Meeting
Minutes
August 31, 2001
Washington, DC
Cheryl Stadel-Bevans called the meeting to order by welcoming everyone
to the meeting. She then introduced Kris Kiesling who encouraged section
members to submit proposals for next year's meeting in Birmingham,
Alabama. Then Tom Battle, Council Member and Council Liaison to the ERS,
spoke. He asked us to let him know if there were any concerns or issues
that he could take to Council for us.
Cheryl then handed out ballots for the election of a new Vice-Chair /
Chair-Elect and a new Steering Committee member. The candidates introduced
themselves to the group. Geof Huth is the new Vice-Chair / Chair-Elect,
and Phil Bantin is the new Steering Committee member. Cal Lee became the
new Section Chair at the end of the meeting. Jennifer Jacobs agreed to
become the new newsletter editor and Harold Thiele the new webmaster.
Cheryl thanked outgoing steering committee members Tom Ruller, Anne Marie
Phillips, and Chuck Thomas for their service to the section.
The members in attendance then broke up into three groups to discuss
topics of concern to the ERS. Nan Kunde led a group in a discussion about
standards. Cal Lee led a group in a discussion about legislation. Nancy
Deromedi, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, and David Read led a discussion about
membership needs and information sharing among members. At the end of the
meeting, each group reported back to the section about what they had
discussed. Summaries of these are provided below.
Several announcements were made at the end of the meeting. Steve
Hussman encouraged people to attend the annual ECURE conference in
Arizona. Rosemary Pleva Flynn announced the formation of a new discussion
list for ERS members and that a survey of members' interests would be
available soon. Cheryl Stadel-Bevans reiterated the need for session
proposals, offered the section's assistance in developing them, and asked
that those seeking ERS endorsement submit them to the section by October
1.
The following are summaries of the discussions of the three breakout
groups during the meeting:
Legislation
Discussion Leader: Cal Lee
Participants: Christopher Frey, Geof
Huth, Paul Lasewicz, Cal Lee, Mike Miller, Cheryl Stadel-Bevans
Most of our discussion focused on intellectual property concerns,
specifically those related to the anti-circumvention provisions of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
We agreed that one helpful first step in addressing these issues could
be an informal white paper laying out some of the specific technical
preservation measures that could be problematic under the DMCA. Though
the text of the DMCA itself is fairly vague on such points, we can draw
some guidance for interpretation from recent case law and the recent
document issued by the U.S. Copyright Office.
One format that we discussed at some length is PDF, which is publicly
documented quite well, but is still owned by Adobe. In order to advance
past the common and divisive "PDF vs. not-PDF" debate, it would be helpful
to identify the specific sorts of elements that may or may not raise
issues of proprietary control. Can I reverse engineer every functional
component of Adobe Acrobat? If not, what are the limits?
There are many other formats that should also be addressed, but PDF
does provide one interesting case of a well-documented and (at least to
some extent) open format that is still tied to a specific vendor. What
implications does this have for the preservation strategies we can adopt
in the current legal environment? Are there specific provisions we can
advocate for model license agreements - maybe an "archival public license"
- to which vendors could agree while still maintaining their ability to
make a profit in the short term?
We discussed two general ways to follow up on this discussion:
- Those with ideas for particular preservation measures that
would be appear to be either prohibited or simply not adequately addressed
by the DMCA could post them to ERECS-L. Cal Lee volunteered to put
together a list of these problem areas and then take an initial pass at a
very rough draft document.
- Developing a continuing forum for discussion on this
particular issue. Cal Lee will send out an announcement asking those
interested to email him with their contact information. If we achieve
enough of a critical mass, we may want to set up a separate mailing list
for more specific discussions of guidance documents, position statements
or other related activities. Since these issues obviously are not going
away any time soon, we might want to keep a working group going for a
while.
Membership Needs and Information Sharing
Discussion Leaders: Nancy Deromedi, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, and David
Read
Participants: Phil Bantin, Richard Boyden, Mark Conrad, Jean
Deken, Nancy Deromedi, Rosemary Flynn, Howard Lowell, David Read, Jill
Tatem
The discussion focused on three main topics: a membership survey,
dissemination of electronic records information, and the content to be
shared.
