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computer-assisted appraisal examples



Please forgive the crosspostings.

I'll be giving a paper in a couple weeks on computer-assisted appraisal of electronic records at the
Midwest Archives Conference, and I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who can provide any
real-world examples.

My emphasis is on the "assisted" part, rather than efforts to completely automate the appraisal
process.  Examples could include things as simple as using computer directory structures to engage in
folder-level appraisal or as complicated as using the latest data mining tools to identify valuable
database records.

I agree completely with those who say appraisal of electronic records should ideally be conducted
before the records themselves are even created, through functional analysis and retention scheduling.
But the focus of my paper will be on those (all too common) times when archivists and records managers
are called on to appraise records after the fact and cases when a large body of records (too large to
analyze at the item level) is scheduled for destruction or purging by the archives but may still have
some valuable records worth keeping.

I plan to present on a number of technologies that I see as promising in this area, but I would love
to also know about some technologies/practices already in place.

Thank you in advance for your assistance on this.

=======================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan
 School of Information
 Phone: 734-647-0505
                  "Obsolete power corrupts obsoletely."
                                           - Ted Nelson

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