Abstract
In coming to terms with what an electronic record is the first objective is to establish what a record is in principle and how it can be recognized in an electronic environment. The method chosen to reach this objective consists in identifying a set of general concepts on the nature of records and analyzing them in the context of the electronic environment. The general concepts are taken from diplomatics and archival science and then harmonized in a cohesive whole. The analysis of those concepts generates hypotheses that constitute the theoretical basis for establishing, among other things, whether the traditional definition of record holds true in the electronic environments.1 It should be noted at the outset that records is a synonym for the term archival documents, which is the primary term used in diplomatics and in Latin languages for the entity in question.2
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Notes
These hypotheses were articulated in templates, against which specific documentary manifestations could be compared for the purpose of drawing conclusions on their nature by analogy. For a full explanation of the templates, see Luciana Duranti and Terry Eastwood, “Protecting Electronic Evidence: A Progress Report,” Archivi & Computer 5:3 (1995): 222–232. The templates are reproduced in Appendix A.
The fact that “archival document” is the diplomatic term for “record” explains the use of the term by certain British authors, like Jenkinson, who defines an archival document as “one which is drawn up or used in the course of an administrative or executive transaction (whether public or private) of which itself formed a part; and subsequently preserved in their own custody for their own information by the person or persons responsible for that transaction and their legitimate successors.” Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), 11.
Cesare Paoli, Diplomatics, 2nd ed. (Firenze: Sansoni, 1942).
For a discussion of the diplomatic definitions of document see Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science,” Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989): 15–16. The series of articles of which this is the were published in a book.
Luciana Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1998).
A juridical system is a social group organized on the basis of a system of rules that the group recognizes as binding. See Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Part II)” Archivaria 29 (Winter 1989–1990): 5.
This relationship can be found in a written document, but, in common law countries, only if such document is admissible in court under relevancy and exclusionary rules of evidence. The exclusionary rules include a preferential rule (the best evidence rule), the analytic rules (those comprising the hearsay rules), and a sufficiency rule (the authentication rule). In civil law countries, the relationship exists only if the document is directly relevant to the case. In both juridical systems, the concept of evidence is at one time much broader than that of record-as it encompasses oral testimony, material evidence, and written documents that are not generated in the course of business-and much more specific, as it requires a specific relationship.
Records can be considered “facts” themselves: visible facts at which records makers are present. See Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Part II)”: 11.
Dom Jean Mabillon, De re diplomatica libri VI (Paris, 1681)
Lester K. Born, “Baldassarre Bonifacio and His Essay ‘De Archivis’,” The American Archivist 4 (1941): 221–237.
In many evidence acts, the admissibility of business records is not only restricted to those which have been created in the usual and ordinary course of business, but there is the additional requirement that it be the usual and ordinary course of business to create such records. This criterion is introduced as a disincentive to businesses that might be tempted to introduce self-serving evidence that does not form part of the fulfilment of the business duty, but is simply made in relation to it.
When acts, persons, and procedures manifest themselves “formally” in an archival document, they constitute its content, what the document is about.
See for example Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archival Administration (Percy, Lund, Humphries, and Co.: London, 1937), p. 97 et seq.;
Giorgio Cencetti, “II fondamento teorico della dottrina archivistica,” Archivi II, VI (1939): 40;
Elio Lodolini, Archivistica. Principi e Problemi, 6th edition (Franco Angeli: Milano, 1992), 132 and 149.
See also Elio Lodolini, “The War of Independence of Archivists,” Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989): 38, 41.
As will be seen later, according to archival science, a record is created when, after being made or received, it is set aside by including it in the whole body of records~or archival fonds-of the physical or juridical person who made or received it for action or reference.
The archival concept of archival bond has also guided the research team to reject the definition of records as “recorded transactions,” which has become popular among some archival commentators. This trend began in 1989, with the definition found in ASSIS Report (cited in n. 1, Introduction), 10. The primary reason for the rejection is that, besides determining the structure of the archival body of records, the archival bond is the primary identifying component of each record, as several identical documents become as many distinct records after they acquire the archival bond. Because the archival bond is what transforms a document into a record, one cannot say that records are “recorded transactions.” Documents that are expression of a transaction are not records until they are put into relation with other records, while documents that are not expression of a transaction become records at the moment when they acquire an archival bond with other documents participating in the same activity. Undoubtedly, before making such statement, one should first define what a transaction is. According to diplomatics, a transaction is a special type of act that aims to change the relationships between two or more parties. Diplomatically, transactions are embodied in records whose written form is required by law for an act to exist or to be proven, but they may only incidentally relate to all records whose written form is not required by law. Legally, a transaction is “an act or agreement, or several acts or agreements having some connection with each other, in which more than one person is concerned, and by which the legal relations of such persons between themselves are altered.” (Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th edition, “transaction”). Thus, by saying that records are recorded transactions, one eliminates from the records category every document that is not produced as a legal requirement and in a complete and reliable form. If one instead uses the term transaction in the computer science meaning of electronic communication, then one includes in the records category anything that crosses electronic boundaries. Archival science and diplomatics do not require completeness and reliability for a record to exist, neither do they require that it be made in the course of business. Rather, they require that a record be created in the course of business, and creation occurs at the arising of the archival bond.
Data, or better a datum, is taken to be the smallest meaningful fact.