Membership Survey:
During the 2000 section meeting in Denver, the idea was to survey
membership for "basic" information, i.e. name, contact information, and
area of "specialization." Nancy Deromedi and David Read created a survey
that they presented to the group. After some discussion, the group
decided that they wanted to review the survey and possibly make it a bit
broader. The current form of the survey can be found at http://www.umich.edu/~deromedi/ersurvey.htm.
After the working group has finalized the survey, it will be distributed
via the ER section listserv, Archives & Archivists listserv, and the
new Yahoo! Groups list (see below). If you have any comments or
suggestions concerning the survey, please send them to either Nancy
Deromedi or David Read.
Dissemination of Electronic Records Information:
Yahoo! Group
At the 2000 meeting there was concern expressed about the ER section
listserv and the time it took for messages to be posted. For discussion
purposes, a Yahoo! Group was started (originally it was E-Groups). The
group has not been widely publicized at this point. Before a general
announcement is made about the group on the Archives & Archivists
listserv, we would like comments on the group site, its functionality and
possible uses, and any concerns about the site, Yahoo, and ownership of
information, etc.
To subscribe to the list, send a blank email (no subject line and no
body text) to:
SAA-ERS-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You will receive a subscription confirmation message. Simply reply to
this message to complete your subscription. You will then receive a
welcome message with information on how to post messages and how to
unsubscribe from the list. As part of keeping the group service free,
Yahoo! inserts ads at the bottom of each message. List members can either
follow the links or ignore them as they so choose.
While the group is unmoderated, you must be a member of the group in
order to post or read messages. Membership is not limited to members of
SAA so please encourage others who are interested in electronic
recordkeeping to join the group as well. All messages are archived and
can be accessed by members through the website's URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAA-ERS
To access the group site, you will need a Yahoo! ID and password.
Visit the Yahoo! Groups main page (http://groups.yahoo.com) for more
information on obtaining an ID. This ID is only for logging into the
website. All messages go to the email you specified when you
subscribed.
Section Newsletter
The ER section has a new newsletter editor, Jennifer Jacobs. To make
the newsletter an effective tool for disseminating information, we need to
actively feed articles and information to her about electronic
recordkeeping projects, conferences, and happenings in our archives and
organizations.
Section Website
The group agreed that we need to add information and value to the
section website. We discussed several ideas including pointing to Cal
Lee's source (http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/ermlinks/)
or developing something on our own based on the content areas below. We
also thought we need to put a process in place for the "ERS endorsement"
of links posted to Cal's site if we go that route. The exact approach
will be discussed further among the working group members before a
decision is made. The group essentially agreed that the website would
contain the following three sections in one form or another:
- recommended resources
- other resources
- on-going discussion
ER Content:
Some of the content areas or needs that we talked about during the
section meeting included:
- defining a core group of information or recommended resources
(a place to point IT people with basic articles and information)
- big list/clearinghouse for sites that we would like to add to
Cal Lee's website, another website, or a site developed on our own. Key
here is adding value to the links through our evaluation of the selections
and providing annotations.
- discussions on a variety of topics as needed
- talking points, a list of points that should be discussed now
or in the future
- bibliographies
- policies
- project reports
- conference reviews
- online glossary of ER archival terms
- business process modeling
We decided that various working group members would be responsible for
developing or organizing the content information for the topics above.
Assignments will be made at a future date. If you would like help with a
particular area, please let one of the group members know.
Where these areas should be "housed" (the ER section web site or the
Yahoo! Groups listserv) needs to be decided.
Down the road:
We had a very good discussion at SAA. We thought this year we really
need to concentrate on building the working group first by profiling our
membership and providing an initial service to the membership and to SAA
as a whole through the ERS website sources (clearinghouse). In the future,
we would like to build our services to the membership through endorsement
of policies and development of model policies. (Phil Bantin referred to
the CIC group here which has worked mainly through e-mail to draft and
endorse a Electronic Records Standards document that, hopefully, will be
used by the Big Ten Universities). See: http://www.umich.edu/~deromedi/CIC/cic.htm
or http://www.indiana.edu/~libarch/ER/NHPRC-2/cic-er-policy.pdf
to download the policy.
