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Re: hard disk - short again



Is a record series a document, or a collection of documents? Is a file
cabinet a document, or a collection of documents? Is a hard drive a
document, or a collection of documents?

Certainly a hard disk is typically USED as a storage device for documents,
created at different times (often by different persons) to fulfill different
functions.

Moreover, the term "document" seems so broad and inclusive as to be
practically useless. As W.S. Gilbert wrote: "If everybody's somebody, then
no one's anybody." As Daniel said, the crucial question for archivists is
appraisal: is this permanently useful information or evidence that deserves
to be stored in the archives?

Thomas J. Wood
Archivist
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
P.O. Box 19243
Springfield IL 62794-9243
217-206-6520 | wood@uis.edu | http://www.uis.edu/library/lib-arch
mailto:dsokolow@nshs.edu

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