This article was published in CAUSE/EFFECT journal, Volume 22 Number 2 1999. The copyright is shared by EDUCAUSE and the author. See http://www.educause.edu/copyright for additional copyright information.

Working Together: New Collaborations among Information Professionals
by Gerry Bernbom, Joan Lippincott, and Fynnette Eaton

As colleges and universities, government agencies, and other organizations create and use information resources in the digital environment, they may not be taking steps necessary to ensure that they have long-term access to that information.

Information serves many purposes in an institution or organization. It is used in the daily transaction of business, it is analyzed and relied upon for decision making, it serves as evidence in administrative or legal proceedings, and it provides historical understanding of an institution and its members. In the world of print and paper documents, we have a nearly universal expectation that these various forms of information will continue to be available when needed in the future. But this may not be the case in the digital environment.

In some higher education institutions, student records and faculty handbooks are now available only in digital form. Technology, policy, and organizational issues can all influence the archival, preservation, and future accessibility of electronic records and digital documents. Archivists and records managers in higher education, corporations, and state and national government have begun to recognize the myriad issues that need to be resolved to implement good practices for long-term access to digital information. In a few institutions, they are beginning to work with information technologists, who can often help clarify technical issues and help seek promising solutions. While still in the early stages, the dialogue between archivists, records managers, and information technologists is beginning to develop across the country.

Building the Partnership

Members of these diverse information professions have historically had separate missions, different methods, and fairly distinct areas of responsibility. Librarians, archivists, and records managers bring different values, methods, practices, and historical perspectives to their work than do information technologists, but the missions of these two groups are beginning to converge. There is a growing body of technical art and knowledge that is common among museum curators, librarians, archivists, and others that relates to information technology (IT) and can be enhanced by new developments in IT, making it fertile ground for collaboration. While a number of factors are leading to increased collaboration among these professionals, other factors are impeding such collaboration within institutions (see sidebar).

More generally, the management literature on partnerships identifies several factors that improve the collaborative working process: an agreement on process, open communication, mutual cooperation, sharing information, development of social networks, trust, and mutual accountability.¹ Successful collaborations are typically based on the identification of a common goal, the recognition of mutual benefit, and the shared investment of institutional resources.

A first step toward collaboration across disciplines is often working out a shared language, a task that presents some special problems in this arena. Among archivists and information technologists, the same words often have very different meanings, which leads to poor communication between these two groups.

For example, a record, to an information technologist, is a set or subset of data about an entity; it is a discrete unit of computer-readable information stored in a file. A record is a piece of data. For an archivist, however, a record is a document created or received by an agency, organization, or individual in carrying out a legal obligation or in the transaction of business. A record is a piece of evidence.

Or take the term archive. For archivists, the term archives is a noun which refers to a place where public records or other important historic documents are kept, or the historical records or documents that are so preserved. For information technologists, archive is a verb meaning to transfer information to a storage location containing infrequently used files, for example from disk to tape. As indication of this difference, the Oxford English Dictionary reports use of archive as a noun dating to 1638 while its use as a verb appears no earlier than 1934. And consider these two different uses of the term in practice. In the now famous White House "PROFS" case, an electronic mail system (containing messages of Lt. Col. Oliver North and others) was routinely backed up using methods that met current technical standards. To an information technologist, the files in this system were being archived. But from an archivist�s perspective, archives connotes long-term access to records, something that was not readily available for these e-mail messages.

From the Archivist�s Perspective

One especially valuable perspective that archivists bring to the field of information management is the observation that different records can have different values. Most of us work with current records, which provide information or evidence of our activities and communicate the context for these activities. Archives and archivists--because they have typically dealt with records that are no longer required for current use, are inactive, and document past events--have identified a secondary use, which can in some cases be more valuable for research than the primary value the records had when they were created. An example is the decennial census records that have been collected by the federal government since 1790. The census was instituted to determine how the House of Representatives should be reapportioned, based on the current population for that census. Now, however, these census records serve as a primary tool for genealogists as they trace their families� movements across this continent. The same scenario may apply to many factual and statistical databases currently being developed to answer questions for immediate use; they may also, in many cases, provide a rich source of documentation for historians or social scientists in the future.

