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Enhancing the Accessibility of Accounting and Business Archives: The Role of Technology in Informing Research in Accounting and Business
Author(s) -
Cobbin Phillip,
Dean Graeme,
Esslemont Cameron,
Ferguson Patrick,
Keneley Monica,
Potter Brad,
West Brian
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
abacus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.632
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-6281
pISSN - 0001-3072
DOI - 10.1111/abac.12009
Subject(s) - digitization , accounting , scholarship , accounting information system , accounting research , business , political science , law , engineering , telecommunications
The application of advanced digitization technologies to accounting and business archives has created new opportunities for accounting and business historians. The joint A merican A ccounting A ssociation and E uropean A ccounting A ssociation T ask F orce (2006–2010) that examined digitization confirmed this. This paper explores these opportunities, along with some attendant challenges and cautions, with reference to the digitization of two significant archives located in A ustralia. The first is the archive of CPA A ustralia, a professional accounting association that has its beginnings in 1886 and which today has over 132,000 members. The second is the archive accumulated by the pre‐eminent accounting scholar R aymond C hambers during his long and extraordinarily productive tenure at the U niversity of S ydney. Studies of surviving business records, biography and institutional history provide examples of scholarship that is enabled by digitization technology and which has the capacity to inform contemporary issues and debates.