Links of Interest
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Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management by Karen M. Shegda, Toby Bell, Kenneth Chin, Mark R. Gilbert, Mick MacComascaigh, 23 September 2008: This M
agic Quadrant assesses content management vendors and their enterprise content management product suites’ completeness, maturity, and integration. As firms
deploy content infrastructure and some core functions become commoditized, these aspects will be crucial:
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/gc/reprints/ibm/external/volume2/article16/pdf/article16.pdf.
Master Data Management by Daniel Druker and Robert Rich, IBM Database Magazine, Quarter 3, 2005 Vol. 10, Issue 3: Businesses have long known that a single system of record can mean higher profits and faster time to market. Most just haven't been able to provide one. That's about to change, thanks to a new approach to managing "master" data: http://www.ibmdatabasemag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167100925
The New York State Office for Technology and the New York State Archives issued “A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State,” which examines how the state can provide choice, interoperability, and vendor neutrality in electronic document creation while ensuring that electronic records are preserved and remain accessible: http://www.oft.state.ny.us/Policy/ESRA/erecords-study.htm. (Mid-Atlantic Archivist, Fall 2008)
Reality Check/UCore's giant leap by Michael Daconta, Special to GCN, 8/18/08: Following the 9-11 Commission’s challenge to improve information sharing, a key group of chief information officers is pushing the boundaries of consensus building and galvanizing the federal information technology community. A collaboration of four of the biggest federal departments (the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments and the intelligence community) will release Universal Core 2.0, an impressive achievement in its scope, impact and design. The intention of the standard is ambitious: Craft a universal core of the most common data elements across all possible exchanges. The question is: What are the most common things everyone must agree on to have minimal interoperability? The answer embodied in the standard is refreshingly minimalist: who, what, when, and where: http://www.gcn.com/print/27_20/46900-1.html.
The GAO opened a web site that identifies urgent issues for Obama, including concerns regarding the 2010 census: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081106_8683.php?zone=ngtoday and some issues relating to the National Archives: http://www.gao.gov/transition_2009/agency/nara/.
McLemore, Dustin Dru, "A Model Records Management System for Texas Public Utilities: An Information Science Tool for Public Managers" (2008). Applied Research Projects. Paper 275: http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/275.
Random House to digitize thousands of books: http://www.randomhouse.biz/webservices/insight/.
New Digital Archives Await Bush Records by Mary Brandel, Computerworld, November 23, 2008: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154341-2/new_digital_archives_await_bush_records.html.
Don't Count out This Dinosaur by Jim Just, Partner, iMerge Consulting, Insights Newsletter, December 2008: The most common definition of metadata is "data that describes data" - not the most useful definition ever written. The ISO Records Management standard definition is more useful in the context of this article and document management in general. ISO 15489 defines metadata as "data describing context, content and structure of document and records and their management though time": http://www.imergeconsult.com/article/121.html.
Requirements identical for Defense, VA health record system by Bob Brewin, brewin@govexec.com: Development of a joint inpatient electronic health records system will satisfy almost all the requirements of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, according to a long sequestered report obtained by Nextgov. The report, prepared by Booz Allen Hamilton in January, said Defense and VA share a common definition of an inpatient electronic health record and both share similar functional requirements to manage patient care. Booz Allen analyzed more than 1,800 functional requirements and determined that 97 percent of them were similar and only 3 percent were specific to each department: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081203_5767.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Agency to assess value of electronic health networks by Jill R. Aitoro, jaitoro@govexec.com: A research group within the Health and Human Services Department plans to determine the value doctors derive from electronic records by distributing questionnaires and conducting focus groups in Colorado. The two-year project is designed to gather clinicians' feedback on a soon-to-be-launched online portal that will allow Colorado health care providers to find and organize patients' medical histories from multiple sources. "While many have hailed the development of [health information exchanges], only a handful have been developed, few have survived, and even fewer have clearly proved beneficial to their stakeholders, making each case study worthy of investigation," the agency stated in a November 2008 document: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081202_3133.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Key tech players aid Obama transition behind the scenes by David Hatch: President-elect Obama's review of likely changes at the FCC has been delegated publicly to two respected professors, but there are plenty of communications executives working behind the scenes to influence decisions about the agency and the incoming administration's approach to tech policy. Several hold official titles with the transition, but many others are relying on informal ties to have their voices heard on policy matters while staying out of the spotlight. For the transition team, the result is a tightrope walk with the watchdog community on one side of the balance rod and corporate interests on the other. Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach, professors at the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, are heading up the FCC review. They sit on the advisory board of Public Knowledge, best known for advocating unfettered access to Internet content and less-restrictive copyright laws: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081201_2456.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Air Force CIO says cybersecurity federal "Achilles' heel" by Jill R. Aitoro, jaitoro@govexec.com: Until best practices in information security become pervasive across all aspects of the enterprise, agencies' networks remain at risk, said a top technology chief with the Air Force at a conference Wednesday, calling cybersecurity one of the federal government's most overlooked and critical weaknesses. "This is our Achilles' heel," said Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, chief information officer at the Air Force. "It's not about a denial-of-service attack; it's about the information on the network -- ensuring it's accurate, protected, and available. [But] we're still fighting over what patch to put on": http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081203_1212.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Managing and Retrieving Electronically Stored Information (ESI) for Litigation Readiness, Compliance and Governance by Amy Girst, J.D., IMERGE Consulting, and Robert Smallwood, Partner, IMERGE Consulting; a Management Guide on e-Discovery Readiness for Records and IT Managers includes a special section on email as evidence and covers all aspects of the e-Discovery process, including e-Discovery preparations and techniques, readiness assessments, new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding ESI, email as evidence, email security and privacy issues, and more! Preview the Table of Contents and sample pages at: http://www.lulu.com/content/1557484
Government IT Expert Calls for New Approach to Information Access: Federal information managers have developed numerous best practices for information access, but have failed to adopt a universal approach. According to Alanthus Associates, metadata is the key to sharing sensitive information while enabling compliance with policy guidance. Metadata repositories make information discoverable, as well as the policy and POCs for gaining access. Read their report, "Enabling Information Discovery and Access: Concepts for Context Metadata Management within the Federal Community": http://www.marklogic.com/ngeida/.
Digital Reference Section, Library of Congress, Offers Monthly Orientation to Web Site: The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, with more than 134 million books, recordings, photographs and prints, maps, music items, and manuscripts. How can you access the wealth of information available on the Library?s Web site? What resources and services can assist you? The Digital Reference Section (DRS) conducts a free, one-hour orientation monthly, on the second Wednesday at 11 a.m. - noon, Eastern time, via Web conference. Throughout the program, DRS staff provide opportunities to ask questions, learn strategies for online access of the materials, and sample the collections and resources provided to facilitate your research. To register for the Orientation, use the Participant Registration Form, available from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/orientation_form.php. Confirmation, log on instructions, and the handout will be sent via email. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, contact the Digital Reference Section via the Ask A Librarian form at http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-digital.html.
Free cyber security training developed by a partnership among the University of Memphis' Center for Information Assurance, Vanderbilt University, and SPARTA, Inc. was funded under a grant by the Department of Homeland Security and is now or will shortly be available. Courses that might be of interest are Information Security for Everyone, Business Information Continuity, Information Risk Management, and Cyber Ethics: www.act-online.net.