Standards
Discussion Leader: Nancy Kunde
Participants: Bruce Ambacher, Terry
Baxter, Garth Clarke, Fynnette Eaton, Pat Galloway, Jerry Handfield, Steve
Hussman, Randy Jones, Janice Krahn, Nancy Kunde, Margaret Merrick,
Jonathan Nelson, Richard Pearce-Moses, Betsy Pittman, Sarah Polirer, Rose
Roberto, Tom Rosko
Topic 1 - What types of standards efforts are undertaken by which
groups?
The group talked about the variety and number of standards making
efforts currently underway the difficulty of knowing about them. The
group suggested that one project that might undertaken by the Electronic
Records Section is the establishment of a clearinghouse on standards. It
was also noted that the SAA Standards Committee is in need of liaisons
from each SAA section. The liaison would assist the committee in
identifying standards projects as well as being a contact point when the
Standards Committee needs individuals with expertise on electronic records
issues to review and/or comment on proposed draft standards.
Recommendations:
- The E-records section should consider establishing a standards
clearinghouse and
- Appoint a liaison to work with SAA Standards Committee
Topic 2 - Related to topic # 1 the need to identify all the standards
making associations / groups that are working in areas of interest to or
directly impact the work of archivists and records managers. Two projects
were discussed in relationship to this topic:
Bruce Ambacher has provided the following information with regard to an
effort that he is working on: There are two follow up efforts resulting
from the OAIS Reference Model, The French space agency, CNES, is leading
an effort to develop a template for electronic records/digital data ingest
(accessioning). NARA and the British space agency are leading an effort
to develop a self assessment "package" whereby an archives could
self-certify itself as an OAIS compliant archives meeting the conditions,
standards, and guidelines for operating an archives. As the NARA point
for OAIS related activities, I am seeking to learn about any certification
criteria, self-evaluation guides, best practices, or similar efforts that
could be cited or incorporated into a certification package. We are
hopeful that this initiative can be completed within a year. This is an
international effort. The project needs to address a variety of areas:
administration, delivery requirements, preservation, and others. The goal
is to establish benchmarks by which to certify programs managing space
data.
Request: Bruce asked for assistance from the group on this effort. He
can be reached at bruce.ambacher@nara.gov.
Mark Conrad described an NHPRC funded grant project the goal of which
is to develop good electronic records practices for long term preservation
and access to e-records. The description of the project from the NHPRC
web site is as follows:
The Global Industry Interagency Group, Woburn, MA$199,998 for its Good
Electronic Recordkeeping Practices Project to pull together from the best
available knowledge and practices Good Electronic Records Practices for
the long-term preservation of and access to electronic records.
(2001-032)
Further details about the work of GERA, Global Electronic Records
Association are available from the following web site: http://www.erecordscentral.org/GERA/GERAPublicWebsite/index.htm
Individuals interested in the work of GERA should contact:
Rich Lysakowski
Global Electronic Records Association
800 West Cummings Park, Suite 5400
Woburn, MA 01801
voice781.935.9600
fax781.935.3113
rich@censa.org
Topic 3 - The need for a common vocabulary.
Richard Pearce-Moses talked about the need for a core set of archival
and records management terms when discussing electronic records issues.
He mentioned the efforts by a project in Alabama and the work of the
Canadian Information Management Forum.
This would also be an invaluable collaborative project for archivists,
records manager, library professionals and others to engage in.
Topic 4 - SAA/ARMA collaborative standards making effort.
Under the auspices of the ARMA Standards Development Committee, a
collaborative standards making effort has been launched. The project is
titled, Conversion and Migration Criteria for Records Keeping Systems.
During SAA meeting some members of the Task Force were able to meet, and
suggestions were made for additions to the scope statement for the
project. Nancy Kunde outlined the work of the task force and encouraged
those that would like to participate as either writers or reviewers to let
her know. She can be reached at nkunde@library.wisc.edu or phone
608-262*3284. Individuals can also officially sign onto the Task Force by
clicking on the 'standards' link on the ARMA web site, www.arma.org and
completing the Call for Participation Form.
Kunde noted that the project is a large one, and relates to a number of
other ongoing electronic records initiatives. The hope of the project is
to establish some baseline criteria for conversion or migration projects
that could be readily adopted by a variety of organizations working with
electronic records.
Minutes prepared by Cheryl Stadel-Bevans, Cal Lee, Rosemary Pleva
Flynn, and Nancy Kunde Submitted by Cal Lee, Chair, Electronic
Records Section.
Page last updated: Tuesday, April 29, 2003
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