40.Research Agendas and Research Studies. The archives profession has created a number of research agendas since the late 1970s, some of which have had substantial impact on subsequent research and writing and others, which have had less impact. It is crucial to understand how, why, and what these agendas have promoted, and especially to see the nature of responses to them. With a few exceptions, the response has been limited, but this is beginning to change as graduate archival education programs continue to expand and more doctoral students engage in research on archival topics. A sense of the difficulties in the archival community connecting to research, moving from pure practice to using applied research, can be found in Richard J. Cox, "An Analysis of Archival Research, 1970-1992, and the Role and Function of the American Archivist," American Archivist 57 (Spring 1994): 278-288 and Mary Sue Stephenson, "Deciding Not to Build the Wall: Research and the Archival Profession," Archivaria 32 (1991): 145-151, the latter decrying the lack of practical connection in research with the working archivists.

41.In the past two decades, two events have provided a catalyst to renewed efforts in archival research. In the early to mid 1980s the Society of American Archivists engaged in a major planning effort for itself and the broader profession, ultimately producing a working plan for the profession and its main North American association. At its 1987 annual meeting three commissioned papers were presented describing needs for research in the identified major sections of the archival mission, subsequently published as Richard J. Cox and Helen W. Samuels, "The Archivists' First Responsibility: A Research Agenda for the Identification and Retention of Records of Enduring Value," American Archivist 51 (Winter/Spring 1988): 28-42; Lawrence Dowler, "The Role of Use in Defining Archival Practice and Principles: A Research Agenda for the Availability and Use of Records," American Archivist 51 (Winter/Spring 1988): 74-86; and Paul H. McCarthy, "The Management of Archives: A Research Agenda," American Archivist 51 (Winter/Spring 1988): 52-69. These three articles have been cited numerous times in articles, including even some research, in the past decade, and I will organize my discussion about research to follow the functional structure represented in these writings.

42.Not surprisingly, the other major impetus for research has been about electronic records management, already suggested earlier in this report. In fact, electronic records research and development has, in some ways, emerged as a model in the field with conferences, funded research, and real collaborative efforts. The issue of modern electronic records management led to a series of conferences, leading to research agendas in 1991 published by the Minnesota Historical Society for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission; the reports of the 1994 and 1997 conferences held under the auspices of Archives and Museum Informatics in Pittsburgh; and. finally, the Electronic Records Research and Development: Final Report of the 1996 Conference held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, June 28-29, 1996 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan School of Information and the Bentley Historical Library, 1997). The first conference led to some other published essays, such as Margaret Hedstrom, "Understanding Electronic Incunabula: A Framework for Research on Electronic Records," American Archivist 54 (Summer 1991): 334-355, but more importantly this, and the other conferences, led to a number of major research efforts. Full proceedings of the 1996 conference have been published in volume 11, number 3 of Archives and Museum Informatics: The Cultural Heritage Informatics Quarterly, with a summary article in the July/August 1997 issue of D-lib Magazine: The Magazine of Digital Library Research at http://www.dlib.org/, by David Bearman and Jennifer Trant. Deliberations on defining records, electronic records management policy, recognizing record creating events, capturing records, maintaining records over time, and the continuing development of a research agenda were the features of this meeting.

43.The use of archival records has also generated a bit of research, although not nearly enough to enable the field to be able to discuss with confidence how individuals make use of records. Most discussions about how society utilizes archives still rests on assumptions and impressions about what goes on in the reference rooms, issues made far more complex by the growing reliance on the World Wide Web for access to information and evidence sources. The first major user study was Richard H. Lytle, "Intellectual Access to Archives: I. Provenance and Content Indexing Methods of Subject Retrieval," American Archivist 43 (Winter 1980): 64-75 and "Report of an Experiment Comparing Provenance and Content Indexing Methods of Subject Retrieval," ibid. (Spring 1980): 191-206, an interesting contrast between how researchers utilize traditional finding aids versus automated guides. It is an interesting commentary on archival research that this study, while referred to frequently, has not been replicated – especially since a revolution in attitudes and approaches to archival finding aids has occurred since its publication. Not surprisingly, based on his model for conducting such research, Paul Conway has made the most contributions about understanding archival use. His Partners in Research; Improving Access to the Nation's Archives (Pittsburgh: Archives and Museum Informatics, 1994), a study of users in the National Archives, is the most comprehensive analysis of such use, drawing on interviews, surveys, and other data. His introductory chapter, explaining the negative reception of the leadership at the National Archives about the study and its results, is also important for comprehending the difficulties in attitudes by archivists toward understanding researchers. His other study is "Research in Presidential Libraries: A User Survey," Midwestern Archivist 11, no. 1 (1986): 35-56. David Bearman, "User Presentation Language in Archives," Archives and Museum Informatics 3 (Winter 1989-90): 3-7 was an innovative effort to analyze the actual questions asked by researchers in archives, and it needs to be replicated. Closely related to this is William E. Brown, Jr. and Elizabeth Yakel, “Redefining the Role of the College and University Archives in the Information Age,” American Archivist, 59 (Summer) 1996: 272-287, evaluating the way in which academic administrators actually use their archives. Ann D. Gordon, Using the Nation's Documentary Heritage (Washington, D.C.: Historical Documents Study, 1992) represents, on the surface at least, a major assessment of how different research constituencies think of and ultimately use archival records. However, it is a flawed study, marred by a bias towards making a case for the publication of documentary editions and other methodological problems; I discussed some of these problems in my "Archivists and the Use of Archival Records: Or, A View from the World of Documentary Editing," Provenance 9 (1991 [1992]): 89-110.