"The Knowledge Resource Development Model: The Transition From Theory to Practice" by R. Tornack and J. O?Brien, International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, Vol 6. Nos.1 & 2, pp. 31-51 discusses collaborating to integrate RIM as a foundation for knowledge resource management. Available for purchase online at: http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=21719&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or.
Leveraging SharePoint Services to Manage Electronic Records by Robert Smallwood & Charmaine Brooks: This 92-page report, available as an instant download or as a paperback book, is an up-to-date management guide on using Microsoft SharePoint Services for managing electronic records, including email management and e-discovery. It covers the nuts and bolts of implementing records management with SharePoint in plain language yet with necessary technical detail. It includes valuable citation of resources to help keep you current: http://www.lulu.com/content/5903095.
The second edition of Randy Kahn's Information Nation: Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance book is available. It includes new material on federal sentencing guidelines, electronic discovery, etc.: www.KahnConsultingInc.com.
Green Information Technology & Records Management Practices: Eco-friendly Practices to Increase Profitability: A Management Briefing by Robert Smallwood, MBA, Partner, IMERGE Consulting. Intended to give managers a jump start on research and planning, this current publication defines concepts, provides case study examples and lists bottom line benefits of green initiatives in IT and RM. Preview the Table of Contents and an Executive Overview at http://www.lulu.com/content/2701833.
Resources from IMERGE Consulting: Educate Yourself on E-Records, E-Policy, E-Discovery and E-Security Issues, more than 15 Special Reports, written in plain language and covering specific aspects of e-records, e-documents, email policy and more! These are the essential resources for all managers: CIOs, IT managers, Risk Managers, Compliance Managers, and Executives will also value these books! Preview these research offerings at: http://www.lulu.com/imergeconsulting.
The Public Interest Declassification Board issued its initial report late last year, entitled Improving Declassification, with fifteen recommendations to improve the Federal government's declassification procedures. In January, President Bush ordered Executive Branch agency heads to respond by April 15, 2008. For the report, go to http://www.archives.gov/declassification/pidb/improving-declassification.pdf. (Archival Outlook, May/June 2008)
Key Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 by Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, First Monday (06/08) Vol. 13, No. 6: Among Web 2.0's key attributes are the growth of social networks, bi-directional communication, diverse content types, and various "glue" technologies, and the authors note that while most of Web 2.0 shares the same substrate as Web 1.0, there are some significant differences. Features typical of Web 2.0 Web sites include prominent profile pages; the ability to connect with users through links to other users who are "friends," membership in various types of groups, and subscriptions or RSS feeds of updates from other users; the ability to post content in various media, including blogs, photos, videos, ratings, and tags; and more technical features, such as embedding of various rich content types, communication with other users through internal email or instant messaging systems, and a public API to permit third-party augmentations and mash-ups. The authors point out that there are substantial challenges in permitting users to comprehend privacy implications and to simply represent usage policies for their personal data: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2125/1972. (NISO Newsline, July 2008)
Rummaging Through the Internet, Economist Technology Quarterly (06/08) vol. 387, no. 8583, p. 14: Web browsing promises to be transformed by new methods for navigating and collecting information online, and one such method is the freely available Hyperwords browser add-on, which turns every word or phrase on a page into a hyperlink. Meanwhile, the Cooliris startup has developed PicLens, free software that gathers and displays images retrieved from Google, Flickr, eBay, and other Web sites on a full-screen, 3D wall without any of the clutter on each image's Web page: http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482527&CFID=9525502&CFTOKEN=76722291 (NISO Newsline, July 2008)
NARA proposes to rewrite record regulations by Ben Bain, FCW.com, August 5, 2008: The National Archives and Records Administration plans to revise and reorganize the existing regulations for federal records management: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/153400-1.html.
Subcontracting restrictions may hurt disaster recovery by Matthew Weigelt, August 5, 2008: Congressional restrictions make it more difficult for contractors to assist in disaster-response efforts, a report from the Homeland Security Department states: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/153399-1.html.
Common Project Management Metrics Doom IT Departments to Failure by Meridith Levinson, August 1, 2008: A new report from Forrester Research explains how IT project management metrics influence perceptions of failure and describes four specific measures project management offices can take to increase the perception of project success: http://www.cio.com/article/440721/Common_Project_Management_Metrics_Doom_IT_Departments_to_Failure.
Another GovNet? by By Jason Miller, Executive Editor, FederalNewsRadio, August 5, 2008: Is GovNet making a comeback? Well, Karen Evans says no: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=169&sid=1453604
Seeking the records decider by J. Timothy Sprehe, fcw.com, August 25, 2008: A recent report by the Government Accountability Office on weaknesses in e-mail records management at the National Archives and Records Administration and four other agencies shows the need to adopt an entirely new approach to that issue. Like everyone else ? including NARA ? GAO assumes and accepts that employees will decide whether e-mail messages are federal records. It is fundamentally wrong to lodge decision-making for records management at the desktop PC level, and means the agency has as many records managers as it has e-mail users. Managing e-mail at the desktop level is failing everywhere; records management works best when it happens in the background and behind the scenes, out of sight of most agency employees. Conventional wisdom says the technology for making e-mail management decisions at the software or server level is not yet mature. In my judgment, that mindset demonstrates a lack of imagination and an unwillingness to tackle old questions in new ways: http://www.fcw.com/print/22_27/comment/153568-1.html.
A step in the right direction, Federal News Radio, July 23, 2008: The recent flooding in the Midwest has reinforced awareness of the need to plan for, and prepare for, a potential disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency put some money behind Step One of a new effort to partner federal record management with state and local agencies doing the same kind of work. That step was a summit in Atlanta this week that brought together state and national leaders in emergency management, information technology, and archives and records management. Saving essential records during times of disaster was the focus. The Council of State Archivists hosted the event, and 38 states sent records managers to learn about the Intergovernmental Preparedness for Essential Records project, known as IPER: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=410&sid=1445673.
