Strategies for Managing Electronic Records

CONCLUSION

Reviewing the work of the decade in electronic records management, it is easy to be pessimistic and to overlook the achievements. Even though the profession is still lacking consensus on a number of issues, there has been some remarkable progress on many fronts.

In the identification and capture of electronic records, there is widespread recognition that automated environments present new challenges requiring different methodologies and techniques. In general, archivists working with electronic systems understand that transaction processing systems will not consistently and systematically produce records. To ensure that records are identified and captured, archivists have been promoting the creation of conceptual models, which identify when and where records are generated. What has been slow to develop, however, is a methodology for undertaking and creating these models. Moreover, for many archivists moving from a methodology for identifying records based on physically reviewing objects to one based largely on analyzing conceptual models of record creation continues to be a very difficult transition.
Theories on the appraisal of electronic records have clearly tended to focus on functions and business processes as the keys to understanding the context and value of records. The goal of preserving and making accessible evidence as found in the transactions or activities that generated the record is repeated over and over again in the literature on electronic records. Functional appraisal, of course, is a not a new concept, but electronic records management has elevated the model to new heights and to a level of popularity previously unknown. In reaction to this development, some archivists are now claiming that the profession has gone too far in its emphasis on evidence, and that archivists are in danger building an appraisal methodology that fails to properly identify the secondary values of records and particularly informational values. Certainly, one of the tasks for the next decade will be to create appraisal theories for the modern age of records that satisfy all requirements for record value, and that are capable of helping “society remember its past, its roots, its history, which by definition combines recorded evidence of both the private and the public, the institutional and the personal.” ⁹⁷
In the area of documenting records, there is universal agreement that archivists need to define the categories and types of metadata that must be present to preserve a reliable and authentic record. Consequently, numerous lists of metadata specifications have been created during the last five years. Increasingly there is a consensus among archivists concerning the basic categories of metadata that systems must capture and retain with record content. Most of the metadata lists include documentation in varying degrees of detail on the content and structure of the record and the context of its creation. What has not yet been developed or accepted is a core set or minimum set of metadata standards.
As to how and when these documentation activities will be undertaken, the prominent, but certainly not the universal view, is that traditional methodologies for documenting records will have to change. Critics of employing traditional methodologies to describe electronic records argue that methods based on direct observation and review will not work, and that the finding aids produced will not adequately describe these complex systems. As an alternative strategy they recommend a shift to the management of system metadata, but they caution that this strategy will only work if archivists define and articulate the required metadata elements and are involved near or at the beginning of the design process. Supporters of traditional descriptive practice for electronic records assert that because of the unique and vital role of archival description in maintaining authenticity and in describing the context of records over time, metadata systems cannot replace traditional archival description. The answers they claim will be found by following “the dictates of archival science,” and by building strategies “on the foundation of descriptive principles and practices that have already been established.” An unresolved question is whether there might be a better, more effective approach that would accommodate both views.
As with metadata, archivists have universally agreed that the profession must develop a precise description of how recordkeeping systems must capture, manage and preserve records. Again as in the case of metadata, this consensus of opinion has resulted in the creation of numerous lists of recordkeeping requirements. Among the most encouraging developments in this area is a growing recognition by software vendors and creators of records of the importance of incorporating recordkeeping functionality into systems design. The growing prominence of recordkeeping is demonstrated by the fact that recordkeeping models at the national government level, most notably those developed by the U.S Department of Defense and by the National Archives of Australia, have emerged as standards for not only government agencies, but also for software vendors. ⁹⁸
The question of how best to ensure the long-term preservation of authentic records remains largely unresolved. Several viable strategies exist, but each has its own set of risks and liabilities as complete and long-term solutions. In the last few years, some important research on long-term preservation has been undertaken, in particular the work dealing with conversion to standard formats and migration to new standards being undertaken at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and other institutions. Meanwhile, of course, institutions are moving ahead to develop preservation strategies and to address current needs as best they can. This has prompted some experts, like Charles Dollar, to state that “too much attention has been devoted to ensuring access to electronic records fifty or one hundred years from when we have no way of forecasting what kinds of technology will be available then.” Dollar goes on to say, that a more productive or at least parallel line of research to long-term access, it to “focus on a much shorter time frame, perhaps on the order of ten to twenty years or so, during which time information technologies are likely to be relatively stable.” ⁹⁹ While research on long-term solutions to the preservation of digital objects will certainly continue, it is likely that for the foreseeable future, most professionals in the field will be working on establishing best practices and guidelines designed to address current and ongoing preservation needs and requirements.
Custody of electronic records has been perhaps the most contentious issue to date. Proponents of centralized and of distributed custody feel strongly that the archival record will not survive unless their strategies are adopted, and opponents of this position feel just as strongly that records will be destroyed or altered if records remain with the creators. Archivists who see merit in both these arguments are arguing for adoption or at least the testing of a compromise position, becoming known as the “Semi-Custodial” strategy. The problem is that there is still not nearly enough evidence to justify adopting any of these positions, and many more field tests and applications will be required to document which of these strategies, alone or in combination, will prove most effective.
Finally, when one looks for an overall framework or model to guide electronic archives management, it clear that most archivists favor a model that advocates a much more active role by archivists in the management process. Increasingly, archivists are recommending active involvement in all phases of the recordkeeping regime. However, much research and testing needs to be completed to determine just how this strategy will be implemented and how archivists will interact with other records management partners.
In conclusion, in the last decade archivists have made significant strides in the quest to develop strategies for managing electronic records. Perhaps the most important advances have been in the areas of identifying issues and developing a variety of theoretical frameworks or models for addressing these challenges. Most archivists would agree that the profession is going in the right direction. What they cannot yet predict is precisely where they will end up or exactly how they will get to their destination. In other words, while the decade has witnessed the creation of many significant and potentially useful management models or strategies, the profession still lacks examples of concrete applications or field tests demonstrating the value of these concepts. In the words of one prominent archival educator: “What we lack is an evaluation of the usefulness of these findings from the perspective of organizations that are responsible in some way for preserving and providing access to electronic records. We need assessments from the administrators of archival and records management programs about the feasibility of putting the proposed policies and models into practice.” ¹⁰⁰ In short, archivists will likely characterize the 1990s as a decade that witnessed the emergence of many new and creative theories, concepts, and strategies for managing electronic records. Hopefully, the first decade of the 21^st century will be equally well remembered as a period when archivists tested and evaluated these various theories and began to implement proven and realistic policies, methodologies and techniques for managing electronic records.

