyzed with the concepts of provenance, reusability and preservation. In relation to this analysis, two different methods for archiving Instagram content has been produced. Planned content management – a method in which reusability and the preservation of easily reusable archives are in focus. Content download – a method in which the preservation of the content is done in way which preserves the social media provenance.

The study concludes that when we choose a method we must know it’s limitations. We must also know what kind of end result we want. Then we must let these two aspects intermingle when until we find a solution that is both possible for the organization and gives us a preferable end result. In the end, if we strive for provenance we might lose some of the contents reusability. And if we strive for reusability we might lose some of the contents provenance. If we want both the archive will be considerably larger and there will be more work accumulated in the end product.

Scientific contribution

The main scientific contribution of this study is the discussion regarding different methods of preservation of Instagram content. A discussion that is possible to apply to other social media application. To this a discussion regarding social media and provenance is added. Both these contributions could be a stepping stone for further discussion regarding how to treat social media from an archival science perspective.

Purpose: This paper examines the implementation of the Public Sector Information (PSI) directive in two Swedish municipalities amidst a changing information management landscape impacted by e-government development. Government information is currently looked upon as a “gold mine” and “raw material” to be explored by interested parties. The PSI directive grants European citizens a right to access government information flows (PSI) in order to develop new electronic services. The Swedish government implemented its PSI directive in July 2010. Swedish municipalities have to embrace the directive and make the PSI available to the general public. The literature review highlighted a number of critical issues that should be addressed if PSI initiatives are to succeed. This study revealed that the two municipalities had different resource capacities, and the levels of e-government development varied. This meant that the implementation of the PSI directive also varied. The bigger municipality with a bigger budget had implemented the PSI directive and was publishing data sets on its website, while the smaller municipality with a smaller budget only published a few documents. This paper, therefore, argues that the municipalities should have the same capacity if the PSI is to be a democratic endeavor to serve all citizens. Good quality PSI will also require the municipalities to embrace a records and information continua thinking, which highlights the necessity to proactively and holistically manage the information for pluralization in different contexts.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper builds on interviews that were conducted with four municipal officers. The number of respondents is quite small because the focus was specifically on people who were responsible for the implementation of the PSI directive in the municipalities. The respondents were identified through their fellow colleagues and they also recommended each other. Pickard refers to this kind of approach as a snow-bowling approach. Through interviews and observation, one participant advises on issues that need further inquiry and, hence, directs the researcher to another person who might offer more answers. A general interview guide approach was used to solicit answers to issues such as the implementation of the PSI directive, guidelines for PSI publication, if terms such as big data and open data were being used in the municipalities, if the municipalities had an information governance plan and how it was understood, if the information systems were well aligned to meet with the requirements of the PSI directive, how e-government development affected information management and information security and if the municipalities had information security guidelines.

Findings: The Swedish government requires its administrations to engage in e-government development. This development has led to increased amounts of information that the municipalities have to effectively manage and make available to the general public. However, the municipalities operate under different conditions. Municipalities that are financially stronger are better placed to invest in measures that will lead to better quality PSI. All municipalities are, however, expected to implement the PSI directive. The two municipalities that were the subjects of this study had different information management environments and the capacity to invest in information management systems that would facilitate the management of their information resources. The budgetary constraints faced by smaller municipalities might impact the implementation of the PSI directive and, hence, hinder the publication of the PSI. e-Government is meant to be an inclusive project, and the PSI is meant for all citizens with innovative ideas. There is a risk that citizens who belong to poorer municipalities might not be equally privileged compared to those living in resourceful municipalities. This poses a democratic challenge that should concern all people interested in an open and inclusive society.

Originality/value: Little research has so far been published on the implementation process of the PSI directive. The discourses that have started to emerge discuss the challenges of open data without paying much attention to the creation, capture and the management aspects of the PSI. The originality of this paper, therefore, lies in the application of the records and information continua thinking, which highlights dimensions that enhance information management and the democratic challenges that will be caused by the data divide, as municipalities have different capabilities when it comes to the publication of the PSI.