New Specs and Standards: ISO has approved Adobe's PDF publishing specification (version 1.7) as ISO 32000-1, Document management ? Portable document format ? Part 1: PDF 1.7: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=51502; ISO 2709:2008, Information and documentation: Format for information exchange: fourth edition of the standard that provides the format structure widely used in the information community where it has enabled global interchange of metadata: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=41319; PREMIS Schema Version 2.0, the XML schema that supports implementation of version 2.0 of the PREMIS Data Dictionary, which defines the core preservation metadata needed to support the long-term preservation of digital materials. This is an extensive revision of the earlier PREMIS version 1.1 schemas: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/schemas.html. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
The NISO Data Dictionary - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.87-2006) is available for free download: http://www.niso.org/kst/reports/standards?step=2&gid=None&project_key=b897b0cf3e2ee526252d9f830207b3cc9f3b6c2c. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
JPEG 2000 a Viable Alternative to TIFF by Joab Jackson, Government Computer News (07/17/08): The more compact JPEG 2000 image format can work just as well as Adobe's Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) for preserving images in digital formats, concludes a new study. The study was conducted by Paolo Buonora of Italy's archives and Franco Liberati from the Universita degli Studi di Roma. "Based on the results of our studies, we conclude that JPEG 2000 compression is a good current solution for our digital repositories," the researchers write. "Implementing wavelet compression and saving crucial information in extra file headers offers everyone a flexible and inexpensive strategy for maintaining image data into the future." The digital preservation community has a history of using TIFF to encode images, and archivists have been slow to adopt JPEG 2000 due to fears that the process of encoding images will cause information to be lost. However, the use of TIFF requires considerable disk space. The researchers note that even under intense visual scrutiny, JPEG 2000 images had no visual defects when compared to the original uncompressed images, and, unlike JPEG, JPEG 2000 can save images in 48-bit color, like TIFF. Furthermore, JPEG 2000 is more flexible than TIFF because it is a multi-resolution format: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46658-1.html?topic=&CMP=OTC-RSS. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
Microformats and the Search for Meaning by Darlene Fichter and Jeff Wisniewski, Online (08/08) Vol. 32, No. 4, P. 55: Microformats are defined as a set of simple open data formats that are human- and computer-readable, and specified as "small bits of HTML that represent things like people, events, tags, etc. in Web pages," write Darlene Fichter with University of Saskatchewan Libraries and Jeff Wisniewski with the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System. Microformats are touted as making understandable to computers when a name is a name, and a location is really an event location. A Web page containing microformats in the code has the appearance of any other HTML page, but hidden within it is information in a structured format that can be extracted by search engines and digested by tools people use with a single click rather than through the arduous "cut and paste" approach. Microformats are an important fundamental element of the semantic Web, now included in Yahoo search results. Microformat creation can be automated through several available tools, including the hCard and hCalendar online forms, and the free Dreamweaver Microformats Extension. The author cites Tails Export and Operator?both available as extensions to Firefox?as two of the best microformat handlers, tools that detect microformatted information on webpage and allow the user to take action such as adding an event to a calendar program: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/infotoday/access/1508326521.html?dids=1508326521:1508326521:1508326521&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT:PAGE&type=current&date=Jul%2FAug+2008&author=Darlene+Fichter&pub=Online&edition=&startpage=55&desc=Microformats+and+the+Search+for+Meaning. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
Study: Reform Copyright Law to Save Digital Works by William Jackson, Government Computer News (07/14/08): The preservation of digital works must be promoted and facilitated through reforms to national and international copyright laws, concludes a study conducted by the Library of Congress, the Netherlands' SURFfoundation, Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee, and Australia's Queensland University of Technology. "Countless born-digital works are created every day, but countless born-digital works are also lost every day as they are removed, replaced, superseded or left, forgotten, in obsolete formats and media," the report notes. "Digitized and born-digital materials are an important part of the world's cultural heritage, but unless active steps are taken to preserve them, they will be lost." The study recommends that laws allow institutions to preserve works following international best practices, which include generating duplicates for administrative and technical reasons, converting works to different formats to keep pace with technological changes, and maintaining backup copies at multiple institutions as a preventive measure against catastrophic loss. The recommended reforms to U.S. copyright law follow those made in an independent study group report circulated in March: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46644-1.html. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion by Robert Pear, NY Times, September 12, 2008: Countless federal records are being lost to posterity because federal employees, grappling with a staggering growth in electronic records, do not regularly preserve the documents they create on government computers, send by e-mail and post on the Web: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/us/13records.html?_r=1&ex=137&oref=slogin.
The Importance of Identifiers by Janifer Gatenby, Metalogue (8/22/2008): The author uses the analogy of a passport number as an individual's unique identifier, comparable to identifiers used for information resources. In the Internet world, identifiers are critical to accessing identical resources on multiple sites and also have the requirement of embedding a URL. Gatenby points out that URLs, which are addresses, make poor identifiers due to their frequent changes. Resolution systems, such as the DOI, have emerged to address this problem: http://community.oclc.org/metalogue/archives/2008/08/the-importance-of-identifiers.html. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
At Libraries, Taking the (Really) Long View by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed (07/23/08): Librarians from research universities and other institutions are working to solve a variety of problems related to digital content preservation, such as constructing storage devices that monitor and repair data while remaining easily scalable, redundancy measures, distributing and duplicating data cross storage devices and across the country, universal standards to keep formats readable in the distant future, and interfaces such as open software protocols that manage digital holdings and make content accessible to the public. Some solutions are still in development, and various institutions are trying different approaches, with some corporations competing with each other while others collaborate on open source solutions. Purdue University professor of library science and interdisciplinary research librarian Michael Witt says that "none of the solutions have withstood the test of time yet?: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/23/preservation. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
For more on preservation, view the presentation slides from NISO's March 2008 forum on Digital Preservation: Planning Today for Tomorrow's Resources: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2008/digpres08/agenda/. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
When to shred: Purging data saves money, cuts legal risk by Mary Brandel, Computerworld, September 18, 2008: Many organizations hang on to more data than they need, for much longer than they should. They pay millions of dollars for e-discovery, litigation that didn't have to happen or just plain expensive storage costs: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9114882.
The Getting of Wisdom by Sue Bushell, CIO Business Technology Leadership, May 22, 2008: The next few years are shaping up to be a crossroads for public sector knowledge workers, says Steve Hodgkinson, research director at global advisory and consulting firm Ovum: http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;842358052;fp;4;fpid;12. ARMA International Educational Foundation -The ARMA International Educational Foundation is a funding resource for individuals and organizations for the advancement of knowledge in the field of information management through research and education.
Records Management in the News - Link from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Records Scoop website. Great website with links to current events. http://www.epa.gov/records/scoop, Archives available. Thanks EPA
Three Principles of Business Continuity What does it take to successfully build a business continuity plan? It?s not the technology by Jon William Toigo, Enterprise Systems and its Storage Strategies, 3/4/2008: Successful continuity planning comes down to protecting data and personnel, but a third (and key) ingredient has nothing to do with people or technology. Business savvy is the ultimate practical determinant of effective continuity planning: http://info.101com.com/default.aspx?id=47550