1 For descriptions of these technology changes, see Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: Basic Books, 1996), pp. 157-300; Joel Shurkin, Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), pp. 248-337; and Don Tapscott and Art Caston, Paradigm Shift. The New Promise of Information Technology (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993), pp. 121-164, 231-255.

2 For descriptions of the changing work environment, see Thomas H. Davenport, Information Ecology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 3-28; Thomas H. Davenport, Process Innovation. Reengineering Work through Information Technology (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993): 71-93; Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation. A Manifesto for Business Revolution (Harper Business, New York, N.Y., 1994), pp. 65-101. James Martin, Cybercorp. The New Business Revolution (New York, N.Y.: AMACOM, 1996), pp. 3-58; Don Tapscott and Art Caston, Paradigm Shift. The New Promise of Information Technology, pp. 1-27, 185-230.

3 For a discussion on the changing form of records, see Charles Dollar, Archival Theory and Information Technologies: The Impact of Information Technologies on Archival Principles and Methods (Macerata: University of Macerata Press, 1992), pp. 36-40.

4 For a description of recordkeeping practices in the early days of computing, see Terry Cook, “Easy to Byte, Harder to Chew: The Second Generation of Electronic Records Archives,” Archivaria 33 (Winter, 1991-92): 202-216.

5 Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon, Essentials of Management Information Systems (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999), p. 42.

6 For descriptions of how these systems function, see Judith Gordon and Steven Gordon, Information Systems. A Management Approach (Fort Worth, Texas: Dryden Press, 1999), pp. 192-233, 364-400; Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon, Essentials of Management Information, pp. 41-43; Ralph Stair, Principles of Information Systems. A Managerial Approach (Boston, MA: Boyd & Fraser Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 152-164, 238-258.