44.There are also a number of studies based on the analysis of citations to archival sources within the published historical literature, another approach to trying to understand use, including Dianne L. Beattie, "An Archival User Study: Researchers in the Field of Women's History," Archivaria 29 (Winter 1989-90): 33-50; Clark A. Elliott, "Citation Patterns and Documentation for the History of Science: Some Methodological Considerations," American Archivist 44 (Spring 1981): 131-42; Jacqueline Goggin, "The Indirect Approach: A Study of Scholarly Users of Black and Women's Organizational Records in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division," Midwestern Archivist 11, no. 1 (1986): 57-67; Fredric M. Miller, "Use, Appraisal, and Research: A Case Study of Social History," American Archivist 49 (Fall 1986): 371-92; and Barbara C. Orbach, "The View From the Researcher's Desk: Historians' Perceptions of Research and Repositories," American Archivist 54 (Winter 1991): 28-43. The problem with these studies, and others similar in approach, is trying to reconcile different data gathering methods in order to develop some consistent knowledge about the use of archival records. These studies help, but they remain too few and too inconsistent in approach to provide the kind of knowledge needed by archivists about the citation of archival records in publications. Do different disciplines approach such records differently? Do the variations in disciplinary training and purpose affect how archival records are used and ultimately cited?

45.Closely related to studies about archival use have been those focused on the researcher’s interaction with reference archivists and finding aids. One of the first to consider how the emerging bibliographic networks could support archivists’ interests in creating a national database, with some disturbing findings about ingrained inconsistent practices working against this, is Avra Michelson, "Description and Reference in the Age of Automation," American Archivist 50 (Spring 1987): 192-208. Donald L. DeWitt, "The Impact of the MARC AMC Format on Archival Education and Employment During the 1980s," Midwestern Archivist 16, no. 2 (1991): 73-85 provides an early look at how emerging descriptive standards had influenced the development of position descriptions. With the rise of the World Wide Web and a new set of archival descriptive standards (EAD), some new studies are being done comparing retrieval of information from records with the various approaches, such as Timothy Hutchinson, “Retrieval Experiment Comparing MARC and EAD,” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 72-100; Robert P. Spindler and Richard Pearce-Moses, "Does AMC Mean 'Archives Made Confusing'? Patron Understanding of USMARC AMC Catalog Records," American Archivist 56 (Spring 1993): 330-341, examining how for granted archivists have taken a general research community’s knowledge about archives and their characteristics; and Helen R. Tibbo, "The Epic Struggle: Subject Retrieval from Large Bibliographic Databases," American Archivist 57 (Spring 1994): 310-326, determining that even using controlled subject terms leads to problems in massive retrievals of unrelated materials. The preliminary results of such studies suggest the strong need for more serious attention to researching these matters, if the archival community expects to be able to utilize the new electronic networking means in an effective manner.