Creating Preservation-Ready Web Resources by Joan A. Smith and Michael L. Nelson; D-Lib Magazine (02/08) Vol. 14, No. 2. Many web sites?personal, community, and departmental?are worth preserving, but there are not enough digital archivists to prepare and process these sites, write Joan A. Smith and Michael L. Nelson of Old Dominion University. They suggest a simple model for preparing the resources of everyday sites for preservation by exploiting the web server, through analysis at the time of dissemination by metadata utilities. They add that they are collating metrics on the approach's effects on the server, specifically the impact of metadata utility performance on server responsiveness to regular clients: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january08/smith/01smith.html. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Academic Group Convenes to Tackle Archiving of Digital Data by Andrea L. Foster; Chronicle of Higher Education (01/29/08). The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation is focusing on solving the expensive and time-consuming problem of preserving digital data. The new group, backed by a two-year, $525,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will work to develop requirements for an economically-sustainable model for digital preservation. The task force, which is headed by economist Brian Lavoie, a research scientist at the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, and San Diego Supercomputer Center director Francine Berman, is expected to issue two reports, one at the end of this year and one in 2009. Berman says she is particularly concerned over the lack of attention being paid to preserving data from federally-funded research. The task force is collaborating with the Library of Congress, Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the National Archives and Records Administration: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2701. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Microsoft Makes Last-Gasp OOXML Push by Brett Winteford, CNet (01/29/08): In preparation for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) vote on the ratification of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard, Microsoft has been campaigning to convince the industry that its standard is in the best interest of users. Microsoft executives defended the proposed standard against mounting criticism, focusing on several themes. The first was dispelling the idea that there is no need for a second XML standard, as Microsoft argues that there is nothing wrong with having multiple file formats and OOXML will provide backwards compatibility for billions of older Microsoft documents that the OpenDocument Format (ODF) does not. Microsoft also argued that OOXML is superior to ODF. "Many customers tell us that ODF doesn't meet their needs," says Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards Tom Robertson. "It doesn't provide backwards compatibility, nor does it reflect the rich feature set of Office 2007." Jean Paoli, Microsoft's senior director of XML technologies and a member of the Ecma standards committee shepherding the standard through ISO, emphasized that the industry has already voted by supporting OOXML in products from Apple, Novell, Turbolinux, and Google: http://www.news.com/Microsoft-makes-last-gasp-OOXML-push/2100-7344_3-6228247.html. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
PDF 1.7 Inches Closer to ISO Standardization by David Worthington, Software Development Times (01/01/08) No. 189, P. 16: The ballot for Adobe Systems' Portable Document Format version 1.7 to become an ISO standard was recently approved by a vote of 13 to 1, with Russia abstaining. The United States, the sponsoring country, submitted the majority of the 205 comments. Adobe principal scientist Jim King acknowledged in Adobe's "Inside PDF" blog that the U.S. committee, which includes representatives from Adobe, was the most critical of the proposal. "To me, this reflects the honesty with which this group has approached the whole effort," King writes. Two subsets of PDF 1.7, PDF for Archive (PDF/A) and PDF for Exchange (PDF/X), have already been approved by ISO as international standards, and two others, PDF for Engineering (PDF/E) and PDF for Universal Access (PDF/UA), are on ISO's docket as proposed standards: http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=31429. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology (01/08) Vol. 21, No. 5, P. 32. Google Book Search offers advantages to scholars, but there is an element of crudity to the effort, which suggests that the project is mainly about the volume of books being digitized rather than the quality of those books. The University of California Digital Library acknowledges that there is less emphasis on selection of the volumes to be scanned. The technical aspects of the scanning operations, as well as the site of Google's scanning facility, are kept secret. Complaints have been expressed over the quality and scope, in particular missing, blurry, or cut off pages, as well as the search methodology, which Google is also keeping secret: http://campustechnology.com/articles/57064/. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
OMB issues records management guidance: Tools Available for Implementing Electronic Records Management: http://63.161.169.137/omb/memoranda/fy2008/m08-15.pdf
New Specs and Standards: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Maintenance Update of XML Schemas for DCMI Terms: The set of XML schemas in support of the Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML has been updated in light of the January 2008 release of DCMI Metadata Terms: http://www.dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/; W3C Working Draft, SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer: SKOS provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other types of controlled vocabulary. This document is an implementers' guide for those who would like to represent their concept scheme using SKOS: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-primer-20080221/. (NISO Newsline, March 2008)
ISO/IEC 10995:2008, Information technology ? Digitally recorded media for information interchange and storage: Test method for the estimation of the archival lifetime of optical media specifies an accelerated aging test method for estimating the life expectancy for the retrievability of information stored on recordable or rewritable optical disks. This test includes details on the following formats: DVD-R/-RW/-RAM, +R/+RW, and notes only the effects of temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH): http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=46554. (NISO Newsline, May 2008)
University of Illinois Develops Free, Easy-to-Use Web Tool Kit for Archivists by Andrea Lynn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (02/19/08). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Library archivists have developed Archon, a new, freely-available online collections management program. Archon was designed specifically for archivists with limited access to technological resources and knowledge, says Scott Schwartz, one of Archon's developers and the archivist for music and fine arts at UIUC. Schwartz says the program is adaptable to any institutional setting. "We wanted our application to be particularly useful to small, one-person repositories that have been unable to take full advantage of current tools under development," he says. Assistant University Archivist and Co-project Director Chris Prom says the software makes an archive's holdings far more accessible to its users, and notes that it automatically creates its own searchable Web site: http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/08/0219archon.html. (NISO Newsline, March 2008)
2007 Cohasset ARMA AIIM Electronic Records Management Survey Available
"Inside the Records Room," a talk radio show with Ray Davis, Liberty Bell Chapter, airs every Tuesday starting 12/4/07 at 8 PM EST. Listen over the internet and get details at http://www.insidetherecordsroom.com
The Sedona Conference Publications
The following titles by Robert Smallwood are available from IMERGE Consulting. The Table of Contents and Executive Summary can be viewed at the urls: Evaluating & Selecting Electronic Records Systems Complete Buying Process Decision Guide, including a review of 16 leading vendors; Managing Electronic Records for Multinationals (with Charmaine Brooks, CRM, and Vigi Gurushanta, both of IMERGE Consulting); Business Process Management: Concepts, Practices, Standards & Technologies; Evaluating & Selecting Enterprise Digital Rights Management Software for Securing E-Documents Both Inside & Outside of the Enterprise.
ARMA's RIM Core Competencies published last fall: A roadmap to help you navigate your RIM career, it defines the knowledge and skills you need to be a success at the various stages in your records management career. These competencies will help you identify gaps in your current skills and knowledge so you know where you need more development. At an organizational level, the competencies are designed to provide the guidance managers and human resources need to craft position descriptions for new or existing RIM positions. To download a free copy, visit http://www.arma.org/competencies/.
Citing the Sedona Conference Glossary for E-Discovery, Court Overrules Vagueness and Ambiguity Objections to Request for Production, November 17, 2006
Records and Information Management Resource Link: More than 4,900 links to web sites in over 300 categories, provided as a free resource to the professionals of the world-wide records and information management community. http://infomgmt.homestead.com/
List archives - Contact RECMGMT-L-REQUEST@lists.ufl.edu for assistance
Here are some great links for
Professional humor!
Cartoons http://www.archimac.org/Profession/Cartoons.spml
Slogans and Humor http://www.archimac.org/Profession/Slogans.spml
Good starting points for research on integrity and authenticity for digital resources are:
the InterPARES project
Background by Ken Thibodeau
Basics: Information from different (professional) perspectives A wealth of information can be found if you search on publications by the
participants of the InterPARES project (especially the Authenticity Task Force):
Permanently Authentic Electronic Records http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/dlm/program/abst_ld_en.html
Preserving the Authenticity of Contingent Digital Objects http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july00/eppard/07eppard.html
Records Inventory Links:
How To Conduct a Records Inventory http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/l17_inv.htm
Conducting a Records Inventory http://www.epa.gov/records/tools/toolkits/6step/6step-02.htm
Inventorying Records http://www.coshrc.org/arc/states/res_invn.htm
Free White Paper:
"Disaster Preparedness With Document Management"
Collaboration Georgia Gets a Peachy New Portal.
To help constituents do business with their state government easily and efficiently, Georgia recently launched www.georgia.gov, a statewide portal that. features menus that guide users to frequently requested information. The technology behind the portal is content management software from Vignette, Austin, TX, running on a Sun Microsystems platform.
Enterprise Solutions Secure Messaging Ensures HIPAA Compliance.
To ensure compliance with HIPAA privacy regulations, Amedisys, a home health nursing services provider headquartered in Baton Rouge, LA, has selected SafeRoute secure messaging software from Authentica, Waltham, MA. The SafeRoute software will be used to protect messages containing patient health information being sent by more than 1,500 internal users using Microsoft Exchange.
