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Re: Archiving information within databases



In response to Christian van der Ven <cvanderven@HOME.NL>
Subject: Re: Archiving information within databases


 A couple of thoughts.

 First, you concern about a printed report being a copy of an archival
record
which resides in a database.  You might want to read David Levy's "Where's
Waldo? Reflections on copies and authenticity in a digital environment," in
Authenticity in a Digital Environment (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library
and Information Resources, 2000).  Levy argues that in the digital arena,
the notion of the single, record copy is not valid because a document can be
reproduced exactly.  In fact, the multiple copies of a document can be used
as a tool to check authenticity.
    Available on the Web at http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pubs92.html.
(The whole document is well worth reading.)

Second, I would argue that a database is not a record.  A database is a
container that holds information that may be assembled into a record.  A
record is a particular view of the data.  When designing the system, you
have to define views of the data (users seldome just plough through tables
directly).  Second, you have to determine which of those views/records are
worth memorializing.  The decision may be base both on content as well as
use.
    Once you have decided which views to memorialize, you must ensure that
 the data does not change.  Depending on the system, that may mean the
production of an electronic document that captures the view separate from
the original tables; that way, the memorial record remains the same even if
the original tables have changed.  You know what the data looked like when
the record was created.  If you need greater authenticity, you can calculate
the message digest for the record to be able to demonstrate that the record
has not changed.  (If you have a mechanism to demonstrate that the data in
the tables and view -- the report -- has not changed, you may consider the
combination of the view and the data in the tables as a record because it is
fixed.  However for systems requiring significant trustworthiness, I would
probably design the system so that a memorial record that uses the view to
assemble the data from the tables is exported to an online file.)
    Have you seen the Trustworthy Information Systems Handbook produced by
the Minnesota State Archives?  See
    http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/tis/tableofcontents.html

Good luck!
Richard Pearce-Moses
  Director of Digital Government Information
  Arizona State Library and Archives
  rpm@lib.az.us

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