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.

This book breaks new grounds in the scholarship of archival science, providing information of nearly 200 authors. This is the first book that describes in one publication the intellectual contributions of all major archival authors in bibliographic context.

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.