Content Management
Forms and eForms
Fast Food Chain Serves Up E-Forms http://news.transformmag.com/cgi-bin4/flo/y/eLBl0EW6jr0CsS0Bt2T0AS
Luxury Hotel Checks In Simpler Processes http://news.transformmag.com/cgi-bin4/flo/y/eLBl0EW6jr0CsS0Bt2V0AU
Scan and Capture
Master Data Management by Daniel Druker and Robert Rich, IBM Database Magazine, Quarter 3, 2005 Vol. 10, Issue 3: Businesses have long known that a single system of record can mean higher profits and faster time to market. Most just haven't been able to provide one. That's about to change, thanks to a new approach to managing "master" data: http://www.ibmdatabasemag.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167100925
The New York State Office for Technology and the New York State Archives issued “A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State,” which examines how the state can provide choice, interoperability, and vendor neutrality in electronic document creation while ensuring that electronic records are preserved and remain accessible: http://www.oft.state.ny.us/Policy/ESRA/erecords-study.htm. (Mid-Atlantic Archivist, Fall 2008)
Reality Check/UCore's giant leap by Michael Daconta, Special to GCN, 8/18/08: Following the 9-11 Commission’s challenge to improve information sharing, a key group of chief information officers is pushing the boundaries of consensus building and galvanizing the federal information technology community. A collaboration of four of the biggest federal departments (the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments and the intelligence community) will release Universal Core 2.0, an impressive achievement in its scope, impact and design. The intention of the standard is ambitious: Craft a universal core of the most common data elements across all possible exchanges. The question is: What are the most common things everyone must agree on to have minimal interoperability? The answer embodied in the standard is refreshingly minimalist: who, what, when, and where: http://www.gcn.com/print/27_20/46900-1.html.
The GAO opened a web site that identifies urgent issues for Obama, including concerns regarding the 2010 census: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081106_8683.php?zone=ngtoday and some issues relating to the National Archives: http://www.gao.gov/transition_2009/agency/nara/.
McLemore, Dustin Dru, "A Model Records Management System for Texas Public Utilities: An Information Science Tool for Public Managers" (2008). Applied Research Projects. Paper 275: http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/275.
Random House to digitize thousands of books: http://www.randomhouse.biz/webservices/insight/.
New Digital Archives Await Bush Records by Mary Brandel, Computerworld, November 23, 2008: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154341-2/new_digital_archives_await_bush_records.html.
Don't Count out This Dinosaur by Jim Just, Partner, iMerge Consulting, Insights Newsletter, December 2008: The most common definition of metadata is "data that describes data" - not the most useful definition ever written. The ISO Records Management standard definition is more useful in the context of this article and document management in general. ISO 15489 defines metadata as "data describing context, content and structure of document and records and their management though time": http://www.imergeconsult.com/article/121.html.
Requirements identical for Defense, VA health record system by Bob Brewin, brewin@govexec.com: Development of a joint inpatient electronic health records system will satisfy almost all the requirements of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, according to a long sequestered report obtained by Nextgov. The report, prepared by Booz Allen Hamilton in January, said Defense and VA share a common definition of an inpatient electronic health record and both share similar functional requirements to manage patient care. Booz Allen analyzed more than 1,800 functional requirements and determined that 97 percent of them were similar and only 3 percent were specific to each department: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081203_5767.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Agency to assess value of electronic health networks by Jill R. Aitoro, jaitoro@govexec.com: A research group within the Health and Human Services Department plans to determine the value doctors derive from electronic records by distributing questionnaires and conducting focus groups in Colorado. The two-year project is designed to gather clinicians' feedback on a soon-to-be-launched online portal that will allow Colorado health care providers to find and organize patients' medical histories from multiple sources. "While many have hailed the development of [health information exchanges], only a handful have been developed, few have survived, and even fewer have clearly proved beneficial to their stakeholders, making each case study worthy of investigation," the agency stated in a November 2008 document: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081202_3133.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Key tech players aid Obama transition behind the scenes by David Hatch: President-elect Obama's review of likely changes at the FCC has been delegated publicly to two respected professors, but there are plenty of communications executives working behind the scenes to influence decisions about the agency and the incoming administration's approach to tech policy. Several hold official titles with the transition, but many others are relying on informal ties to have their voices heard on policy matters while staying out of the spotlight. For the transition team, the result is a tightrope walk with the watchdog community on one side of the balance rod and corporate interests on the other. Susan Crawford and Kevin Werbach, professors at the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, are heading up the FCC review. They sit on the advisory board of Public Knowledge, best known for advocating unfettered access to Internet content and less-restrictive copyright laws: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081201_2456.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Air Force CIO says cybersecurity federal "Achilles' heel" by Jill R. Aitoro, jaitoro@govexec.com: Until best practices in information security become pervasive across all aspects of the enterprise, agencies' networks remain at risk, said a top technology chief with the Air Force at a conference Wednesday, calling cybersecurity one of the federal government's most overlooked and critical weaknesses. "This is our Achilles' heel," said Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, chief information officer at the Air Force. "It's not about a denial-of-service attack; it's about the information on the network -- ensuring it's accurate, protected, and available. [But] we're still fighting over what patch to put on": http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081203_1212.php?zone=NGpopular. (Nextgov, December 5, 2008)
Managing and Retrieving Electronically Stored Information (ESI) for Litigation Readiness, Compliance and Governance by Amy Girst, J.D., IMERGE Consulting, and Robert Smallwood, Partner, IMERGE Consulting; a Management Guide on e-Discovery Readiness for Records and IT Managers includes a special section on email as evidence and covers all aspects of the e-Discovery process, including e-Discovery preparations and techniques, readiness assessments, new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding ESI, email as evidence, email security and privacy issues, and more! Preview the Table of Contents and sample pages at: http://www.lulu.com/content/1557484
Government IT Expert Calls for New Approach to Information Access: Federal information managers have developed numerous best practices for information access, but have failed to adopt a universal approach. According to Alanthus Associates, metadata is the key to sharing sensitive information while enabling compliance with policy guidance. Metadata repositories make information discoverable, as well as the policy and POCs for gaining access. Read their report, "Enabling Information Discovery and Access: Concepts for Context Metadata Management within the Federal Community": http://www.marklogic.com/ngeida/.
Digital Reference Section, Library of Congress, Offers Monthly Orientation to Web Site: The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, with more than 134 million books, recordings, photographs and prints, maps, music items, and manuscripts. How can you access the wealth of information available on the Library?s Web site? What resources and services can assist you? The Digital Reference Section (DRS) conducts a free, one-hour orientation monthly, on the second Wednesday at 11 a.m. - noon, Eastern time, via Web conference. Throughout the program, DRS staff provide opportunities to ask questions, learn strategies for online access of the materials, and sample the collections and resources provided to facilitate your research. To register for the Orientation, use the Participant Registration Form, available from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/orientation_form.php. Confirmation, log on instructions, and the handout will be sent via email. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, contact the Digital Reference Section via the Ask A Librarian form at http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-digital.html.
Free cyber security training developed by a partnership among the University of Memphis' Center for Information Assurance, Vanderbilt University, and SPARTA, Inc. was funded under a grant by the Department of Homeland Security and is now or will shortly be available. Courses that might be of interest are Information Security for Everyone, Business Information Continuity, Information Risk Management, and Cyber Ethics: www.act-online.net.
"The Knowledge Resource Development Model: The Transition From Theory to Practice" by R. Tornack and J. O?Brien, International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, Vol 6. Nos.1 & 2, pp. 31-51 discusses collaborating to integrate RIM as a foundation for knowledge resource management. Available for purchase online at: http://www.inderscience.com/search/index.php?action=record&rec_id=21719&prevQuery=&ps=10&m=or.