7 The same can be said of data warehouses. These systems were never designed to function as recordkeeping systems, i.e., systems that capture and manage records documenting business events. The primary functions of data warehouses are to assist in reporting, in understanding historical trends, and in creating summaries. To this end, selected data from operational systems is extracted, often standardized and normalized, and moved into the warehouse. Although business records may be found in a warehouse, managing records is not the primary objective of the system. However, one can certainly use the example of a data warehouse in making a case for developing a recordkeeping system. As with a data warehouse, one would create a recordkeeping system by capturing data from an operational system and moving it to another automated environment. The precedent for extracting and transfering data to another system has been established, and some of the technology solutions have been resolved. The key difference is in the type of digital object one captures and moves.

8 For discussions of these concepts, see David Bearman, “The Electronic Office,” in Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994), pp. 157-168; and Clifford Lynch, “The Integrity of Digital Information: Mechanics and Definitional Issue,” Journal for the Society of Information Science 45 (December 1994): 337-344.

9 For analyses of the impact of automation on archival concepts and theories, see Richard Barry, “The Changing Workplace and the Nature of the Record” at http://www.rbarry.com/aca-pv16/ACA-PV16.html;

David Bearman, “Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and American,” in Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994), pp. 254-277; David Bearman and Margaret Hedstrom, “Reinventing Archives for Electronic Records: Alternative Service Delivery Options,” Electronic Records Management Program Strategies, ed. Margaret Hedstrom (Pittsburgh, PA: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1993), pp. 82-98; 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): 300-328; Elizabeth Yakel, “The Way Things Work: Procedures, Processes, and Institutional Records,” American Archivist 59, No. 4 (Fall 1996): 454-464.

10 For extended discussions of this concept of a new archival paradigm see Philip Bantin, “Strategies for Managing Electronic Records: A New Archival Paradigm? An Affirmation of Our Archival Traditions?” Archival Issues. Journal of the Midwest Archives Conference , Vol. 23, No. 1 (1998): 17-34; Terry Cook, “Electronic Records, Paper Minds, The Revolution in Information Management and Archives in the Post-Custodial and Post-Modernist Era,” Archives and Manuscripts, pp. 300-328; Terry Cook, “What is Past is Prologue: A History of Archival Ideas Since 1898, and the Future Paradigm Shift,” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 17-63; Greg O’Shea and David Roberts, “Living in a Digital World: Reorganizing the Electronic and Post-Custodial Realities,” Archives and Manuscripts, Vol. 24, No. 2 (November 1996): 286-311; and Frank Upward and Sue McKemmish, “Somewhere Beyond Custody,” Archives and Manuscripts, Vol. 22, No. 1 (May 1994): 136-149.

11 Luciana Duranti and Heather MacNeil, “The Protection of the Integrity of Electronic Records: An Overview of the UBC-MAS Research Project,” Archivaria, Vol. 42 (Fall 1996): 64.

12 Overall, the roles of archivists and records managers within an electronic environment and the interaction between the two professions are still not clearly defined or understood. Some recent records management theories, such as the Records Continuum concept, envision a blending of responsibilities of archivists and records managers along the records continuum. However, it is still not at all clear how this interaction will occur and at what point in the continuum. Nonetheless, no matter how one defines or redefines roles and responsibilities, the common bond between the two professions has been the management of the record, whether that record is the evidence of present and ongoing business processes, or the archival record providing evidence of longer-term administrative, legal or historical requirements. In essence, it is the record and its management over time that has defined the primary missions of both professions. So, it particularly distressing for this author to witness a trend within the records management community to redefine their primary objectives in the digital world. For archivists, the ultimate goal continues to be the management of digital or electronic records, which represents a particular type of digital object. For some records managers, however, managing records, as defined by archivists, does not appear to be the primary and certainly not the sole objective. They propose that the primary goal must be to be manage all types of digital documents and systems, from document management to information to knowledge systems. This basic and fundamental difference in what the two professions hope to capture and manage has caused archivists and records managers to begin taking very different paths in their search for answers and viable solutions. For a good discussion of the role of archivists and records managers along the records continuum, see Dan Zelenyj, "Archivy Ad Portas: The Archives-Records Management Paradigm Re-visited in the Electronic Information Age," Archivaria, Vol. 47 (Spring 1999): 66-84; and Charles Dollar, “Archivists and Records Managers in the Information Age,” Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 37-52.

13 Jeffrey L. Whitten and Lonnie D. Bentley, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 4^th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), p. 37.

