More Than Diplomatic:
Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping;
A Final Report (of Sorts)
Richard J. Cox
September 1996
Forthcoming in Records Management Journal

	Introduction and Purpose.  This essay summarizes the final work completed on the original research aims of the University of Pittsburgh project considering how electronic records might be managed by the development of recordkeeping functional requirements. The final period of this project,  the result of an extension granted in May 1996 by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and enabling additional work until May 31, 1997, is being devoted to the development of a center to sustain such research and the continued dissemination of the work already completed on the recordkeeping functional requirements.  This latter effort is described at the conclusion of this essay.
	This essay describes the research portion of the project funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Stimulated by intense interest in the archival and records management professions and supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the University of Pittsburgh School of Library and Information Science (now School of Information Sciences) originally intended to conduct a research project to examine variables that affect the integration of recordkeeping requirements for evidence in electronic information systems.  Archivists and records managers have long worried that crucial records have been lost or face greater chance of destruction  in organizations increasingly relying upon electronic information systems.  This project was intended to examine one means to rectify such problems.
	The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences received a grant of $359,560 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1993 to conduct a three year research project in recordkeeping requirements for electronic records management, co-directed by Professor James Williams and Assistant (now Associate) Professor Richard J. Cox.  Other key members of the research team include Ken Sochats, Lecturer (now Assistant Professor) in the Department of Information Science and Telecommunications; David Bearman, President of Archives and Museum Informatics, serving as project consultant; Wendy Duff, a doctoral student in the Department of Library Science and newly hired by the University of Toronto; and Kimberly Barata, a student in the Department of Library and Information Science and recently hired to be the coordinator of the efforts to plan for a research center.
	This project had four main products or outcomes: recordkeeping functional requirements, production rules to support the requirements, metadata specifications for recordkeeping, and the literary warrant reflecting the professional and societal endorsement of the concept of the recordkeeping functional requirements.  These products are discussed below as part of the narrative of the project's history and accomplishments.  The relationship of these main products can be related to each other in the representation of Figure One.
	Origins of the Project.  The 1991 NHPRC-sponsored Electronic Records Research Agenda originally identified three research projects that would "define the requirements of archival electronic records programs; explore the conceptual, economic, and technological constraints on the long-term retention of electronic records; and establish criteria against which to measure the effectiveness of policies, methods, and programs."  These purposes clearly reflect the professional context of the archives and records community, well-represented in the meeting held to develop the research agenda.  The agenda, and this project, emanated from the increasing recognition of the need to define precisely the nature of a record in the modern information age, reflected in the work of archivists in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands and in the legal proceedings known as the PROFS case that challenged both the definition and the prevailing approach for managing electronic records reflected by the U.S. National Archives.
	Electronic records are still perceived as challenges to both archivists and records managers, there are few effective electronic records management programs in operation (at least programs that bring together all elements of records and archives management), and there remains an inadequate infrastructure of education, research, and practice necessary to improve the management of electronic recordkeeping systems.  
	How this project fits into the evolution of ideas about electronic records management can be visualized by considering the shifting concepts held by archivists toward electronic records.  Thirty years ago, archivists debated whether machine-readable files should be considered as records.  By the next decade, archivists were employing social science data archives approaches to manage such machine-readable systems, while the debate about legislative solutions, policy initiatives, and the use of archival principles with such systems continued.  By the mid-1980s, it was widely recognized that the archival profession was not doing well with machine-readable records, partly because it was still endeavoring to manage such records at the end of the life cycle or in a purely custodial fashion.  Complicating matters in all this has been the schismatic nature of the professionals concerned for the management of records into camps of archivists, records managers, information resource managers, and others.  This schismatic nature has worked against the advice of information professionals like Richard Kesner and Thomas Galvin who contend that we need new partnerships and philosophies. 
	The 1991 research agenda mentioned above recognized such problems, and it led to a number of archivists and records managers seeking to re-focus on the fundamentals of what constitutes a record and how such a definition of record could better facilitate the management of electronic information systems that were being increasingly used to create and keep records previously maintained in traditional paper systems or that constituted systems creating and maintaining considerable amounts of unnecessary information that was being misidentified as records.  The research project at the University of Pittsburgh was designed to deal with this issue.  