Leveraging SharePoint Services to Manage Electronic Records by Robert Smallwood & Charmaine Brooks: This 92-page report, available as an instant download or as a paperback book, is an up-to-date management guide on using Microsoft SharePoint Services for managing electronic records, including email management and e-discovery. It covers the nuts and bolts of implementing records management with SharePoint in plain language yet with necessary technical detail. It includes valuable citation of resources to help keep you current: http://www.lulu.com/content/5903095.
The second edition of Randy Kahn's Information Nation: Seven Keys to Information Management Compliance book is available. It includes new material on federal sentencing guidelines, electronic discovery, etc.: www.KahnConsultingInc.com.
Green Information Technology & Records Management Practices: Eco-friendly Practices to Increase Profitability: A Management Briefing by Robert Smallwood, MBA, Partner, IMERGE Consulting. Intended to give managers a jump start on research and planning, this current publication defines concepts, provides case study examples and lists bottom line benefits of green initiatives in IT and RM. Preview the Table of Contents and an Executive Overview at http://www.lulu.com/content/2701833.
Resources from IMERGE Consulting: Educate Yourself on E-Records, E-Policy, E-Discovery and E-Security Issues, more than 15 Special Reports, written in plain language and covering specific aspects of e-records, e-documents, email policy and more! These are the essential resources for all managers: CIOs, IT managers, Risk Managers, Compliance Managers, and Executives will also value these books! Preview these research offerings at: http://www.lulu.com/imergeconsulting.
The Public Interest Declassification Board issued its initial report late last year, entitled Improving Declassification, with fifteen recommendations to improve the Federal government's declassification procedures. In January, President Bush ordered Executive Branch agency heads to respond by April 15, 2008. For the report, go to http://www.archives.gov/declassification/pidb/improving-declassification.pdf. (Archival Outlook, May/June 2008)
Key Differences Between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 by Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, First Monday (06/08) Vol. 13, No. 6: Among Web 2.0's key attributes are the growth of social networks, bi-directional communication, diverse content types, and various "glue" technologies, and the authors note that while most of Web 2.0 shares the same substrate as Web 1.0, there are some significant differences. Features typical of Web 2.0 Web sites include prominent profile pages; the ability to connect with users through links to other users who are "friends," membership in various types of groups, and subscriptions or RSS feeds of updates from other users; the ability to post content in various media, including blogs, photos, videos, ratings, and tags; and more technical features, such as embedding of various rich content types, communication with other users through internal email or instant messaging systems, and a public API to permit third-party augmentations and mash-ups. The authors point out that there are substantial challenges in permitting users to comprehend privacy implications and to simply represent usage policies for their personal data: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2125/1972. (NISO Newsline, July 2008)
Rummaging Through the Internet, Economist Technology Quarterly (06/08) vol. 387, no. 8583, p. 14: Web browsing promises to be transformed by new methods for navigating and collecting information online, and one such method is the freely available Hyperwords browser add-on, which turns every word or phrase on a page into a hyperlink. Meanwhile, the Cooliris startup has developed PicLens, free software that gathers and displays images retrieved from Google, Flickr, eBay, and other Web sites on a full-screen, 3D wall without any of the clutter on each image's Web page: http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482527&CFID=9525502&CFTOKEN=76722291 (NISO Newsline, July 2008)
NARA proposes to rewrite record regulations by Ben Bain, FCW.com, August 5, 2008: The National Archives and Records Administration plans to revise and reorganize the existing regulations for federal records management: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/153400-1.html.
Subcontracting restrictions may hurt disaster recovery by Matthew Weigelt, August 5, 2008: Congressional restrictions make it more difficult for contractors to assist in disaster-response efforts, a report from the Homeland Security Department states: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/153399-1.html.
Common Project Management Metrics Doom IT Departments to Failure by Meridith Levinson, August 1, 2008: A new report from Forrester Research explains how IT project management metrics influence perceptions of failure and describes four specific measures project management offices can take to increase the perception of project success: http://www.cio.com/article/440721/Common_Project_Management_Metrics_Doom_IT_Departments_to_Failure.
Another GovNet? by By Jason Miller, Executive Editor, FederalNewsRadio, August 5, 2008: Is GovNet making a comeback? Well, Karen Evans says no: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=169&sid=1453604
Seeking the records decider by J. Timothy Sprehe, fcw.com, August 25, 2008: A recent report by the Government Accountability Office on weaknesses in e-mail records management at the National Archives and Records Administration and four other agencies shows the need to adopt an entirely new approach to that issue. Like everyone else ? including NARA ? GAO assumes and accepts that employees will decide whether e-mail messages are federal records. It is fundamentally wrong to lodge decision-making for records management at the desktop PC level, and means the agency has as many records managers as it has e-mail users. Managing e-mail at the desktop level is failing everywhere; records management works best when it happens in the background and behind the scenes, out of sight of most agency employees. Conventional wisdom says the technology for making e-mail management decisions at the software or server level is not yet mature. In my judgment, that mindset demonstrates a lack of imagination and an unwillingness to tackle old questions in new ways: http://www.fcw.com/print/22_27/comment/153568-1.html.
A step in the right direction, Federal News Radio, July 23, 2008: The recent flooding in the Midwest has reinforced awareness of the need to plan for, and prepare for, a potential disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency put some money behind Step One of a new effort to partner federal record management with state and local agencies doing the same kind of work. That step was a summit in Atlanta this week that brought together state and national leaders in emergency management, information technology, and archives and records management. Saving essential records during times of disaster was the focus. The Council of State Archivists hosted the event, and 38 states sent records managers to learn about the Intergovernmental Preparedness for Essential Records project, known as IPER: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=410&sid=1445673.
