Descriptive Practices for Electronic Records: Deciding What Is Essential and Imagining What Is Possible

  • Margaret Hedstrom

Abstract

The challenges raised by electronic records present an opportunity to define the essential purposes for description: to reassess its objectives, agents, and timing; and to imagine new approaches that harness the power of information technology while respecting archival principles. This article discusses how archival description must support the need to identify, gain access, understand the meaning, interpret the content, determine authenticity, and manage electronic records to ensure continuing access. Management of metadata is proposed as an alternative strategy to current descriptive practices.

RÉSUMÉ

Les défis soulevés par les archives électroniques présentent une occasion de définir les buts essentiels de la description, c'est-à-dire réévaluer ses objectifs, ses représentants et sa fréquence, et d'imaginer de nouvelles approches qui, bien qu'étroitement rattachées au pouvoir de la technologie de l'information, n'en respectent pas moins les principes de l'archivistique. Cet article examine comment la description archivistique doit soutenir le besoin d'identifier, d'avoir accès, de comprendre la signification, d'interpréter le contenu, déterminer l'authenticité et gérer les archives électroniques afin d'en assurer l'accès de manière permanente. La gestion de la méta-information est proposée comme une stratégie alternative aux pratiques descriptives actuelles.

Author Biography

Margaret Hedstrom
Margaret Hedstrom is Chief of the Bureau of Records Analysis and Disposition of the New York State Archives and Records Administration, and Director of its Center for Electronic Records. She is the author of the Society of American Archivists' manual on machine-readable records and several articles on electronic records and archives. Dr. Hedstrom's Ph.D. in History (with a thesis on office automation in the 1950s and 1960s) was earned at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been involved with electronic records issues since 1979, when she served as the archivist of the Wisconsin Machine-Readable Records Project (1979-1983) at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. She was the recipient of the first annual Award for Excellence in New York State Government Information Services, from the New York State Forum for Information Resource Management (1989), and was named a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists in 1992.
Published
1993-02-05
How to Cite
Hedstrom, Margaret. 1993. “Descriptive Practices for Electronic Records: Deciding What Is Essential and Imagining What Is Possible”. Archivaria 36 (February), 53-63. https://www.archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/11934.
Issue
Archivaria 36: Electronic Records; includes index to issues 21-30 (Fall 1993)
Section
Articles

Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work. They are required to sign the Agreement on Authors' Rights and Responsibilities that permits Archivaria to publish and disseminate the work in print and electronically. In the same agreement, authors are required to confirm that "the material submitted for publication in Archivaria, both in its paper and electronic versions, including reproductions of other works (e.g. photographs, maps, etc.) does not infringe upon any existing copyright." Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work and are able to publish their articles in institutional repositories or elsewhere as long as the piece is posted after its original appearance on archivaria.ca. Any reproduction within one year following the date of this agreement requires the permission of the General Editor.