46.There is also a growing number of studies being done examining online and Web-based resources and their use, such as Thomas Finholt and JoAnn Brooks, "Analysis of JSTOR: The Impact on Scholarly Practice of Access to Online Journal Archives," Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conference on Scholarly Communication and Technology, held at Emory University, April 24-25, 1997., in which the study concludes that “most faculty do not yet use JSTOR. When JSTOR use occurs, frequency of use is positively related to being male, having a preference for photocopying journal articles, relying on article abstracts when reading journals, and the frequency of searching on-line card catalogs. Increased numbers of journal subscriptions and affiliation with an economics department are negatively related to the frequency of JSTOR use. The findings suggest that faculty may be willing to substitute access to digital journal back archives for access to bound journals, but this willingness may vary by discipline.” Another example is Anne Gilliland-Swetland, Yasmin Kafai, and Anthony Maddox, "Digital Portfolio Archives in Learning: Modeling Primary Content Transformation for Science Education,", a study considering the issues involved in utilizing “primary source materials in digital format,” especially matters such as how “many teachers and students are unfamiliar with how to assess critically the quality and origination of content of varying quality and origins that they access through digital means such as the World Wide Web” and how “content holders, such as archives and museums, need to understand better how to prioritize their collections for digitization, and the most effective means for describing and visually representing digital versions of primary content for use by teachers and students.” The growing quantity of work on digital library projects, many including archival records and closely related materials, also bring with them new efforts to evaluate their effectiveness, such as Julian Kilker and Geri Gay, "The Social Construction of a Digital Library: A Case Study Examining Implications for Evaluation," Information Technology and Libraries, 17/2 (June 1998): 60-70. These studies are, obviously, widely dispersed in focus, but they suggest the potential of studying how digital archives are used or not.

47.Preservation is another topic receiving renewed research attention. Traditionally, there has been steady research on the technical aspects on conservation issues, but more research is now being done about preservation management and its place within archival institutions. Paul Conway commenced the renewal of interest in such research with his project for the Society of American Archivists, trying to assess how the range of archival institutions approach preservation, published as "Archival Preservation Practice in a Nationwide Context," American Archivist 53 (Spring 1990): 204-222. Conway expanded this work into a dissertation, “Archival Preservation in the United States and the Role of Information Sources,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1991, one of the new breed of doctoral studies on archival topics. Another useful source on this topic is Ann Green, JoAnn Dionne, and Martin Dennis, Preserving the Whole: A Two-Track Approach to Rescuing Social Science Data and Metadata (Washington, D.C.: The Digital Library Federation, Council on Library and Information Resources, June 1999) and available at http://www.clir.org/diglib/dlfhomepage.htm. Examining numerical data files at the Roper Collection at Yale University, the researchers consider the options of migrating these files and the problem of digitizing the related deteriorating paper records. This is a detailed case study revealing the limitations of current approaches to the long-term maintenance of these systems. They conclude, among many observations, that “data producers would be advised and should be persuaded to take long-term maintenance and preservation considerations into account as they create data files and as they design value-added systems” (p. 29). The report contains good information on costs and technology issues.

48.Archival appraisal has been ignored in research studies, although there is some evidence this is changing. Eldon Frost, "A Weak Link in the Chain: Records Scheduling as a Source of Archival Acquisition," Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 78-86 provides data on how poor records retention scheduling has been in bringing records into archival repositories, and it is a study needing to be replicated in a variety of other repositories (especially as it deals directly with the administrative relationship between archival administration and records management). The major research effort in this area was Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland, “Development of an Expert Assistant for Archival Appraisal of Electronic Communications: An Exploratory Study,” Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1995, an effort to try to determine how archivists make appraisal decisions in order to support the creation of an expert system. The abstract of this study indicates that the “researcher developed and tested a prototype expert system that could assist archivists in academic institutional settings with the macro-appraisal of electronic mail. The results of this research point out important structural and policy limitations to such an approach that are based around the current state of electronic mail technology and its local implementations, as well as the limitations of archival appraisal as currently expressed.” Other efforts to deepen our knowledge about appraisal include Richard W. Hite and Daniel J. Linke, "A Statistical Summary of Appraisal During Processing: A Case Study with Manuscript Collections," Archival Issues 17, no. 1 (1992): 23-29 and Thomas J. Ruller, "Dissimilar Appraisal Documentations as an Impediment to Sharing Appraisal Data: A Survey of Appraisal Documentation in Government Archival Repositories," Archival Issues 17, no. 1 (1992): 65-73, an article considering an important problem in the archives field.

49.The research on electronic records, at least in North America, has revolved about two major research projects. The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences project on functional requirements for evidence in recordkeeping, with results reported in various publications, had “major objectives” being to “develop a set of well-defined recordkeeping functional requirements -- satisfying all the various legal, administrative, and other needs of a particular organization -- which can be used in the design and implementation of electronic information systems. The project also proceeded to consider how the recordkeeping functions are affected by organizational policies, culture, and use of information technology standards, systems design, and implementation.” The University of British Columbia project, the “Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records,” led by Luciana Duranti, Terry Eastwood, and Heather McNeil, aimed “to identify and define the requirements for creating, handling and preserving reliable and authentic electronic records”. This project has been extended by the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES), focusing on four major issues: "to identify the elements of electronic records which are necessary to maintain the authenticity of those records over time," by "using diplomatic principles" to analyze the "elements of physical and intellectual form which may affect the authenticity and nature of an electronic record"; "to determine whether the evaluation of electronic records for permanent preservation should be based on theoretical criteria different from those applied to traditional records" and to "investigate how digital technologies have affected the methodology of appraisal;" "to identify and develop the procedures and resources required for the implementation of the conceptual requirements and the criteria identified in the first two domains;" and "to formulate principles that will guide the development of international, national, and organizational strategies, policies and standards for the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records." The results of both projects are being used and compared, as in Margaret Hedstrom, “Building Record-Keeping Systems: Archivists are Not Alone on the Wild Frontier,” Archivaria 44 (Fall 1997): 44-71.