This chapter investigates the challenges faced by two Swedish municipalities in freeing government information as required by both the European and the Swedish Public Sector Information (PSI) directives. Sweden enacted its PSI directive in July 2010, based on the 2003 European PSI directive, which all member states were required to implement. Municipalities are directed to proactively publish data for public consumption. Swedish municipalities are engaged in e-Government development, which has also led to an increase of the information they are required to manage effectively. In Sweden, PSI is an integral part of the e-Government policy. Sweden is working to regain its leading position in the World, as far as e-Government development is concerned. Sweden’s e-Government mantra is “to make it as simple as possible, for as many as possible.” e-Government development is meant to transform government institutions by making them simple, open, accessible, effective, and secure. The Swedish third generation e-Government focuses on demand-driven development of electronic services, third-party collaboration in service development, that is, the citizens, increased re-use of public sector information, and responsibility for adding value to information and services. The implementation of the PSI directive is slow because municipalities have different budgetary capacities. Large municipalities, with sufficient budgets, are implementing the directive and have started releasing for public consumption while small ones continue to issue single documents on websites. Uneven e-Government development influences the release of PSI. Small municipalities lack human, technical, and financial resources available to large ones.

Rikard Friberg von Sydow analyserar den offentliga utredning som är förarbetet till Patientjournalslag (1985:562) och hur den hanterar patientintegriteten i en tid av begynnande användning av ADB. Författaren avslutar med reflektioner om hur 30 års utveckling påverkat integritetsfrågan och vilken integritetsproblematik som nu bör få uppmärksamhet.

The International Council on Archives Code of Ethics was presented in 1996. A great deal has happened in the world and in the discipline of Archival Science since. This article examines and analyses the Code of Ethics with the help of Codes of ethics from other disciplines, the debate surrounding profession ethics and the changes in the world of archives. Three areas are found where improvement in the Code would be preferable. The archivist should be trying to gain a higher autonomy in relation to other professions like economist and lawyers. Inspired by how autonomy is formulated in the pharmacists Code of Ethics. Education should be put in focus when today, at least in the western world, most people that work as archivists generally have a relatively high education. Also, the statements in the Code regarding confidentiality might have to be revisited and discussed again, because of the great changes in the possibility to spread and communicate information after the great increase in digitalization since 1996. Today, the internet as an extra layer of information makes it possible to search and connect personal information with information in archives. We also have the possibility to spread information very fast using smart phones etcetera. This has to be regarded as a change in the possibility to remain confidential.     

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the long-term preservation challenges that the Swedish private archives are faced with. In as much as they offer a complement to the public archives and hence offer a nuanced national narrative, they lack both financial and human resources to effectively deal with the digital information management environment. Design/methodology/approach: Participatory Action Research (PAR) was used to identify the challenges of long-term preservation together with the six private archives institutions that were involved in the collaboration. The collaboration was financially facilitated by the Södertörn University. PAR is defined as a systematic investigation, with the collaboration of those affected by the issue being studied, for the purposes of education and taking action or effecting social change. What is distinctive of PAR is the active involvement of people whose lives are affected by the phenomenon under study. Findings: The private archival institutions face long-term preservation challenges such as lack of a digital repository that would facilitate the capture, organization and management of digital records that are of different formats and in a dispersed environment. There are no stringent legal requirements to facilitate the creation and management of the records in a standardized way and the institutions fear that imposing such requirements might deter their clients from depositing archival materials with them. The institutions will also need to espouse the business-oriented archival descriptions where private organizations are concerned to identify relevant archival materials and to promote participatory archival descriptions that would allow the creators to tag their records with metadata. Digital information requires a proactive approach, that is, planning for the long-term preservation of the information before it is created. Private archives need to invest in education packages that will facilitate their clientele’s understanding of the challenges of digital long-term preservation. Research limitations/implications: The findings cannot be generalized to all private archival institutions, as it was only six institutions that participated, but the issues discussed are relevant to most archival institutions. Practical implications: A lot of research has been carried out in the area of long-term preservation, but researchers have not paid enough attention to the woes of the private archives. To sustain a nuanced national narrative, the private archives need all the support to be able to live up to their mission of preserving archives of the private sector that are not captured by the public archival institutions. This is important in a pluralistic society such as Sweden. Highlighting the challenges might enable the institutions to work towards finding common challenges. Social implications: The private archives are part of Sweden’s national heritage. Their preservation matters to the society as a whole and to enhancing the voices of the underrepresented. Originality/value: The literature review revealed that not much research has paid attention to the challenges being faced by the private archives. This paper, therefore, contributes to this knowledge gap. 

