The Appraisal of Electronic Records: What is New?
Terry Eastwood
University of British Columbia, Canada
The appraisal of electronic records differs in only a few but important ways from that for traditional records. Almost all these differences arise because of the heightened concern for records created in the volatile digital environment. The work of the Appraisal Task force of the international, interdisciplinary InterPARES research project on long-term preservation of electronic records has, through development of a model of the selection function, identified these differences in some detail.
From the perspective of the entity responsible for long-term preservation (here called the preserver), selection of electronic records comprises appraisal to determine their disposition and carrying out that disposition. The four broad activities of selection are: to establish, implement, and maintain a framework for the function; to appraise both the continuing value of records and the grounds for presuming them to be authentic; to monitor changes in the records and their context as time passes; and to carry out their disposition from the entity creating them (called here the creator) to the preserver.
Managing the selection function sets the rules and conventions of the preserver that govern appraisal and disposition. The two outcomes of managing selection are the appraisal strategy and disposition rules. In general terms, managing the selection function for electronic records parallels that for traditional records.
Appraising electronic records breaks down into four activities. The first phase compiles information from electronic records and about their contexts to generate the relevant information to be assessed in determining their value and the feasibility of preserving them in authentic form. Effective long-term preservation of authentic electronic records will not allow us to avoid compiling the relevant information, assessing it, and reporting the results to guide disposition and facilitate future use and understanding of the records.
Assessing the value of electronic records means assessing their capacity to serve the continuing interests of their creator and society, on the one hand, and analyzing and judging the grounds for presuming the records to be authentic, on the other. Given the volatility of electronic records, this is a step that must be made explicit. The outcome of this second step is an assessment of authenticity, which we define as "a record or records stating the reasons for presuming electronic records to be authentic in terms of the requirements for authenticity." The project has worked out general authenticity requirements for all electronic records in detail.
In short, with electronic records, we need to establish the grounds for presuming that the records are what they purport to be, and that they have not been altered by accident on tampered with on purpose. To sum up then, the assessment of continuing value and authenticity go together to determine the value of electronic records.
The Task Force has elaborated the activity of assessing authenticity. It involves compiling evidence supporting the presumption of authenticity, measuring that evidence against the benchmark requirements. The process of verification simply assembles evidence for the presumption of authenticity where it is otherwise lacking. By contrast, with electronic records, we may feel obliged to do so ourselves in some cases of appraisal in order to give some measure of assurance to future users that the records are authentic by providing them with evidence very unlikely to be available to them to judge the trustworthiness of the records.
Determining the feasibility of preserving them is another important aspect of the question of authenticity. We see this activity as having three stages. The first stage is to determine or identify the record elements that need to be preserved to establish the identity and integrity of the record. The second stage involves identifying how the record elements that need to be preserved are manifested in the electronic environment. The next stage is to reconcile these preservation requirements with the preserver’s preservation capabilities.
Carrying out the disposition of electronic records becomes much more sophisticated than has been the case for most traditional records. As we see it, preparing records for disposition means copying and formatting records selected for preservation so as to prepare them physically for transfer, or, if the preserver must supervise or oversee the matter, to prepare those not selected for preservation for destruction, alienation to another entity, or such other disposition as determined in the appraisal decision.
The next step is to package the records selected for preservation with the necessary information for their continuing preservation, including the terms and conditions of transfer, identification of the digital components to be preserved, and associated archival and technical documentation needed for their treatment.
Selection of electronic records differs little in the aspect of assessing continuing value as we have come to understand it for traditional records. However, the nature of the technological context brings an additional evaluative dimension, always latent with traditional records, into the foreground of appraisal of electronic records: the assessment of authenticity and the determination of the means to preserve electronic records in authentic form. This is largely a matter of working out a very detailed process, highlighted by more intensive documentation procedures than we are familiar with, rather than adoption of revolutionary theoretical ideas. Archivists will have to work harder to comprehend the wrinkles in the process needed to accommodate the twists and turns of the technology, and to document the facts about the records and their context that need to be communicated to posterity. It is an onerous task, but it looks less and less like the hopeless one lamented in some of the early literature.
Terry Eastwood
Present Position: Associate Professor, Archival Studies in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia (from 1981-2000 acted as Chair of the Master of Archival Studies Program)
Previous Position: Archivist, Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Canada 1973-81
Professional Service:
- Past editor of Archivaria
- Present Editor-in Chief, The Archivist’s Library series, Kluwer
- Member of the Planning Committee of the Bureau of Canadian Archivists, responsible for producing the Rules for Archival Description
- Member of the Council of the Society of American Archivists
Main area of Research: Management and preservation of electronic records.
Select Publications:
- "Systematic Arrangement of Archives." Archivaria 50 (Fall 2000).
- "Archival Research: The University of British Columbia Experience." American Archivist (Spring 2000).
- "The Thinking on Appraisal in Europe and North America: A Critical Inquiry." In Proceedings of the Conference of the East Asian Section of the International Council on Archives, Hong Kong, China, November 8 –10, 1999.
- "Public Services Education for Archivists." The Reference Librarian 56 (1997): 27-38.
- "Reliable and Authentic Electronic Records." In Proceedings of the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Information Science. Silver Springs, MD: American Society of Information Sci., 1996.
- "Reforming the Archival Curriculum to Meet Contemporary Needs." Archivaria 42 (Fall 1996): 80-88.
- "Should Creating Agencies Keep Electronic Records Indefinitely." Archives & Manuscripts 24 (November 1996):256-277.
- with Luciana Duranti, "Protecting Electronic Evidence: A Progress Report on a Research Study and its Methodology." Archivi & Computer 3 (1995): 213-249.
- "From Practice to Theory: Fundamentals U.S. Style." Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995): 137-150.
- "Educating Archivists about Information Technology." The American Archivist 56 (Sum. 1993): 458-66.
- "How Goes it with Appraisal?" Archivaria 36 (Autumn 1993): 111-121.
- "The Retention Schedule in the Integrated Management of Records." Archivum XXXIX (1994): 52-56.
- "Reflections on the Development of Archives in Canada and Australia." In Archival Documents: Providing Accountability Through Recordkeeping, edited by Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward. Melbourne: Ancora Press, 1993, 27-39.
- "Unity and Diversity in the Development of Archival Science in North America." In Studi sull’Archivistica,
- edited by Elio Lodolini. Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1992, 87-100.
- "Nailing a Little Jelly to the Wall of Archival Studies." Archivaria 35 (Winter 1992-93): 232-252. Editor,
- The Archival Fonds:From Theory to Practice. Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992.
- "Building Standards of Competence for Archivists." Janus (1992): 207-215.
- "Nurturing Archival Education in the University." The American Archivist 51 (Summer 1988): 228-252. Reprinted in Canadian Archival Studies and the Rediscovery of Provenance, edited by Tom Nesmith. Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1993, 475-507.