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Re: electronic copies of public records



Maybe this is a backwards way of looking at it, but what if you clarified
the ORIGINALS.  I'm capitalizing that because I don't want it to get lost in
the shuffle, but what I mean is that if you state a policy (and this may
have to hapen too far up the food chain to make it practical) that the only
copy of the "Tree Trimming Statistics, 1840-1849" that qualifies as "the
record" is the one in the archives with the official seal of the county on
it or whatever identifying mark you choose.

This way, you can send out as many copies as you like, since the one in the
archives is the only one that qualifies as the official record.  It's more
complicated for e-records, of course - finding some way of tagging the
record electronically can be more difficult, especially if you want to
protect it from nefarious users (think of the Spy vs. Spy guys from Mad :).
You may want to bone up on the subject of meta tags and other metadata,
which may provide some insight into putting a mark of authenticity into the
documents.

Might I suggest as one more possibility - that you add a line to your rules
of use for the archives, something like "all users who request electronic
documents agree not to modify the content in any way".  You could then
require the users to send an email to you agreeing to the terms of use
before you send them the requested file.  I'd check with a competent legal
person to make sure that would suffice to protect you from misuse, or at
least from responsibility for it.  I know electronic signatures have been
accepted as legal, but I'm not sure all users have the capability of making
those signatures (I haven't any idea how I'd go about it myself, so...)

DS


______________________________________
Daniel Sokolow, Archives Coordinator
David Taylor Archives
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
155 Community Drive
Great Neck, NY 11021
mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu

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