For an ample discussion on the definition of information, see Trevor Livelton, Archival Theory, Records, and the Public (Lanham, Md. & London: The Society of American Archivists and The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1996), 61–63. As Livelton notes, Samuel Johnson defined information as “intelligence given,” conveying the same concept of a message meant for communication as that presented here.
The expression used by the research team to denote the idea of retention is “set aside.”
These definitions have been developed from diplomatics by the research team for the purposes of this research project.
See Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science,” Archivaria 28 (Summer 1989): 15
18a Luciana Duranti “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Part V),” Archivaria 32 (Summer 1991): 6–24.
Special signs are drawings, stamps, symbols indicating the existence of attachments or comments, mottoes, crests, insigna or emblems, signa manus, etc.
See Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Part V):” 11–16.
See Heather MacNeil, “Metadata Strategies and Archival Description: Comparing Apples to Oranges,” Archivaria 39 (Spring 1995): 22–32.
The term person comes from the Latin persona, meaning mask, role, or character.
Physical or juridical persons can be public or private. Public persons are persons having jurisdiction over matters related to or affecting the whole people of a nation, state or community, that is, they are persons invested with some measure of sovereignty. Private persons are persons who do not have jurisdiction in public matters.
It has to be pointed out that the writer cannot be a record office or secretary who, lacking the authority to sign, are not considered to be persons in the context of records creation. A comprehensive discussion of persons from a diplomatic point of view is in Luciana Duranti, “Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science (Part III),” Archivaria 30 (Summer 1990): 4–20.
For a discussion of the concept of fonds, see Terry Eastwood, ed., The Archival Fonds: From Theory to Practice (Ottawa: Bureau of Canadian Archivists, 1992).
A special type of action is a transaction, which is an action between two or more persons, aiming to change the relationship existing between them. See also note 13 above.
A juridical system is a social body organized according to a system of rules that it recognizes as binding. These rules are the legal system of the collectivity that abides by them. The legal system is made up of positive law, jurisprudence, customs, traditions, moral rules, and religious beliefs. The function of every record must be assessed in the context of the specific juridical system in which it is supposed to have effects. The legal system does not require the written form for every action. However, in literate societies, physical and juridical persons tend to act by means of records and with the support of records most of the time, because records facilitate the accomplishment of their daily affairs.
In the sense used here, a document is information affixed to a medium in an objectified and organized way, according to specific written or unwritten rules of representation.
Information is a meaningful group of data intended for communication, either across space or through time.
Data is the smallest meaningful recorded facts.
A procedure is a body of written or unwritten rules whereby an action is carried out, and comprises the formal steps to be undertaken to carry it out.
The documentary context results from the totality of the archival bonds arising within an archival fonds.
In this regard, another point to be made is that electronic records are not generated every time a database is queried, but only when this is done in the context of a business action and both the query and the reply become part of the records of such action. In other words, most electronic “transactions” are not related to specific business actions, as opposed to business activity in general, and do not generate records.
Because of the archival bond, selection of records at the item level is considered unacceptable: it would destroy the archival bond and, consequently, the remaining records as records. Every selection, by hurting the integrity of the archival whole, would destroy parts of the documentary context, which is the only tangible expression of all the other contexts. However, selection carried out at the higher levels of aggregation does not interfere with the nature of the record or of the cause-effect connection between records; therefore, it is much more acceptable. Also because of the archival bond, archival description has been traditionally considered the primary way of perpetuating and authenticating the meaning of the records.
This is particularly important, because the date of creation of the record is the most meaningful among the various dates that can be associated with a record (e.g. the date of compilation, of transmission, etc.). The date in which the archival bond arises is called the archival date and coincides with the time at which a record becomes effective, that is, begins to exercise its effects, or consequences.
The reason obviously is that, if those sources are non-electronic, their content cannot change, its parts are permanently linked and their form will always remain the same. Thus, the reference made to a location in a document—a citation, that is—will always lead to the same text, or symbols, or images.
Legibility of an electronic record is its ability to be accessed and read by a digital system different from the one that has produced it. Intelligibility of an electronic record is its ability to be understood in context. See Charles Dollar, “La memoria elettronica e la ridefinizione della preservazione,” in L’eclisse delle memorie, T. Gregory and M. Morelli eds. (Roma, Bari: Editori Laterza, 1994), 174–178.
The status of transmission of a record is its degree of perfection. There are three possible status of transmission: draft, original, and copy.
A GIS has a medium (i.e., the actual hardware in which it is installed), a physical form (i.e., the architecture of the operating system), an intellectual form (i.e., the structure of the various layers that can be created within it), persons (i.e., the organization as the creator; the office competent for the activity using the system as author and originator; the individuals responsible for the office as writers; and the office itself as addressee); action (i.e., the activity supported by the system); context (i.e., the organization, the office, its competence, its procedure, the record of the same office that participate in the same activity); content (i.e., the data in the system), and archival bond (i.e., the relationship with other records in the same class expressed in a classificatory code).
In fact, it does not matter whether the recordkeeping system is electronic or not, or whether a document is included in it by transmitting it electronically or by printing it out and inserting it in a dossier by hand. A document that is not set aside with the records of the creator has no archival bond and is not a record.
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Duranti, L. (2002). The Concept of Electronic Record. In: Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records. The Archivist’s Library, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9892-7_2
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