This book helps readers understand the current status of archivists in the United States. It addresses issues of professionalization by re-examining two major aspects of the archival community: institutional forms and structures, and the basic educational foundations that are important to any profession. While United States archivists now seem poised to develop new approaches to the management of electronic records, including research and education venues, this profession?s long journey to reach this point is an interesting step on the continuing road to professionalization. The First Generation of Electronic Records Archivists in the United States represents the first major study of how and why American archivists have struggled to contend with the management of electronic records. The book provides a framework for studying this issue, includes suggestions for additional research, and serves as a basis for discussion about the continued strengthening of the archival profession. Despite more than thirty years of striving to manage electronic records, American archivists have not developed an effective infrastructure for this purpose. The First Generation of Electronic Records Archivists in the United States considers the evidence for this failure by evaluating archival literature on the topic of electronic records management. It examines how position descriptions in state government archives and job advertisements across the discipline have reflected a bias toward paper-based formats, and the failure of graduate and continuing archival education programs to deal effectively with electronic records. The book details: state government archives and position descriptions trends and practices in the Information Age, 1976--1990 graduate archival education and electronic records: an analysis of current approaches and their strengths and weaknesses the effectiveness of the NAGARA Institute as a form of advanced archival education problems, challenges, opportunities, and needs for additional researchThe First Generation of Electronic Records Archivists in the United States is an enlightening study for library and information science educators, archival graduate students, and archivists themselves as they work toward the professionalization of their field.

The federal government generates and increasingly saves a large and growing fraction of its records in electronic form. In 1998, the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) launched its Electronic Archives (ERA) program to create a system to preserve and provide access to federal electronic records. To assist in this project, NARA asked the NRC to conduct a two-phase study to provide advice as it develops the ERA program. The first two reports (phase one) provided recommendations on design, engineering, and related issues facing the program. This report (phase two) focuses on longer term, more strategic issues including technology trends that will shape the ERA system, archival processes of the ERA, and future evolution of the system. It also provides an assessment of technical and design issues associated with record integrity and authenticity.

As the institution with the oldest, largest, and most actively managed program in the world, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) encompasses thirty years of experience in appraising, accessioning, preserving, describing and providing access to archival electronic records. In this collection of essays, twelve contributors, each of whom has been involved in NARA's development, discuss the application of archival theory and practice in NARA's development of these functions and trace how they evolved over time. The result is a fascinating and awesome amalgam of achievement, anecdote, and aspiration.

The Encyclopedia of Archival Writers, 1515-2015, is a reference work that includes the profiles of authors of literature about records and archives in the Western world who have shaped the records and archives field over a span of 500 years. The 144 archival writers from 13 countries who are included in this volume were selected by an international advisory board on the basis of their impact on the records and archives profession and discipline, the presence of their publications in educational programs’ reading lists, and the frequency of reference to their work. Among the writers included in this volume are Albertino Barisone of Padua (1587-1667), Sir Hilary Jenkinson of England (1882-1961), Adolf Brenneke of Germany (1875-1946), Theodore R. Schellenberg of the United States (1903-1970), Robert-Henri Bautier of France (1922-2010), Terry Cook of Canada (1947-2014), Vicenta Cortés Alonso of Spain (1925-), Eric Ketelaar of the Netherlands (1944-), Aurelio Tanodi of Argentina (1914-2011), Ian Maclean of Australia (1919-2003), and Verne Harris of South Africa (1958 - ). Arranged in alphabetical order, each entry includes a biography, intellectual contributions, and a brief essential bibliography. A total of 113 educators, professionals and students in the records and archives field—55 of whom are also profiled in this Encyclopedia--contributed to this volume. There is no other book in any language that focuses on the life and work of authors of records and archives literature. In fact, there is not easily available information on such writers. Thus, most entries involved quite a bit of research on dead writers and interviews with the living ones. Several living writers supported this work by accepting to author their own entry

ARIST, published annually since 1966, is a landmark publication within the information science community. It surveys the landscape of information science and technology, providing an analytical, authoritative, and accessible overview of recent trends and significant developments. The range of topics varies considerably, reflecting the dynamism of the discipline and the diversity of theoretical and applied perspectives. While ARIST continues to cover key topics associated with "classical" information science (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval), editor Blaise Cronin is selectively expanding its footprint in an effort to connect information science more tightly with cognate academic and professional communities.

Like its constituent agencies and other organizations, the federal government generates and increasingly saves a large and growing fraction of its records in electronic form. Recognizing the greater and greater importance of these electronic records for its mission of preserving "essential evidence," the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched a major new initiative, the Electronic Records Archives (ERA). NARA plans to commence the initial procurement for a production-quality ERA in 2003 and has started a process of defining the desired capabilities and requirements for the system. As part of its preparations for an initial ERA procurement, NARA asked the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) to provide independent technical advice on the design of an electronic records archive, including an assessment of how work sponsored by NARA at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) helps inform the ERA design and what key issues should be considered in ERA's design and operation.Building an Electronic Records Archie at the National Archives and Records Administration provides preliminary feedback to NARA on lessons it should take from the SDSC work and identifies key ERA design issues that should be addressed as the ERA procurement process proceeds in 2003.

For the past three decades, policies regarding a variety of information issues have emanated from federal agencies, legislative chambers, and corporate boardrooms. Despite the focus on information policy, it is still a relatively new concept and one only now beginning to be studied. The subject area is wider than believed—archives and records policies, information resources management, information technology, telecommunications, international communications, privacy and confidentiality, computer regulation and crime, intellectual property, and information systems and dissemination. This is not a compendium of policies to be used, but rather an exploration in a more detailed fashion of the fundamental principles supporting the setting of records policies. Records policies are critically important for records professionals to develop and use as a means of strategically managing the information and evidence found in the millions of records created daily, provided that the policies are based on comprehensible principles. This is a series of discourses on the fundamentals of archives and records management needing to be understood before any organization attempts to define and set any policy affecting records and information. The chapters concern defining records, how information technology plays into policy compiling, the fundamental tasks of identifying and maintaining records as critical to records and information policy, public outreach and advocacy as a key objective for such policy, and the role of educating records professionals in supporting sensible records policies.

Archival Arrangement and Description: Analog to Digital teaches the core functions of arrangement and description. A historical summary grounds new archivists to assess proposed changes for digital files. After presenting the basics of arrangement and description (processing) for analog materials, the text segues to digital materials incorporating the OAIS preservation model into a detailed, sample workflow. Although accessioning and technical appraisal precede processing, they are discussed because they are performed differently for digital materials and create a different starting point for processing digital files. Description is external to the OAIS model but linked to it. Recent advances in description and its delivery are presented along with concerns for the ability of smaller archives to participate in envisioned future developments that are technology reliant. New specialties like digital curation and data curation show the continued relevance of archival expertise for the digital future. Rich with extras, the text includes and points to many readily web accessible additional resources.

The importance of records in modern society is explored by re-examining some of the historical antecedents for critical functions in the modern records professions. The motivation for writing this book comes from a conviction of the importance of records and records professionals in organizations and society, as well as the need to possess a stronger sense of the events, trends, people, debates, and controversies producing the modern records professions. Archivists and records managers have tended to discount the importance of their historical antecedents, ignoring the fact that many of the current debates and issues before the profession are not new but embedded in the historical evolution of the records professions. Re-examining some of the historical origins helps records professionals to re-examine their mission to manage records for the benefit of organizations and of all of society. Such re-evaluation also helps to remind records professionals and others that the concerns generated by new electronic recordkeeping technologies are not new at all but built deep within the fabric of traditional records creation and administration.