	The last phase of the research project, reported here, refocused efforts to consider records as distinct from information, data, and bibliographic content; reconsidered basic archival principles and their relevance for electronic records management; and distinguished the work of archivists from that of other information and related professions.
	The original study aims of this project were the following:
*	Develop viable recordkeeping functional requirements through an analysis of the professional literature and via consultation with experts in the management of archives and records;
*	Analyze organizational variables affecting hardware-software utilization through interviews at five diverse organizational sites (a university, hospital, two manufacturers, and local government);
*	Evaluate software technical capabilities to satisfy recordkeeping requirements through analysis of appropriate literature and software demos and manuals.

These proved to be overly ambitious objectives.  We eventually emphasized the first objective, primarily because the development of the recordkeeping functional requirements proved to be more time consuming than was imagined as well as it being essential to the success of this project (without a precise definition of record other aims could not be realized).
	There were some secondary aims associated with the project.  We wished to nurture the interest of students in both information science and library science in archival issues, especially electronic records management.  We also hoped to strengthen the existing graduate archives program at the University of Pittsburgh by integrating electronic records management throughout the archival courses.  Finally, we sought to build a foundation for continuing research in archival and records management matters at the School, a professional problem that has not let up in any fashion and has caused substantial barriers to launching research in the archives and records management disciplines on electronic records issues. 
	Project History.  Defining a working set of functional requirements for records was the right, as well as necessary, place to start this project.  Our work led us to focus on the idea of records stressing compliance to external regulatory and other authorities.  Out of this emerged the notion of an accountable recordkeeping system supporting the capture, maintenance, and continued usability of records.  While there were changes in the substance of the recordkeeping functional requirements from the first draft in 1993 to the end of the research in early 1996, these changes were not substantial.  Drawing on experts' advice, in addition to other available sources such as professional literature and standards, we came very close in the initial draft to a workable set of requirements.
	Taking the draft functional requirements into institutions seemed to be at first a mistake. However, this process may have been a necessary way of dealing with some more crucial concerns. We were forced to re-evaluate the importance of professional culture and ultimately we turned our attention to the idea of the literary warrant -- defined as the mandate from law, professional best practices, and other social sources requiring the creation and continued maintenance of records.  We did not anticipate the value of the literary warrant and, in the hindsight now available to us, the concept of the warrant may turn out to be the most important outcome of the project.
	There was an unanticipated dimension to this project.  We grossly under-estimated the amount of continuing education required from us, a reflection of the eagerness of the records communities to consider new approaches to the practical solutions in the management of electronic records.  Various members of the project presented numerous lectures, conference papers, and workshops on three continents, as well as writing numerous essays in a wide array of journals (these have been cited at relevant places in this report).
	The focal point of the project was the development of the recordkeeping functional requirements.  Our aim was to provide a comprehensive set of requirements that could be used in both developing and evaluating software for the support of electronic records management.  Our own efforts revealed some evolution in thinking about the nature of the requirements.  When we started out we thought of the requirements as being for archival recordkeeping.  This changed to recordkeeping requirements, then to functional requirements for evidence in recordkeeping.  There is more work to be done on whether all elements of the requirements are always needed or whether there are different requirements for recordkeeping for corporate memory, personal recordkeeping, and other types of recordkeeping.  Our emphasis on recordkeeping for the purposes of evidence largely derived from our subsequent research on the concept of the literary warrant.
	The literary warrant is a concept suggesting that records are created because of legal, regulatory, professional best practices, and other reasons generally external to the organization.  Many records managers have pointed out that the majority of records are shaped by forms, and that these forms often reflect requirements generated from the organization needing to be compliant.  We turned our attention in the later stages of the project to beginning to identify sources for such warrant, matching up the warrant with particular dimensions of the sketched out functional requirements, and revising the requirements as necessary from ideas and principles derived from the analysis of the warrant.  While there is much work yet to be done in determining the value of the warrant, especially in considering the international aspects and value as well as the value of the warrant for assisting archivists and records managers in gaining support for the management of electronic records, the concept seems valuable for archivists and records managers as well as the creators of records.
