86.Web Sites. There is an increasing array of Web sites valuable for insights into archival work. Since these sites come and go so quickly, it is realistic only to describe a representative portion of the sites; at the least, individuals wanting to know about archives and archival work will need to search regularly on the World Wide Web, as well as to subscribe to the key listserves featuring announcements about new sites and resources.

87.Electronic records management is one of the primary topics featured on World Wide Web sites. Records professionals can get access to the International Council on Archives products on electronic records. The ICA’s Committee on Electronic Records has made available a guide for managing electronic records, containing some straightforward guidelines for how archivists and records managers should approach such records systems; an extensive literature review, prepared by Alf Erlandson of the International Monetary Fund, evaluating the literature written from 1992 through 1996; and a survey, done in 1994/95, of archival institutions with some semblance of electronic records programs. The products can be found at http://www.archives.ca/ica/p-er/english.html. In my estimation, the literature review is the best product, summarizing the writings and the debates when attitudes toward electronic records management have undergone a significant transformation. A good, up-to-date bibliography on the preservation of electronic records is Michael Day, “Preservation of Electronic Information: A Bibliography,”. A related Web site is one on “Electronic Recordkeeping Resources” maintained by the Kansas State Historical Society. The sites include links to references on access and retrieval, creation and capture, data management, document and file management, and a host of other topics. The British Public Record Office, Management, Appraisal and Preservation of Electronic Records; Vol. 1: Principles, 2^nd ed. (Kew: Public Record Office, 1999), features a strong emphasis on the value of records for evidence and accountability. The National Archives of Australia has produced a “Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies,” including 20 metadata elements and 65 sub-elements.

88.The Web is also being used to build general reference sources for information on conferences, publications, bibliographies, case studies, and other materials. Leon Miller, Manuscripts Librarian at Tulane University, maintains a useful Web site called “Ready, ‘Net, Go! Archival Internet Resources.” The site is described by Miller as a “meta-index, or index of archival indexes.” It includes links to archives web sites, “tools” for archivists, search engines for finding archival information, professional resources, and descriptions of general internet search tools. There are concise descriptions of what these various links do, with more practical information than you generally find on such web sites. Another excellent resource for records managers and archivists is the home page of the Rio Grande Chapter of ARMA. This home page includes a “Records and Information Management (RIM) Resource List” with connections to home pages of other ARMA chapters, committees, and resources; records management in a variety of institutional settings, including airports, colleges and universities, commercial records centers, corporations, government, law firms, hospitals and health care facilities, utilities; archives and related professional associations; records management sites in Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, South America; references to functions and products such as backups, barcodes, CD-ROMS, computer viruses, data warehousing, dictionaries and thesauri, digital signatures, disaster recovery, e-mail, electronic records, ethics, forms management, imaging, knowledge management, preservation, privacy, retention schedules, security, standards; connections to business information; records management educational programs; consultants and vendors; digital libraries; legal resources; and employment opportunities. It would be helpful to provide brief descriptions of the categories and of the more important and useful sites, but this is still a good resource for the records professional.

89.The Society of American Archivists has a number of sections, roundtables, and other subdivisions providing World Wide Web sites. The SAA EAD Roundtable has established a web site called “EAD Help Pages”. The web site is intended to assist those using or considering using the EAD.DTD (Encoded Archival Description Document Type Definition). The site includes background information on EAD, EAD sources, readings on SGML/XML, links to EAD sites, annotations on readings about EAD, and other useful information. This seems to be the site to start with if you are considering the use of EAD for describing archival records. The Society of American Archivists Preservation Section has updated its “Selected Readings in Preservation” to cover publications through 1998. It includes readings on general works; preservation planning and management; holdings maintenance; environmental control; disaster-preparedness and security; reformatting and imaging; preservation of paper, parchment, and bound records; photographs; moving images and sound recordings; and electronic records. As the introduction states, the bibliography is “geared to the general archives community” and is “not intended to be comprehensive.”

90.Other professional associations and consulting bodies provide useful resources concerning archival work. The International Records Management Trust is making many of its publications available online at http://www.irmt.org. There are papers concerning “Migrating legacy systems into the electronic environment" by Ann Pederson, "The Role and Position of Records Management in Government" by John McDonald, "Accountability in Government in an Electronic Age" by John McDonald, "Managing the Record in a Changing World: The Importance of Education and Training for Records and Archives Management" by Laura Millar, "Freedom of Information and Citizens’ Rights" by Michael Cook, "Effects of the Failure to Manage Records and the Erosion of the Evidence Base" by Piers Cain, and "Managing financial records: implications for public accountability" by Pino Akotia. There are longer reports entitled From Accounting to Accountability: Managing Accounting Records as a Strategic Resource and Personnel Records: A Strategic Resource for Public Sector Management. All of the papers and reports can be downloaded either as pdf or Word documents.