50.Other research on electronic records is worth considering, as well. An interesting research project report is Charles R. McClure and J. Timothy Sprehe, Analysis and Development of Model Quality Guidelines for Electronic Records Management on State and Federal Websites; Final Report January 1998, at http://istweb.syr.edu/~mcclure/nhprc. The study, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, looks at the concern about whether web postings are official government records or not. The aim of the project was to develop better records management and preservation strategies. The analysis is fascinating and disturbing, demonstrating how most state governments and selected federal government agencies are not even thinking about web sites and their implications at all, even though the first part of the report — on the record definition — is disappointing and not very convincing. One of the most interesting points is the authors’ criticism about the archivists’ clinging to the notion that all government publications have permanent value and opening them all to needing to save all web sites as publications. This idea of all government publications being permanently valuable has been a poor idea ever since it was conceived. The report is mostly useful because it stimulates records professionals to revisit their notions of World Wide Web sites. The Delaware Public Archives has made available a two-year study on five systems (three client systems, one financial system, and a Web application) with implications for records and archives management. Information on the “Electronic Records Keeping Study”. A report by the Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, SUNY, Models for Action: Practical Approaches to Electronic Records Management & Preservation, Project Report 98-1 (Albany: Center for Technology in Government, July 1998) is an important report worth reading by any records professional. This project was an effort to develop a “practical way to incorporate essential electronic records requirements into the design of new information systems” (p. 1). The Center researchers took the University of Pittsburgh recordkeeping functional requirements, used “business process improvement and reengineering methodologies” and “system development methodologies” and worked on electronic records systems at one state agency – The New York State Adirondack Park Agency. They worked with a variety of corporate partners as well. The project discovered the need to adapt the Pittsburgh requirements to include three broad categories of requirements: “records capture,” “records maintenance and accessibility,” and “system reliability” (p. 19). The project had some interesting conclusions. The “use of the tools served to shift the focus of system design and development away from technology and toward the capture, maintenance, and ongoing use of the Agency’s business records” (p. 47). Using these tools also brought a focus on records. The functional requirements “present records management requirements in a way that is understandable to both program managers and technical staff”(p. 50). The requirements made non-records professionals understand records management, ensuring “effective communication” (p. 50). “Perhaps the biggest weakness of the tools is the pre-condition for their use. That is, an organization must first recognize the importance of its business records and the costs and risks associated with ignoring them. Without this foundation, it is unlikely that an organization will invest the time and attention to detail that the tools demand” (p. 51).

51.Beyond these aspects of records and archives work, we have a miscellany of research studies. Some research has also been completed on the perception of archives by the public. An example of this is Richard J. Cox, "International Perspectives on the Image of Archivists and Archives: Coverage by The New York Times, 1992-1993," International Information and Library Review 25 (1993): 195-231. Some are beginning to examine closely the nature of how recordkeeping systems are actually built, their process of evolving, and continuing use, such as Elizabeth Yakel, “Recordkeeping in Radiology: The Relationships between Activities and Records in Radiological Processes,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1997. The profession itself is gathering a considerable amount of data on itself, as is evident in the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators, Maintaining State Records in an Era of Change: A National Challenge; A Report on State Archives and Records Management Programs (N.p.: COSHRC, April 1996). A companion to this latter study is Victoria Irons Walch, Where History Begins: A Report on Historical Records Repositories in the United States (n.p.: Council of State Historical Records Coordinators, May 1998), a major, if depressing, resource on the state of affairs with non-governmental historical records repositories. The report, with data from over two thousand repositories in about half of the states, includes considerable detail on repository types, acquisition policies, holdings, users, facilities and equipment, preservation and conservation, staffing, education and training, financial support, and needs and priorities. Walch’s introduction is quite useful, although it is probably far more positive than the data warrants. All of these studies reveal, of course, a tremendous need for additional research in virtually all aspects of archival work.