	As the recordkeeping functional requirements were being initially developed, we recognized a need for more than just an English-language version of the requirements.  Production rules, using horn or "if-then" clauses (a process used by artificial intelligence experts), were developed.  These make the recordkeeping functional requirements unambiguous, precise, economical, provable, and expandable; the requirements can now be translated into a software algorithm.  The recordkeeping functional requirements become observable and measurable to the degree that the requirements can be used by software engineers to develop systems that incorporate the requirements and, hence, enable records as defined by these requirements to be maintained in such systems.
	 All of this work led us to consider how the notion of the functional requirements could be recast as a useful standard.  The Metadata Model for Business Acceptable Communications emerged through the work of consultant David Bearman.  A software independent record or a metadata encapsulated object, potentially eliminating the need for costly and complicated migration strategies, was suggested with layers termed handle, terms and conditions, structure, context, content, and use history (see Figure Two).  The metadata concept is the best reflection of the essence of a record with its characteristics of structure, content, and context.  This notion of a record is a digital envelope with contextual metadata surrounding the information content of an electronic transaction; this has the potential either to encapsulate the content or to provide required linkages to the content of a record.  Much work needs to be done with this model or potential standard, and we hope to suggest the use of this model to standards organizations as time and opportunities permit.
	As with any research project, we set out to test a number of hypotheses.  The first hypothesis considered was that the functional requirements for the archival management of electronic records are the same as for traditional records, although many functional requirements will not be satisfied by traditional recordkeeping systems.  In our opinion we confirmed this hypothesis.  Determining confirmation is somewhat difficult because of the weaknesses of the professional literature (we tried to counterbalance these weaknesses by the use of experts).  Other than the debate about the physical custodianship of electronic records and recordkeeping systems, likely to continue for some time, the requirements seem to be the same for both traditional paper textual records and electronic records.  The classic writings on archives and records management do not seem to change or to be added to as a transition is made from paper to electronic systems, at least in principle.  Many of the warrants from law, auditing, and the information technology professions seem to suggest that the nature of a record is largely the same, regardless of format.
	The second hypothesis tested is that it will be possible to satisfy each of the recordkeeping functional requirements following any or all of four tactics (policy, design, implementation, standards) -- tactics identified in the writings of various archivists and records management professionals, although many requirements will be more fully satisfied for electronic records than they could for paper records.  This hypothesis was unconfirmed, but it is being tested by other projects such as the City of Philadelphia, Indiana University, National Archives of Canada, and the Australian Archives.  Feedback from these other efforts has been very positive.  We figure that the relevance of a tactic depends upon the influence of archivists and records managers within particular organizations.  Our best guess is that in the long term it will be a combination of standards and implementation (the latter influenced by best practices) which will prove most successful.  More important has been the warrant as the source, production rule as the formal expression, and metadata (context information describing information content) for supporting the recordkeeping functional requirements as a viable and workable tool. 
	The next hypothesis tested was that different business applications will share different sets of recordkeeping functional requirements, and differing degrees of risk are associated with the non-satisfaction of these requirements in different business applications. This hypothesis necessitated us getting into the inner workings of an organization more than we could in this project.  In that sense the hypothesis was unconfirmed.  Our interviews with the administrators, lawyers, financial directors, and others in the organizations found them generally positive about the content and value of the recordkeeping functional requirements as then drafted.  It is likely to be confirmed by continuing work on the literary warrant.  This will require more work within organizations, and it will require us to do a much more sophisticated analysis of the similarities and dissimilarities of thinking about the value of the functional requirements between groups such as lawyers and accountants. The former Project Coordinator, Wendy Duff, is completing research on her dissertation which will help to provide additional data about this hypothesis, and the preliminary findings of her research (being finished as this essay was completed) suggest that the notion of the recordkeeping functional requirements is a sound one.
	Another hypothesis considered was that different software applications will not dictate different recordkeeping functional requirements, but different packages within the applications categories will satisfy the recordkeeping functional requirements to different degrees.  Although this is a hypothesis that probably is relatively easy to confirm, we put it aside as a major focus of this project.  Using literature and software demos we examined three types of software.  We found it relatively easy to use the functional requirements for evaluation, even when the requirements were in draft.  Armed now with the production rules and metadata we could do an even better analysis of existing software, both off the shelf and of a proprietary nature.  It is an area meriting future work, and it is likely others will be using our products to analyze software.