New Specs and Standards: ISO has approved Adobe's PDF publishing specification (version 1.7) as ISO 32000-1, Document management ? Portable document format ? Part 1: PDF 1.7: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=51502; ISO 2709:2008, Information and documentation: Format for information exchange: fourth edition of the standard that provides the format structure widely used in the information community where it has enabled global interchange of metadata: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=41319; PREMIS Schema Version 2.0, the XML schema that supports implementation of version 2.0 of the PREMIS Data Dictionary, which defines the core preservation metadata needed to support the long-term preservation of digital materials. This is an extensive revision of the earlier PREMIS version 1.1 schemas: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/schemas.html. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
The NISO Data Dictionary - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.87-2006) is available for free download: http://www.niso.org/kst/reports/standards?step=2&gid=None&project_key=b897b0cf3e2ee526252d9f830207b3cc9f3b6c2c. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
JPEG 2000 a Viable Alternative to TIFF by Joab Jackson, Government Computer News (07/17/08): The more compact JPEG 2000 image format can work just as well as Adobe's Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) for preserving images in digital formats, concludes a new study. The study was conducted by Paolo Buonora of Italy's archives and Franco Liberati from the Universita degli Studi di Roma. "Based on the results of our studies, we conclude that JPEG 2000 compression is a good current solution for our digital repositories," the researchers write. "Implementing wavelet compression and saving crucial information in extra file headers offers everyone a flexible and inexpensive strategy for maintaining image data into the future." The digital preservation community has a history of using TIFF to encode images, and archivists have been slow to adopt JPEG 2000 due to fears that the process of encoding images will cause information to be lost. However, the use of TIFF requires considerable disk space. The researchers note that even under intense visual scrutiny, JPEG 2000 images had no visual defects when compared to the original uncompressed images, and, unlike JPEG, JPEG 2000 can save images in 48-bit color, like TIFF. Furthermore, JPEG 2000 is more flexible than TIFF because it is a multi-resolution format: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46658-1.html?topic=&CMP=OTC-RSS. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
Microformats and the Search for Meaning by Darlene Fichter and Jeff Wisniewski, Online (08/08) Vol. 32, No. 4, P. 55: Microformats are defined as a set of simple open data formats that are human- and computer-readable, and specified as "small bits of HTML that represent things like people, events, tags, etc. in Web pages," write Darlene Fichter with University of Saskatchewan Libraries and Jeff Wisniewski with the University of Pittsburgh's University Library System. Microformats are touted as making understandable to computers when a name is a name, and a location is really an event location. A Web page containing microformats in the code has the appearance of any other HTML page, but hidden within it is information in a structured format that can be extracted by search engines and digested by tools people use with a single click rather than through the arduous "cut and paste" approach. Microformats are an important fundamental element of the semantic Web, now included in Yahoo search results. Microformat creation can be automated through several available tools, including the hCard and hCalendar online forms, and the free Dreamweaver Microformats Extension. The author cites Tails Export and Operator?both available as extensions to Firefox?as two of the best microformat handlers, tools that detect microformatted information on webpage and allow the user to take action such as adding an event to a calendar program: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/infotoday/access/1508326521.html?dids=1508326521:1508326521:1508326521&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT:PAGE&type=current&date=Jul%2FAug+2008&author=Darlene+Fichter&pub=Online&edition=&startpage=55&desc=Microformats+and+the+Search+for+Meaning. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
Study: Reform Copyright Law to Save Digital Works by William Jackson, Government Computer News (07/14/08): The preservation of digital works must be promoted and facilitated through reforms to national and international copyright laws, concludes a study conducted by the Library of Congress, the Netherlands' SURFfoundation, Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee, and Australia's Queensland University of Technology. "Countless born-digital works are created every day, but countless born-digital works are also lost every day as they are removed, replaced, superseded or left, forgotten, in obsolete formats and media," the report notes. "Digitized and born-digital materials are an important part of the world's cultural heritage, but unless active steps are taken to preserve them, they will be lost." The study recommends that laws allow institutions to preserve works following international best practices, which include generating duplicates for administrative and technical reasons, converting works to different formats to keep pace with technological changes, and maintaining backup copies at multiple institutions as a preventive measure against catastrophic loss. The recommended reforms to U.S. copyright law follow those made in an independent study group report circulated in March: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46644-1.html. (NISO Newsline, August 2008)
In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion by Robert Pear, NY Times, September 12, 2008: Countless federal records are being lost to posterity because federal employees, grappling with a staggering growth in electronic records, do not regularly preserve the documents they create on government computers, send by e-mail and post on the Web: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/us/13records.html?_r=1&ex=137&oref=slogin.
The Importance of Identifiers by Janifer Gatenby, Metalogue (8/22/2008): The author uses the analogy of a passport number as an individual's unique identifier, comparable to identifiers used for information resources. In the Internet world, identifiers are critical to accessing identical resources on multiple sites and also have the requirement of embedding a URL. Gatenby points out that URLs, which are addresses, make poor identifiers due to their frequent changes. Resolution systems, such as the DOI, have emerged to address this problem: http://community.oclc.org/metalogue/archives/2008/08/the-importance-of-identifiers.html. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
At Libraries, Taking the (Really) Long View by Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed (07/23/08): Librarians from research universities and other institutions are working to solve a variety of problems related to digital content preservation, such as constructing storage devices that monitor and repair data while remaining easily scalable, redundancy measures, distributing and duplicating data cross storage devices and across the country, universal standards to keep formats readable in the distant future, and interfaces such as open software protocols that manage digital holdings and make content accessible to the public. Some solutions are still in development, and various institutions are trying different approaches, with some corporations competing with each other while others collaborate on open source solutions. Purdue University professor of library science and interdisciplinary research librarian Michael Witt says that "none of the solutions have withstood the test of time yet?: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/23/preservation. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
For more on preservation, view the presentation slides from NISO's March 2008 forum on Digital Preservation: Planning Today for Tomorrow's Resources: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2008/digpres08/agenda/. (NISO Newsline, September 2008)
When to shred: Purging data saves money, cuts legal risk by Mary Brandel, Computerworld, September 18, 2008: Many organizations hang on to more data than they need, for much longer than they should. They pay millions of dollars for e-discovery, litigation that didn't have to happen or just plain expensive storage costs: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9114882.
The Getting of Wisdom by Sue Bushell, CIO Business Technology Leadership, May 22, 2008: The next few years are shaping up to be a crossroads for public sector knowledge workers, says Steve Hodgkinson, research director at global advisory and consulting firm Ovum: http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;842358052;fp;4;fpid;12. ARMA International Educational Foundation -The ARMA International Educational Foundation is a funding resource for individuals and organizations for the advancement of knowledge in the field of information management through research and education.
Records Management in the News - Link from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Records Scoop website. Great website with links to current events. http://www.epa.gov/records/scoop, Archives available. Thanks EPA
Three Principles of Business Continuity What does it take to successfully build a business continuity plan? It?s not the technology by Jon William Toigo, Enterprise Systems and its Storage Strategies, 3/4/2008: Successful continuity planning comes down to protecting data and personnel, but a third (and key) ingredient has nothing to do with people or technology. Business savvy is the ultimate practical determinant of effective continuity planning: http://info.101com.com/default.aspx?id=47550
