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Vol. 25:1 ISSN 0160-8460 April 1997
Electronic Records: Are We Gaining?
New Publication Reports on R&D Projects' Progress
In 1985 three organizations of scholars and librarians declared publicly that America was in danger of losing its memory. A Committee on the Records of Government, created by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the Council on Library Resources, reported that valuable information increasingly created with computers was at risk because libraries and archives lacked the methods and resources to preserve records in electronic form. Since then efforts have arisen across the country to do something about it, many of them financed by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.This spring, a new report says that archives are making progress but not yet enough. Entitled Electronic Records Research and Development, the new report presents findings from a conference in 1996 that the NHPRC also funded. Seventy-two participants got together at the University of Michigan to compare notes on the progress to date of research through which archivists are trying to solve electronic records problems. Leadership came from the university's School of Information and the Bentley Historical Library, co-sponsors of the conference.
"For the archival community," says the report, "the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has been the principal player in this endeavor, first by sponsoring several pilot projects during the 1980s, then by issuing a comprehensive research agenda on electronic records issues and sponsoring more than twenty funded projects to address them." Major contributions also have come from the Commission on Preservation and Access, the Mellon Foundation, the Preservation and Access Division of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and others.
Findings from research-and-development work so far are encouraging, the report says: "It is technically possible to create and maintain reliable and authentic records in electronic form." But the report also identifies specific kinds of research and development yet needed to make electronic records preservation practical for archivists in a range of institutions. It recommends where different kinds of research would best be done. And it advises the NHPRC on future funding.
Funding required for all research needed in the future will be beyond the NHPRC's ability to provide at current budget levels, the report observes. It calls on the Commission to "convene a series of high-level discussions with other organizations that currently or might potentially fund research and other projects related to electronic records," and possibly devote its own funds to implementation grants "if additional sources of funding for research can be found." Nonetheless, the report advises, "NHPRC should continue its support for electronic records initiatives at present or higher levels of funding, even if this means reordering priorities within the existing NHPRC grants budget." On this point the report concludes:
"Participants in the conference agreed that the problems of electronic records management and preservation are becoming increasingly urgent, even with significant progress in research and archival program development during the past five years. Electronic records will soon represent the primary form of documentation in many organizations. By keeping electronic records issues as one of its top priorities, NHPRC will send an important message about the seriousness of this problem for our nation's documentary heritage, build on its significant investments in electronic records research, and help enhance the capability of archives to preserve digital information."
Copies of the report are available in both hard copy and electronically. The web version is at: http://www.si.umich.edu/ e-recs/. Print copies may be ordered by writing to:
Electronic Records Report Bentley Historical Library 1150 Beal Avenue University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2113
