Electronic records planning in "collecting" repositories

American Archivist

Volumn 71, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 167-189

  Davis, Susan E ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 70450069663     PISSN: 03609081     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17723/aarc.71.1.024q2020828t7332     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Archivists have argued how such principles as provenance and original order, for example, apply to electronic records and whether a record, as traditionally defined, still exists. See, for example, Linda J. Henry, "Schellenberg in Cyberspace," American Archivist 61 (Fall 1998): 309-27;
2. Terry Cook, "Electronic Records, Paper Minds: The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Post-Custodial and Post-Modernist Era," Archives and Manuscripts 22 (November 1994): 300-28;
3. and New Skills for a Digital Era: Proceedings of a Colloquium Sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration, Society of American Archivists and Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, 31 May-2 June 2006, available at http://www.archivists.org/news/NewSkillsForADigitalEra.pdf, accessed 29 February 2008.
4. The NHPRC funded a large number of projects in the past twenty-five years, most of which focused on institutional records in state and local governments or universities. For example, from 1993 to 1996, the NHPRC supported a project at the University of Pittsburgh called Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping, commonly known as the Pittsburgh Project, aimed at examining functional recordkeeping requirements in electronic information systems. See Richard J. Cox, "Electronic Systems and Records Management in the Information Age: An Introduction," Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, June 1997, at http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Jun-97/ cox.html, accessed 27 November 2007.
5. Two articles by Philip C. Bantin document the application of this approach at Indiana University: "Developing a Strategy for Managing Electronic Records: The Findings of the Indiana University Electronic Records Project," American Archivist 61 (Fall 1998): 328-64
6. and "The Indiana University Electronic Records Project Revisited," American Archivist 62 (Spring 1999): 153-63. At the same time, the University of British Columbia embarked upon a similar project, using diplomatics to create new definitions of records and recordkeeping in an electronic age. Retitled InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), it began in 1999 with a focus on the long-term preservation of the authenticity of records created in electronic systems.
7. accessed 27 November 2007 This project has now concluded its second phase. See http://www.interpares.org/, accessed 27 November 2007.
8. Currently, the National Archives is grappling with these issues through its Electronic Records Archives (ERA) http://www.archives.gov/era/, accessed 27 November 2007.
9. For example, see Luciana Duranti, "Reliability and Authenticity: The Concepts and Their Implications," Archivaria 39 (1995): 5-10;
10. Interpares. "Authenticity Task Force Report," [2002], http://www.interpares.org/book/index.cfm, accessed 27 November 2007;
11. Bruce I. Ambacher, ed., Thirty Years of Electronic Records (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2003);
12. Charles M. Dollar, Authentic Electronic Records: Strategies for Long-Term Access (Chicago: Cohasset, 2000);
13. Luciana Duranti, Terence M. Eastwood, and Heather MacNeil, Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002);
14. Margaret Hedstrom, ed., "Electronic Records Management Program Strategies," Archives and Museum Informatics Technical Report, no. 18 (1993).
15. Adrian Cunningham, "The Archival Management of Personal Records in Electronic Form: Some Suggestions," Archives and Manuscripts 22 (May 1994): 94-105;
16. "Waiting for the Ghost Train: Strategies for Managing Electronic Personal Records Before It Is Too Late," Archival Issues 24 (1999): 55-64.Cunningham argues for precustodial intervention with personal papers, targeting potential donors early in their careers and agreeing upon hardware and software standards.
17. Lucie Paquet, "Appraisal, Acquisition and Control of Personal Electronic Records: From Myth to Reality," Archives and Manuscripts 28 (November 2000): 71-91. Paquet describes her process of interviewing donors about their computer history and practices, bringing with her an external hard drive with which to copy files.
18. Nancy Deromedi, "Case 1: Accessing, Processing, and Making Available a Born-Digital Personal Records Collection at the University of Michigan," http://bentley.umich.edu/academic/france/inp/docs/ case1.pdf, accessed 27 November 2007.
19. Tom Hyry and Rachel Onuf, "The Personality of Electronic Records: The Impact of New Information Technology on Personal Papers," Archival Issues 22 (1997): 37.
