InterPARES: Securing the Future of Our Electronic Records

flu ''' 11 & /ufonndt,,m 5Judu•t /lq•mmrlll • f bzjonnutwu .Studu't. ,\1\ u ... ,,., \m:' It•\, C,lh/ornta I In I''"''" ,,r 11 ur. ot, 1<1 J or /1, /ih wt II at: Ofl • ./ J 60 ld( rwdruJ ;,, mali ul , 'ra ,. HI t"Ju \tnt II 1\ ul \lane tr H lu ,J, The advent of the computer in the 1940s brought about profound societal changes that we are still feeling todaywhether it is in the way that organizations carry out or in the way that individuals conduct their daily lives. The phenomenal growth in hardware and software development during the last six decades has been fueled by a highly competitive industry. where cutting-edge inno\'ation seeks to create products which are increasingly faster. efficient and functional. In such an environment there has been little time to ponder the consequences of this kind of phenomenal growth in information technology. Enormous economic incentives exist for the technology industries to create products that supersede and render obsolete or unusable prior technologies. In our quest for bigger. faster. better we have neglected to take into account the of information technology upon an information resource that is of utmost importance to our society the record. A record can be defined as information that is created. received or maintained by an organization or an individual dunng the conduct of their affairs and maintained as evidence of that activity. When technologies become obsolete, it is not just the hardware and software that become unusable, but also the records contained within the system. Technology that has been developed to allow us to capture, maintain and manipulate information has also diminished the likelihood that the record will be fixed and an identifiable juridical entity. In translating the record from paper to the digital environment, we have also failed to ask ourselves what elements and functionality of the record must stay the same and what can changeor perhaps. more profoundly, which aspects of the record have already changed a result of information technology and which aspects endure despite such change.