14 Ibid, p. 38. For additional descriptions and definitions of information and information management systems, see Judith Gordon and Steven Gordon, Information Systems. A Management Approach; Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon, Essentials of Management Information Systems; Ralph Stair, Principles of Information Systems. A Managerial Approach.

15 Michael J.D. Sutton, Document Management for the Enterprise. Principles, Techniques, and Applications (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996), p. 343. For additional descriptions and definitions of documents and document management systems, see Larry Bielawski & Mim Boyle, Electronic Document Management Systems (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, 1997).

16 For definitions and descriptions of knowledge and expert systems, see Efraim Turban, Decision Support and Expert Systems: Management Support Systems (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), p. 465-552; Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon, Essentials of Management Information Systems, pp.370-399; Ralph Stair, Principles of Information Systems. A Managerial Approach, pp. 356-379.

17 For discussions of the evolution of the concept of the record and redefinitions of the term, see Richard Cox, “The Record: Is it Evolving?” The Records and Retrieval Report 10, No. 3 (1994): 1-16; Richard Cox, “The Record in the Information Age: A Progress Report on Research,” The Records and Retrieval Report, No. 1 (January 1996): 1-16; David Roberts, “Defining Electronic Records, Documents and Data,” Archives and Manuscripts 22, No. 1 (May 1994): 14-26; Glenda Ackland, “Managing the Record Rather Than the Relic,” Archives and Manuscripts 20, No. 1 (1992): 57-63; Sue McKemmish, “Are Records Ever Actual?” in The Records Continuum, Ian Maclean and Australian Archives First Fifty Years, Sue McKemmish and Michael Piggott, eds. (Clayton, Vic: Ancora Press, 1994), pp. 187-203; David Bearman, “Managing Electronic Mail,” in Electronic Evidence, pp. 188-91; David Bearman, “Item Level Control and Electronic Recordkeeping, Archives and Museum Informatics, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1996): 211-14; Charles Dollar, Archival Theory and Information Technologies. The Impact of Information Technologies on Archival Principles and Methods, pp. 45-48; National Archives of Australia, “Managing Electronic Records: A Shared Responsibility” at http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/er/manage_er/summary.html

18 This definition is taken almost verbatim from a draft International Standard on Records Management (ISO/DIS 15489), which the author found reproduced in Charles Dollar, Authentic Electronic Records: Strategies for Long-Term Access, (Chicago, IL: Cohasset Associates, Inc., 2000), p. 23.

19 Most archivists agree that the nature and amount metadata required will be dependent on several factors, including the business context, accountability required, and the risk of not having a complete and authentic record available. David Bearman describes risks as including “failure to locate evidence that an organization did something it was supposed to have done under contract or according to regulation; inability to find information that is critical for current decision making; loss of proof of ownership, obligations owed and due, or liabilities; failure to document whether it behaved according to its own policies or in adherence to law; inability to locate in the proper context information which would be incriminating in one context but innocent in another.” David Bearman, “Archival Data Management to Achieve Organizational Accountability for Electronic Records” in Electronic Evidence. Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations, pg. 24. Helen Samuels and Tim McGovern at MIT have also developed an electronic records management strategy based on risk assessment. In a paper on the topic, they wrote that “Risks are particularly great when employees in the organization do not recognize that records are, or should be created, as a consequence of transactions.” Helen Samuels and Tim McGovern, “Managing Electronic Evidence: A Risk Management Perspective,” 1996, an unpublished paper.

20 The archival discourse on the possible shortcomings of the “records as evidence” concept has only recently surfaced. To date the most public airings of the topic have occurred at an Australian Society of Archivists Conference in Melbourne in August, 2000, and at the International Council on Archives Congress in Seville in September, 2000. At the Australian meeting, Terry Cook, Canadian archivist and educator, asserted that “the archival profession is threatened, at least in the English-speaking world, with serious schism,” between those archivists who champion the importance of records as evidence for organizational accountability and those who emphasize the importance of records as sources of cultural memory. Cook claimed that what is needed is a “renewed balancing of the two concepts” of evidence and memory. At the ICA meeting, Verne Harris of the National Archives of South Africa stated that the “records as evidence” defintion “excludes the possibility that people (individuals, organizations, societies) generate and keep records for reasons other than ‘evidence of process.’ It excludes the possibility that qualities, or attributes, or dynamics, other than ‘evidence’ enjoy equally legitimate claims on the concept of ‘record’ – for instance, remembering, forgetting, imaging, falsifying, constructing, translating, fictionalizing, narrating.” (The text of Cook’s and Harris’ presentations are available at http://www.archivists.org.au/whatsnew.html).