Creating Preservation-Ready Web Resources by Joan A. Smith and Michael L. Nelson; D-Lib Magazine (02/08) Vol. 14, No. 2. Many web sites?personal, community, and departmental?are worth preserving, but there are not enough digital archivists to prepare and process these sites, write Joan A. Smith and Michael L. Nelson of Old Dominion University. They suggest a simple model for preparing the resources of everyday sites for preservation by exploiting the web server, through analysis at the time of dissemination by metadata utilities. They add that they are collating metrics on the approach's effects on the server, specifically the impact of metadata utility performance on server responsiveness to regular clients: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january08/smith/01smith.html. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Academic Group Convenes to Tackle Archiving of Digital Data by Andrea L. Foster; Chronicle of Higher Education (01/29/08). The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation is focusing on solving the expensive and time-consuming problem of preserving digital data. The new group, backed by a two-year, $525,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will work to develop requirements for an economically-sustainable model for digital preservation. The task force, which is headed by economist Brian Lavoie, a research scientist at the OCLC Online Computer Library Center, and San Diego Supercomputer Center director Francine Berman, is expected to issue two reports, one at the end of this year and one in 2009. Berman says she is particularly concerned over the lack of attention being paid to preserving data from federally-funded research. The task force is collaborating with the Library of Congress, Britain's Joint Information Systems Committee, the Council on Library and Information Resources, and the National Archives and Records Administration: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2701. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Microsoft Makes Last-Gasp OOXML Push by Brett Winteford, CNet (01/29/08): In preparation for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) vote on the ratification of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard, Microsoft has been campaigning to convince the industry that its standard is in the best interest of users. Microsoft executives defended the proposed standard against mounting criticism, focusing on several themes. The first was dispelling the idea that there is no need for a second XML standard, as Microsoft argues that there is nothing wrong with having multiple file formats and OOXML will provide backwards compatibility for billions of older Microsoft documents that the OpenDocument Format (ODF) does not. Microsoft also argued that OOXML is superior to ODF. "Many customers tell us that ODF doesn't meet their needs," says Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards Tom Robertson. "It doesn't provide backwards compatibility, nor does it reflect the rich feature set of Office 2007." Jean Paoli, Microsoft's senior director of XML technologies and a member of the Ecma standards committee shepherding the standard through ISO, emphasized that the industry has already voted by supporting OOXML in products from Apple, Novell, Turbolinux, and Google: http://www.news.com/Microsoft-makes-last-gasp-OOXML-push/2100-7344_3-6228247.html. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
PDF 1.7 Inches Closer to ISO Standardization by David Worthington, Software Development Times (01/01/08) No. 189, P. 16: The ballot for Adobe Systems' Portable Document Format version 1.7 to become an ISO standard was recently approved by a vote of 13 to 1, with Russia abstaining. The United States, the sponsoring country, submitted the majority of the 205 comments. Adobe principal scientist Jim King acknowledged in Adobe's "Inside PDF" blog that the U.S. committee, which includes representatives from Adobe, was the most critical of the proposal. "To me, this reflects the honesty with which this group has approached the whole effort," King writes. Two subsets of PDF 1.7, PDF for Archive (PDF/A) and PDF for Exchange (PDF/X), have already been approved by ISO as international standards, and two others, PDF for Engineering (PDF/E) and PDF for Universal Access (PDF/UA), are on ISO's docket as proposed standards: http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=31429. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
Google Book Search: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology (01/08) Vol. 21, No. 5, P. 32. Google Book Search offers advantages to scholars, but there is an element of crudity to the effort, which suggests that the project is mainly about the volume of books being digitized rather than the quality of those books. The University of California Digital Library acknowledges that there is less emphasis on selection of the volumes to be scanned. The technical aspects of the scanning operations, as well as the site of Google's scanning facility, are kept secret. Complaints have been expressed over the quality and scope, in particular missing, blurry, or cut off pages, as well as the search methodology, which Google is also keeping secret: http://campustechnology.com/articles/57064/. (NISO Newsline, February 2008)
OMB issues records management guidance: Tools Available for Implementing Electronic Records Management: http://63.161.169.137/omb/memoranda/fy2008/m08-15.pdf
New Specs and Standards: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Maintenance Update of XML Schemas for DCMI Terms: The set of XML schemas in support of the Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML has been updated in light of the January 2008 release of DCMI Metadata Terms: http://www.dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/; W3C Working Draft, SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer: SKOS provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other types of controlled vocabulary. This document is an implementers' guide for those who would like to represent their concept scheme using SKOS: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-primer-20080221/. (NISO Newsline, March 2008)
ISO/IEC 10995:2008, Information technology ? Digitally recorded media for information interchange and storage: Test method for the estimation of the archival lifetime of optical media specifies an accelerated aging test method for estimating the life expectancy for the retrievability of information stored on recordable or rewritable optical disks. This test includes details on the following formats: DVD-R/-RW/-RAM, +R/+RW, and notes only the effects of temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH): http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=46554. (NISO Newsline, May 2008)
University of Illinois Develops Free, Easy-to-Use Web Tool Kit for Archivists by Andrea Lynn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (02/19/08). University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Library archivists have developed Archon, a new, freely-available online collections management program. Archon was designed specifically for archivists with limited access to technological resources and knowledge, says Scott Schwartz, one of Archon's developers and the archivist for music and fine arts at UIUC. Schwartz says the program is adaptable to any institutional setting. "We wanted our application to be particularly useful to small, one-person repositories that have been unable to take full advantage of current tools under development," he says. Assistant University Archivist and Co-project Director Chris Prom says the software makes an archive's holdings far more accessible to its users, and notes that it automatically creates its own searchable Web site: http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/08/0219archon.html. (NISO Newsline, March 2008)
2007 Cohasset ARMA AIIM Electronic Records Management Survey Available
"Inside the Records Room," a talk radio show with Ray Davis, Liberty Bell Chapter, airs every Tuesday starting 12/4/07 at 8 PM EST. Listen over the internet and get details at http://www.insidetherecordsroom.com
The Sedona Conference Publications
The following titles by Robert Smallwood are available from IMERGE Consulting. The Table of Contents and Executive Summary can be viewed at the urls: Evaluating & Selecting Electronic Records Systems Complete Buying Process Decision Guide, including a review of 16 leading vendors; Managing Electronic Records for Multinationals (with Charmaine Brooks, CRM, and Vigi Gurushanta, both of IMERGE Consulting); Business Process Management: Concepts, Practices, Standards & Technologies; Evaluating & Selecting Enterprise Digital Rights Management Software for Securing E-Documents Both Inside & Outside of the Enterprise.
ARMA's RIM Core Competencies published last fall: A roadmap to help you navigate your RIM career, it defines the knowledge and skills you need to be a success at the various stages in your records management career. These competencies will help you identify gaps in your current skills and knowledge so you know where you need more development. At an organizational level, the competencies are designed to provide the guidance managers and human resources need to craft position descriptions for new or existing RIM positions. To download a free copy, visit http://www.arma.org/competencies/.
Citing the Sedona Conference Glossary for E-Discovery, Court Overrules Vagueness and Ambiguity Objections to Request for Production, November 17, 2006
Records and Information Management Resource Link: More than 4,900 links to web sites in over 300 categories, provided as a free resource to the professionals of the world-wide records and information management community. http://infomgmt.homestead.com/
List archives - Contact RECMGMT-L-REQUEST@lists.ufl.edu for assistance
Here are some great links for
Professional humor!Cartoons http://www.archimac.org/Profession/Cartoons.spml
Slogans and Humor http://www.archimac.org/Profession/Slogans.spml
Good starting points for research on integrity and authenticity for digital resources are:the InterPARES project
Background by Ken Thibodeau
Basics: Information from different (professional) perspectives
A wealth of information can be found if you search on publications by the
participants of the InterPARES project (especially the Authenticity Task Force):Permanently Authentic Electronic Records http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/dlm/program/abst_ld_en.html
Preserving the Authenticity of Contingent Digital Objects http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july00/eppard/07eppard.html
Records Inventory Links:
How To Conduct a Records Inventory http://www.state.sc.us/scdah/l17_inv.htm
Conducting a Records Inventory http://www.epa.gov/records/tools/toolkits/6step/6step-02.htm
Inventorying Records http://www.coshrc.org/arc/states/res_invn.htm
Free White Paper:
"Disaster Preparedness With Document Management"
Collaboration Georgia Gets a Peachy New Portal.
To help constituents do business with their state government easily and efficiently, Georgia recently launched www.georgia.gov, a statewide portal that. features menus that guide users to frequently requested information. The technology behind the portal is content management software from Vignette, Austin, TX, running on a Sun Microsystems platform.
Enterprise Solutions Secure Messaging Ensures HIPAA Compliance.
To ensure compliance with HIPAA privacy regulations, Amedisys, a home health nursing services provider headquartered in Baton Rouge, LA, has selected SafeRoute secure messaging software from Authentica, Waltham, MA. The SafeRoute software will be used to protect messages containing patient health information being sent by more than 1,500 internal users using Microsoft Exchange.
Content Management
Forms and eForms
Fast Food Chain Serves Up E-Forms http://news.transformmag.com/cgi-bin4/flo/y/eLBl0EW6jr0CsS0Bt2T0AS
Luxury Hotel Checks In Simpler Processes http://news.transformmag.com/cgi-bin4/flo/y/eLBl0EW6jr0CsS0Bt2V0AU
Scan and Capture
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