In 2012 Sigrid McCausland wrote an insight into the history of Archives and Manuscipts to date, reflecting a period of major change for the journal and its publication. This article was published by the (then new) publisher as part of Volume 40, the first volume of A&M published by a commercial publishing company, Taylor and Francis, not the Society. As of 2022, A&M is published Open Access by the Australian Society of Archivists.
McCausland, S. (2012). Archives and Manuscripts: A window into Australian archival writing, 1955–2011. Archives and Manuscripts, 40(3), 122–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2012.748631
A&M is the leading peer-reviewed archival journal published in the Australasian region and has been published continuously since 1955. It started life as the journal of the Archives Section of the Library Association of Australia (now ALIA). In the early 1970s, the impending demise of Archives and Manuscripts was one of the contributing factors for the establishment of an independent archives association - the Australian Society of Archives. In 1975, at the Library Association of Australia Conference in Melbourne, the Archives Section was formally dissolved and A&M was transferred to the new society.
Archives and Manuscripts became a fully refereed journal from the November 2002 issue. In 2011 the ASA entered into a publishing arrangement with Taylor and Francis, with the March 2012 issue being the first by the new publisher. A&M has published hundreds of articles by archival and recordkeeping academics, researchers, practitioners, students and theorists. From 2022 the journal has returned to self-publication by the ASA.
The ASA would like to acknowledge the generosity of both the University of New South Wales Library and the Australian National University Archives for producing the high-resolution scans of Archives and Manuscripts on a gratis basis. Thank you to the Australian Library and Information Association for allowing copyright of the earlier editions – when Archives and Manuscripts was published as the journal of the Archives Section of the Library Association of Australia.
The ASA would also like to acknowledge the support and assistance of members and authors in making this online archive accessible.
Archives and Manuscripts (A&M) was first published in November 1955 by the Archives Section of the Library Association of Australia (now ALIA), and continued to appear more or less regularly for the next fifteen years. The ASA would particularly like to acknowledge the role of Robert Sharman in ensuring the continuation of the journal over this period.
Following the establishment of the ASA in 1975, it took over the management of the journal. From 1975 to 1989, the office of Editor held overall responsibility for each issue. In 1989, the office of Managing Editor was created, replacing the former title of Editor. Since November 1993, there has been a separate role of A&M Journal Editor responsible for the content, with occasional Guest Editors. The Managing Editor role extended its responsibility to all ASA publications.
A list of all A&M Journal Editors and ASA Managing Editors compiled by Colleen McEwen from 1955 to 2013 is available for download.
From Vol.17 No. 2 to Vol.21 No.1 the role of the Managing Editor included the editorship of A&M
Published as Archives & Manuscripts: The Journal of the Australian Society of Archivists
Published as Archives & Manuscripts: The Journal of the Archives Section of the Library Association of Australia
About the Journal
Archives and Manuscripts is the professional and scholarly journal of the Australian Society of Archivists, publishing articles, reviews, and information about the theory and practice of archives and recordkeeping in Australasia and around the world. Its target audiences are archivists and other recordkeeping professionals, the academic community, and all involved in the study and interpretation of archives. Learn more >>
Metrics and Indexing
Archives and Manuscripts is indexed by Australian Public Affairs Information Services, Australian Education Index, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts, SCOPUS, TOC Premier, the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and is included on the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training Register of Refereed Journals.