20. The Digital Library Federation, a "consortium of libraries and related agencies that are pioneering the use of electronic-information technologies to extend their collections and services" (www.diglib.org), operates under the administrative umbrella of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR).
21. Both organizations produce reports, newsletters, and other publications. Examples of articles on specific initiatives include Robin L. Chandler, "Building Digital Collections at the OAC: Current Strategies with a View to Future Uses," Journal of Archival Organization 1, no. 1 (2002): 93-103;
22. Steven L. Hensen, "Primary Sources, Research, and the Internet: The Digital Scriptorium at Duke," First Monday (1997), http://www.firstmonday. org/issues/issue2-9/hensen/, accessed 27 November 2007;
23. and Peter B. Hirtle, "The Impact of Digitization on Special Collections in Libraries," Libraries and Culture 37, no. 1 (2002): 42-52.
24. Bradley Westbrook, "Prospecting Virtual Collections," Journal of Archival Organization 1, no. 1 (2002):73-79.
25. Karen Markey, Soo Young Rieh, Beth St. Jean, Jihyun Kim, and Elizabeth Yakel, "Census of Institutional Repositories in the United States: MIRACLE Project Research Findings," CLIR (February 2007),Discussion of Census Findings 9.3, http://www.clir.org/pubs/ reports/pub140/contents.html, accessed 27 November 2007;
26. Douglas Bicknese, "Institutional Repositories and the Institution's Repository: What Is the Role of University Archives with an Institution's On-Line Digital Repository?" Archival Issues 28 (2003-2004): 81-93.
27. Daniel Greenstein, "Digital Libraries and Their Challenges," Library Trends 49, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 294.
28. One example is "The Eyes of Texas," which is using DSpace repository software to preserve papers and publications from the University of Texas-Austin School of Information, http://www.archivists.org/news/ NewSkillsForADigitalEra.pdf, accessed 29 February 2008.
29. Information supplied by Solveig De Sutter, SAA Education Director, 28 November 2007.
30. Richard J. Cox, "Searching for Authority: Archives and Electronic Records in the New World at the Finde-Siecle," First Monday 5 (3 January 2000), http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5-1/cox/ index.html, accessed 27 November 2007.
31. David J. Olson, " 'Camp Pitt' and the Continuing Education of Government Archivists: 1989-1996," American Archivist 60 (Spring 1997): 202-14.
32. Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archival Administration (London: Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., 1966),8-9, 11;
33. T. R. Schellenberg, "The Appraisal of Modern Records," Bulletin No. 8, 1956, available at http://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/ archives-resources/appraisal-of-records.html, accessed 27 November 2007.
34. Mark Conrad, "Early Intervention: The NHPRC's Electronic Records Program," in Thirty Years of Electronic Records, ed. Bruce I. Ambacher (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2003).
35. "Implementing Preservation Policies for Digital Materials: Current Practices and Emerging Trends in the Cultural Heritage Community," OCLC and RLG, 2004, http://www.oclc.org/research/ projects/pmwg/surveyreport.pdf, accessed 27 November 2007.
36. http://www.archivists.org/news/NewSkillsForADigitalEra.pdf, accessed 29 February 2008.
37. http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.htm, accessed 27 November 2007.
38. We do not have an accurate count of repositories in various categories. A*Census focused on individuals and not repositories, with academic archivists accounting for the largest percentage (35.8%). In his article on the 1985 Census of Archival Institutions, carried out by the SAA Task Force on Institutional Evaluation, American Archivist 50 (Spring 1987): 174-91
39. Paul Conway reported that 38% of the responding institutions were academic archives; federal, state, and local government archives combined amounted to 21%. The Council on State Archives conducted a repository survey in the late 1990s, resulting in Where History Begins, Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (1998), http://www.statearchivists.org/reports/HRRS/ HRRSALL.pdf, accessed 27 November 2007. But that report looked only at nongovernment repositories. It is often difficult to characterize types of institutions, and the various surveys have created contradictory categories. For example, historical societies may fall into categories of government, nonprofit, or special subject. Nonprofit repositories can be historical societies or institutional archives. Historical societies can range from large government-funded operations to small institutions staffed by volunteers.
40. For example, the oft-cited report by Sidney J. Levy and Albert G. Robles, The Image of Archivists: Resource Allocators' Perceptions (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1984) concludes that archivists have only an indirect influence on organizational policy, and that it is not part of their professional function.
41. Helen Willa Samuels, Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998).