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Re: Virtual Reading Rooms: Providing electronic reference to electro nicrecords



I think the approach will depend greatly on the types of materials and
organizations involved.  But I do strongly believe that we must depend
increasingly on the attributes of the systems being used by the records
creators, rather than building completely different descriptive and
access systems ourselves.

Many of the concerns we have as archivists (authenticity, access
control, context, provenance) are being address to varying degrees by
the current data and network administration within organizations.
Directory services are a good example of this.  Through things like
Novell Directory Services and (soon) Microsoft Active Directory, they
are identifying various resources (people, equipment and information),
their organizational context and who can have access to what.

Such metadata will be more likely to be accessible in the future if it
complies with standards like:

- Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
http://www.umich.edu/~dirsvcs/ldap/index.html

- x.500
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/pubs/netnotes/notes45.htm

- Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) (in development, based on
XML)
http://www.dsml.org/

A lot of the work on knowledge management, enterprise resource planning
and various other buzzwords, is based on extending things like directory
services in ways that allow contextual and provenance information to be
immediately available to users when it wasn't otherwise.

There's been a recent (April) Request for Comment, for example, within
the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to build more personal
attribute information into LDAP
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc2798.html

Many companies are developing Web interfaces to their records for
business partners and employees who are working remotely.  They tend to
call them portals, business gateways, and extranets.

All of this means that a lot of people who aren't archivists will be
creating our descriptive and administrative metadata for us.  And if we
don't continue to talk with them about it, they'll be very unlikely to
address our concerns the way we would like them to.

I think a virtual reading room in many cases can amount to a sort of
extranet (i.e. an access system based on Internet protocols but
restricted in its access permissions).  As long as a network is
administered properly, documents can be opened up for public consumption
at the appropriate times.  Once a document becomes inactive, its custody
(both in terms of responsibility and in terms of security permissions)
can also be shifted, if appropriate.

Of course, for the records of small organizations or individuals, this
may not be very practical. Whoever manages and provides access to their
records will have to build in a lot more themselves.

As for where they'll be stored, this should also depend on the materials
involved.  Following the idea of hierarchical storage management, files
can be storied in (in order of decreasing frequency of access):
- a cache for very quick access,
- server hard drive,
- optical medium like CD and retrieved through a jukebox,
- magnetic tape and retrieved with a robot,
- optical medium and retrieved by hand,
- magnetic tape and retrieved by hand,
- something like an "M-drive" that reads directly from microfilm or
fiche,
- locally stored physical medium (paper, microfilm, etc.) and then
either copied or scanned for use,
- off-site electronic storage,
- off-site physical medium (paper, microfilm, etc.) and then either
copied or scanned for use.

For current electronic reading room practice (U.S. government), you
might want to check out:

* Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Electronic Reading Room
http://foia.fbi.gov/

* Scott Air Force Base Freedom of Information and Privacy Act Home Page
(includes an Electronic Reading Room)
http://public.scott.af.mil/375aw/foia/

* Electronic Research Collection (ERC) (partnership of US State
Department, the University of Illinois at Chicago Library and the
Federal Depository Library Program)
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/index.html

* National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Freedom of
Information Act Electronic Reading Room
http://www.nara.gov/foia/readroom.html

There are also various national and state information locator sites, but
these probably don't directly address your questions about reference.

Of course, the degree to which reference will be humanly mediated is
also in question.  For a recent (April) article on human versus
automated information mediation, see:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_5/zick/index.html

For some models of online reference, you may want to check out:

* Virtual Reference Desk
http://www.vrd.org/

* Dig_Ref Listserv
http://www.vrd.org/Dig_Ref/dig_ref.html

* Internet Public Library, Reference Center
http://www.ipl.org/ref/

* Reference Services in a Digital Age (Library of Congress)
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/digiref/

* University of North Texas Libraries, Online Reference Help Desk
http://www.library.unt.edu/admin/HelpDesk/helpdesk.htm

* LOUIS (Louisiana Library Network) E-struction
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/louis/

Opinions expressed are my own and not those of my employer (or possibly
anyone else, for that matter).

=======================================================
Cal Lee
Electronic Records Project Archivist
Kansas State Historical Society
Phone: 785-272-8681, ext. 280         Fax: 785-272-8682
http://da.state.ks.us/itab/erc/
http://www.kshs.org/archives/recmgt.htm
                  "Obsolete power corrupts obsoletely."
                                           - Ted Nelson

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