21 For descriptions of the functional appraisal model see Terry Cook, “What is Past is Prologue,” pp. 30-40; Helen Willia Samuels, Varsity Letters. Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities (Metuchen, N.J.: The Society of American Archivists and Scarecrow Press, 1992); Helen Samuels, “Improving Our Disposition: Documentation Strategy,” Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 125-140; Terry Cook, “Electronic Records, Paper Minds,” pp. 300-328; Margaret Hedstrom, “Electronic Archives: Integrity and Access in the Network Environment,” American Archivist 58, No. 3 (Summer 1995): 312-324; Hans Booms, “Uberlieferungsbildung: Keeping Archives as a Social and Political Activity,” Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 25-33; Greg O’Shea, “The Medium is NOT the Message: Appraisal of Electronic Records by the Australian Archives,” Archives and Manuscripts, Vol. 22, No. 1 (May 1994): 68-93; David Bearman, “Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and America,” in David Bearman, Electronic Evidence. Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations, pp. 261-266; Charles Dollar, Archival Theory and Information Technologies, pp. 55-60, 76-77. For applications of the functional model, see Catherine Bailey, “From the Top Down: The Practice of Macro-Appraisal,” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 89-128; Brian P.N. Beaven, "Macro-Appraisal: From Theory to Practice," Archivaria, No. 48 (Fall, 1999): 154-198; and Jim Suderman “Appraising Records of the Expenditure Management Function: An Exercise in Functional Analysis,” Archivaria 43 (Spring 1997): 129-142.

22 T.R. Schellenberg, Modern Archives. Principles and Techniques ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Midway reprint, 1975), p. 16. For a detailed discussion of Schellenberg’s appraisal methodology, see , Modern Archives. Principles and Techniques, pp. 133-160.

23 F. Gerald Ham, “The Archival Edge,” The American Archivist, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January 1975): 8.

24 Angelika Menne-Haritz, “Appraisal or Documentation: Can we Appraise Archives by Selecting Content?” American Archivist 57, No. 3 (Summer 1994): 528-542.

25 Luciana Duranti, “The Concept of Appraisal and Appraisal Theory,” American Archivist 57, No. 2 (Spring 1994): 328-344. Also see Hilary Jenkinson, , “Reflections of an Archivist,” in A Modern Archives Reader (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, 1984), pp. 15-21.

26 Terry Cook, “Mind over Matter,” pp. 38-52; Terry Cook, “What is Past is Prologue,” pp. 40-49; Helen Samuels, “Improving Our Disposition: Documentation Strategy,” Archivaria, pp. 125-139.

27 Perhaps the most widely quoted definition of evidence is provided by David Bearman. For a good discussion of evidence, see David Bearman, “Archival Principles and the Electronic Office,” in Electronic Evidence. Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary, pp. 147-149. It is important to recognize that evidence in this context refers, in the terms of Hilary Jenkinson, to those impartial, authentic, and interrelated records that are created “naturally” in the process of conducting business or undertaking activities. It does not refer to Schellenberg’s concept of evidential value or information that is gathered, largely by examining the content of records, for the purpose of answering questions about the history, mission, and activities of the subject under review. In short, evidence is the actual record made or received in the course of undertaking and completing the activity; it is not the pieces of information or bits of data selected to document the event. For a discussion of Jenkinson’s concept of evidence, see Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration (London: Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. LTD, 1966).

28 Slowly, the archival profession is working towards providing more precise definitions of these concepts. In particular, see the working definitions of functions and transactions created for the Indiana University Electronic Records and described in the article by Philip Bantin, “The Indiana University Electronic Records Project Revisited,” The American Archivist, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Spring 1999): 153-163; see also Chris Hurley, “What, If Anything, Is a Function,” Archives and Manuscripts 21, no. 2 (1993): 208-220.

29 Terry Eastwood, “Toward a Social Theory of Appraisal,” in The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor (Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992), p. 74.