Sierra Leone was engulfed in a destructive civil war between 1991 and 2002. The civil war was partly caused by the non-accountability of the government, endemic corruption, misrule and the mismanagement of the country’s resources. Efforts have been made by the country, with the help of the international community, to embrace a democratic dispensation. To demonstrate its commitment to the democratization agenda, Sierra Leone passed the Right to Access Information (RAI) Act in 2013. The Act guarantees access to government information and also imposes a penalty on failure to make information available. However, Sierra Leone’s state institutions are still weak due to mismanagement and lack of transparency and accountability. Freedom of expression and access to information are cornerstones of modern democracies. Public information/records are a means of power that governments and other political institutions use to exercise control over citizens, but are also a means of citizens’ empowerment. Through access to government information/records, media can play their watchdog role and people can assess the performance of governments and hold them accountable. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the fact that it is not enough to enact freedom of information laws (FOIs) if there is no political will to make government information accessible, an information management infrastructure to facilitate the creation, capture, management, dissemination, preservation and re-use of government information and investments in civil education to promote an information culture that appreciates information as a resource that underpins accountability and transparency.

This book identifies key factors necessary for a well-functioning information infrastructure and explores how information culture impacts the management of public information, stressing the need for a proactive and holistic information management approach amidst e-Government development. In an effort to deal with an organization's scattered information resources, Enterprise Content Management, Records Management and Information Culture Amidst E-Government Development investigates the key differences between Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Records Management (RM), the impact of e-Government development on information management and the role of information in enhancing accountability and transparency of government institutions. The book hence identifies factors that contribute to a well-functioning information infrastructure and further explores how information culture impacts the management of public information. It highlights the Records Continuum Model (RCM) thinking as a more progressive way of managing digital information in an era of pluralization of government information. It also emphasizes the need for information/records management skills amidst e-Government development. Ideas about records, information, and content management have fundamentally changed and developed because of increasing digitalization. Though not fully harmonized, these new ideas commonly stress and underpin the need for a proactive and holistic information management approach. The proactive approach entails planning for the management of the entire information continuum before the information is created. For private enterprises and government institutions endeavoring to meet new information demands from customers, citizens and the society at large, such an approach is a prerequisite for accomplishing their missions. It could be argued that information is and has always been essential to all human activities and we are witnessing a transformation of the information landscape. 

Gotland, Åland, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Bornholm are five island regions in the Baltic Sea which constitute, or have until recently constituted, provinces or counties of their own. Combining perspectives from two disparate academic fields, uses of history and island studies, this book investigates how regional history writing has contributed to the formation of regional identity on these islands since the year 1800. The special geographic situation of the islands-somewhat secluded from the mainland but also connected to important waterways-has provided their inhabitants with shared historical experiences. Due to varying geographic and historical circumstances, the relationship between regional and national identity is however different on each island. While regional history writing has in most cases aimed at integrating the island into the nation state, it has on Åland in the second half of the 20th century been used to portray its inhabitants as a separate nation. Dramatic political upheavals as the World Wars has also caused shifts in how regional history writing has represented the relationship to the mainland nation state, and has sometimes also resulted in altered national loyalties.