It is the role of an archivist to perform a number of functions to transfer records successfully from a creating office or agency, where the records originate, into the archives. The steps include inventorying, scheduling, appraising, accessioning (taking possession of and responsibility for), preserving, and providing access and reference service. Appraisal is a key function in which the archivist considers the content and value of records, including the secondary values mentioned above. Technical issues are also considered in determining if the records should be accepted and preserved by the archives. With content appraisal, the archivist judges if the function or activity which created the record is sufficiently important that the information about that function (the records) should be accessioned and preserved. The technical appraisal, particularly with electronic records, is just as important, and the archivist reviews the completeness and structure of the data to ensure that both the content and context of that information can be preserved. An important element in this review is the documentation associated with the electronic records.

Information Systems and Record-Keeping Systems

Information systems are typically developed by IT organizations for reasons other than to keep records, most often to automate some activity or business process, while record-keeping systems serve a more specific purpose: they are meant to capture and preserve evidence of some activity, whether for legal, historical, or other reasons.

On one hand, it is true that information systems do a number of things that would be valuable in a record-keeping system:

• they capture, store, and organize information;
• they enforce standards for the representation of information;
• they relate different pieces of information to one another in meaningful ways;
• they protect information from destruction; and
• they make information available for people to use.

On the other hand, information systems have certain flaws as record-keeping systems:

• they are often incomplete, usually capturing the information content that�s immediately relevant to some activity but capturing very little about the context of that activity;
• they usually prefer to store the current value of most information items, but don�t always do a good job of tracking the history of changes to these values, so that evidence is lost; and
• they scatter information, storing different bits in separate files or physical locations in the interest of efficiency while relying on computer software to reconnect the related bits of information, which can become disconnected over time as software changes or as these separate files are preserved or discarded according to different timetables.

What�s worth noting, though, is that many information systems may actually be de facto record-keeping systems. If an institution is using an information system to conduct its business, it may also be relying on that system as the primary mechanism for keeping records. Whether intended or not, there are almost certainly some information systems in every organization--traditional business systems, e-mail systems, or pages on the World Wide Web--that contain not just data but some or all of the best evidence available for important activities or transactions of that organization. Archivists and records managers should be looking for opportunities to influence how these systems are designed and implemented and what policies and standards are employed in the use of these systems.

Information technologists should be aware that the information systems they are responsible for may be serving a broader purpose than was intended in their original design. A system that was meant to process business transactions today may also be expected to provide legal evidence about those transactions tomorrow--or even institutional history a hundred years from now. Archivists and records managers can be valuable allies to information technologists in helping to ensure that these systems are reliable and useful for the many purposes they will be expected to serve.

Real-World Collaborations of Archivists and Information Technologists

In December 1998 several teams of archivists, records managers, and information technologists gathered at a workshop presented by the Coalition for Networked Information to discuss many of these issues (see sidebar). All of the teams were committed to making progress in addressing electronic records and archives issues at their home institutions.

As a broadly representative cross section of higher education, these teams identified a number of areas where they thought projects could be developed to address long-term preservation of digital archives and records. These included:

• Institutional Web sites
• Official institutional e-mail
• Policies for retention vs. disposal of electronic records
• Clarifying authority for decision making and policy
• Developing systems for identifying and locating records
• Educating institutional personnel about electronic records policies
• Integrating the archival perspective into system design
• Policies and mechanisms to ensure confidentiality
• Aligning the business interests of various organizational units
• Developing appropriate responses to the legal/regulatory environment
• Examining the long-term economics of electronic preservation

Every one of these areas represents an unsolved set of problems and puzzles for archivists, records managers, and information technologists.

For example, the remarkable growth of the World Wide Web in so very few years, and the resulting widespread use in almost every modern organization, raises significant issues about the long-term preservation of content on institutional Web sites. A central question, using the terminology of the archivist, is "appraisal"--asking questions about how to identify what Web-based resources should be preserved; how important is the context of materials on the Web, such as associated links; and whether the format and presentation of information are necessary or if the content by itself has intrinsic value.