30 Angelika Menne-Haritz, “Appraisal or Documentation,” p. 541.

31 Beyond ensuring the preservation of evidence, do archivists have additional duties as an interpreter and a documenter of society? It is in response to this question that disagreements about the objectives of archival appraisal have occurred. At one end of the spectrum, that represented originally by Hilary Jenkinson and in the modern era by Luciana Duranti and reflected in the theoretical framework and methodology of the University of British Columbia electronic records project, is the belief that evidence itself is the aim of appraisal. In other words, the archivist’s goal is not to interpret this evidence, attribute external values to the records or to the creators or functions generating the records, or create a representative image of society. Rather, in this view, the goal is to retain intact “the internal functionality of the documents, and the documents aggregations, with respect to one another, so that compact, meaningful, economical and impartial societal experience can be preserved for the next generations.” (Luciana Duranti, “The Concept of Appraisal and Archival Theory,” American Archivist 57, No. 2 (Spring 1994): 34). In other words, the archivist’s primary contributions are to preserve authentic and impartial records and by so doing provide researchers with the evidence that will permit them to interpret events in their own way. Consequently, within this theoretical framework the role of the archivist in the appraisal process is very limited – archivists are not judges or interpreters; they are custodians and preservers. On the other end of the spectrum are those archivists who support an appraisal model that advocates a more active role for the archivist in shaping the documentary record. Two prominent strategies in this category are those that locate value 1) in the provenance of the records and 2) in the assessment of use of the records. Supporters of the provenance based appraisal model argue that the essence of appraisal is the “articulation of the most important societal structures, functions, record creators, and records creating processes, and their interaction, which together form a comprehensive reflection of human experience.” (Terry Cook, “Mind over Matter: Towards a New Theory of Archival Appraisal,” in Barbara L. Craig, ed. The Archival Imagination: Essays in Honour of Hugh A. Taylor , Ottawa: Association of Canadian Archivists, 1992: 41). Terry Cook has labeled this strategy “macro-appraisal,” which he defines as an approach “that focuses research instead on records creators rather than directly on society, on the assumption that those creators, and those citizens and organizations with whom they interact, indirectly represent the collective functioning of society.” It is an appraisal methodology, Cook writes, that is built on “a context-based, provenance-centred framework rather than in a content-based, historical-documentalist one.” (Terry Cook, “What is Past is Prologue,” p. 31). The other appraisal model which advocates a more active role for archivists identifies “the means of documenting the precise form and substance of past interactions between and among people in society” in the “analysis of the use to which they [records] are put by the society that created them, all along the continuum of their existence.” (Terry Eastwood, “Toward a Social Theory of Appraisal,” in The Archival Imagination, p. 80, 83). In other words, in this model appraisal decisions mirror or reflect the values a wide variety of users assigned to the records, resulting in the selection of archival records that are most cherished or frequently consulted by the society that created and used the records.

32 Jeffrey L. Whitten and Lonnie D. Bentley, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 4^th ed., p. 8. The other major type of systems-related analysis is known is systems design, which is “the specification or construction of a technical, computer-based solution for the business requirements identified in a system analysis.” Whitten and Bentley, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 4^th ed., p. 7. Clearly, the work of archivists has much more in common with systems analysts than systems designers.

33 For descriptions of the technique known as “Modern Structured Analysis,” consult the works of Tom DeMarco, Structured Analysis and System Specification (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1978), Stephan McMenamin and John Palmer, Essential Systems Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1984), James and Suzanne Robertson, Complete Systems Analysis (New York: Dorset House Publishing, 1994), Jeffrey Whitten and Lonnie Bentley, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 4^th ed.; Edward Yourdan, Modern Structured Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Yourdon Press, 1989); and Jeffrey Hofer, Joey George, and Joseph Valacich, Modern Systems Analysis and Design. 2^nd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1999).

34 Whitten and Bentley, Systems Analysis and Design Methods, 4^th ed, p. 122.

35 This approach is inherent in the methodology advocated by the University of Pittsburgh Electronic Records project. A conceptual approach is the one presently be adopted and tested by the Indiana University Electronic Records project.

36 For discussions on the need for metadata documenting content, context and structure, see David Bearman, “Item Level Control and Electronic Recordkeeping,” Archives and Museum Informatics, 211-14