The Electronic Triumvirate: The Archives; The Data Processors; the New York State Department of Correctional Services Inmate Files. A Case Study

The New York State Archives and Recwds Administration (SARA) was one of the first state archives in the United States to accession electronic records into its holdings and niake them available to the public. SARA worked with the New York State Education Department's (SED) electronic data processing division (EDP) to obtain main frame computing services. SARA's dependency on SED EDP fcHdata processing services required the development of a positive relationship with SED EDP. This case study examines the relationship between a government archival institution working with electronic records and a centralized data processing unit that is completely unfamiliar with the operations and requirements of a data archive. There are two levels of a successful relationship: formal, which includes agreements on hardware, disk space, training, etc.; and informal, including the development of creative solutions to technical w procedural problems. These levels of interaction were necessary because SARA (unlike other SED divisions) developed and executed its own applications rather than use the traditional EDP services. SARA The New York Stale Archives and Records Administration's (SARA) program for the archival preservation of and research services for electronic records had its origins in 1988 with the release of the Special Media Records Project repcxl: Strategic Plan for Managing and Preserving Electronic Records in New York State Government . This plan gave birth to SARA's Center for Electronic Records (CER) in 1990, which is to be the focal point of electronic records program development in SARA. Among its many charges, CER was the unit assigned to tning electronic records transferred from agencies to SARA under archival control and to provide reference services for those data files. In this instance, archival control refers to variablelevel descriptions of the data set, explanations of the data set's technical aspects, the arrangement and description of the data set as a records series, and verification of the data and the documentation. In archival terminology, the process of bringing electronic (or paper) records under intellectual and physical control is termed accessiomng . Archival AdministratioD The accessioning procedure for electronic (and paper records) is preceded by the records retention and disposition scheduling process in which agencies estabUsh minimum retention requirements for records and determine their final disposition: eith^ destruction or transfer to SARA. Most records are destroyed after they are no longer useful to the agency because they do not have enduring legal, administrative, evidential, ot