Equally important is the matter of institutional policy (or the lack thereof) on such questions as who has authority to mandate practices for long-term archiving of Web content, how to organize information so that users can locate what they need in the future, and how to develop mechanisms for system audits to track the use of information.

Significantly, the focus of these questions is not primarily on the technology of the Web but rather on the policies and practices that govern its use. Similar sets of issues might be raised about any major application of technology that involves record keeping or information management, from personal e-mail to enterprise-wide information systems. It is in addressing these difficult organizational issues of policy and practice that the combined resources of archivists, records managers, and information technologists are most needed. Each has a contribution to make to the dialogue, and none can resolve these complex issues alone.

Sidebars

Factors Leading to Increased Collaboration:

• Need for integration of institutional information resources in their various formats.
• Laws, regulations, and litigation in which access to information is required.
• Management trends such as process reengineering that influence the ways information is used.
• Need to support cross-disciplinary work and share information across traditional boundaries.
• Interest in exploiting the potential of technology for managing information.
• Growing awareness that digital information resources are at risk of being lost forever.

Factors Impeding Collaboration:

• Lack of financial resources.
• Difficulties with inter-unit communication and organizational issues such as territoriality.
• Lack of support from upper management.
• Fear of change.
• Short-term thinking, with no recognition of the need for information management.
• Unavailability of a sufficient workforce to continue present operations and address new needs.
• Fluidity of technology, which makes it difficult to know when to take action.
• Absence of standards or agreed-upon practices for long-term management of digital information.

"Working Together"--A CNI Workshop

The Coalition for Networked Information, with funding from the National Historical Preservation and Records Commission (NHPRC), has developed a workshop to facilitate collaboration across disciplines and among information professionals: "Working Together: A Workshop for Archivists, Records Managers, and Information Technologists." Teams of archivists, electronic records managers, librarians, and information technologists from across the country and Europe attended this workshop, held in Washington, D.C., in December of 1998.

Facilitated by Gerry Bernbom, an information technologist from Indiana University, and Fynnette Eaton, an archivist from the Smithsonian Institution, this intensive and participatory workshop emphasized teamwork and the development of practical plans for electronic records and archives management which could be implemented at the participants� home institution. Workshop content focused on the practice of collaboration among units within a single institution. Representatives of these units, working as an institutional team, used their time to develop joint projects based on: (1) the identification of a common goal, (2) the achievement of mutual benefit, and (3) the shared investment of institutional resources. The workshop also provided participants an opportunity to recognize and develop collaboration skills as they worked on an issue of relevance to their home institution.

Each institution chose a project that best suited its own priorities, needs, and capabilities. Some chose to focus on the development of policies and practices for archiving (preserving) portions of their institutional Web site. Assuring long-term access to electronic student records was chosen by several institutions. Two institutions chose to focus on developing educational and public relations plans to increase understanding across the institution as to employee roles and responsibilities in preserving electronic records. Others developed plans for a project to archive the official e-mail of a college, to work on retention of university electronic publications, and to design and implement a legally acceptable and accessible electronic records system for a state agency.

The next CNI workshop for archivists, records managers, and information technologists will be held in June of 1999. For information on schedules and registration, consult the CNI Web site at http://www.cni.org/.

Endnotes

¹ See J. C. Henderson, "Plugging into Strategic Partnerships: The Critical IS Connection," Sloan Management Review 31 (3): 7-18; R. M. Kanter, "Collaborative Advantage: The Art of Alliances," Harvard Business Review, July-August 1994, 96-108; J. R. Katzenbach and D. K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993).

Back to the text

Gerry Bernbom ([email protected]) is special assistant for digital libraries and distance education at Indiana University; Joan Lippincott ([email protected]) is associate executive director, Coalition for Networked Information; and Fynnette Eaton ([email protected]) is director of Technical Services Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

...to the table of contents