	We also considered the hypothesis that recordkeeping functional requirements will be the same for each business sector, and different sectors will not determine the choice of tactics as much as different corporate cultures.  This hypothesis was derived directly from the writings of David Bearman, collected in his book Electronic Evidence.  We seem to have found that a professional culture may be the more important factor, although we are looking at United States corporate cultures and this conclusion may change with organizations in other cultures.  In the United States institutions have tended to be much more chaotic, changeable, unstable, and personality driven than their counterparts in other nations.  This early finding caused us to shift direction to the literary warrant concept that puts a premium on best practice and professional culture.  We need to consider how ideas about risk management, a current managerial tool, suggest that the proposed recordkeeping functional requirements will probably only be implemented to the degree that the records need to be maintained.  Organizations that are reinventing and re-engineering, with a seeming predilection to ignore the past, would be useful to study.
	Finally, we hoped to consider the hypothesis that the best way to satisfy functional requirements will depend heavily on an organization's corporate culture, although the technological capabilities of the archives and its agents will be less critical in satisfying archival requirements than will be the acceptance of archival responsibility by managers throughout an organization.  We did not test this because we shifted from institutional testing to developing the full parameters of the functional requirements.  This hypothesis, again, is being more fully tested by other projects, such as at the City of Philadelphia and Indiana University.  
	Other than the testing or considering of these hypotheses, the most important aspect of the project may be the methodology for developing the model and the model for recordkeeping functional requirements as developed.  The model both enabled us to build something that could be used in a variety of applications, as well as assisted us to learn much about the nature of records and recordkeeping systems.  
	The mainstream, standard literature by archivists and records managers has been vague in specifics except for diplomatics and the latter has been used in a confusing fashion recently.  Diplomatics, despite its value in formulating some precision about records, poses additional problems of superimposing another layer of professional language on already jargon-laden interdisciplinary issues.  As Stanley Fish, in his discussion about disciplinary language, suggests, "The vocabularies of disciplines are not external to their objects, but constitutive of them.  Discard them in favour of the vocabulary of another discipline, and you will lose the object that only they call into being."  The problem with the language of diplomatics is that it fits into a traditional concept of records/archives that may or may not be relevant to what is going on in modern organizations.  As archivists and records managers we need to be concerned with how to ensure that records are maintained that are relevant to the creator, not with confusing the people designing the recordkeeping systems by using a needlessly complicated or arcane language.
 	Moreover, the recent efforts to use diplomatics has adopted it as the defining aspect of archival science, seen it as a part of a static or rigid archival theory (theory and knowledge can and must evolve as we learn and apply it to new circumstances), and characterized it as something that systems designers need to take into account as part of their own knowledge (which seems unlikely) while ignoring the similarities of the Pittsburgh recordkeeping functional requirements to the diplomatic core and the recent writings of archivists grappling with the notion of a record.
	The idea of the literary warrant, seeking the endorsement of various professionals' literature and professional best practices regarding the management of records, supports the various elements of the functional requirements and relates to the idea of a "compliant" organization -- the latter a key component of the recordkeeping functional requirements.  We now realize that without the framework of the recordkeeping functional requirements it would have been difficult to have done the warrant exercise or to have moved from the warrant to develop the recordkeeping functional requirements.  The notion of accountable recordkeeping systems with a focus on capture, maintenance, and usability of records emerged from consultation with experts, analysis of an array of professional literature, and evaluation of external sources such as legal requirements and professional best practices in a manner that was not necessarily linear.  In hindsight, we can now recognize a variety of other disciplines with intense interests in the notion of the record that are discussing how to maintain records in the modern electronic office.
 	Other aspects of the concept of a record emerged from our work.  Records as evidence of transactions supported both by historical understanding of traditional archives and records management literature and by the use of the literary or cultural warrant surfaced as an extremely workable notion of what a record is, even in the modern Information Age office.  This enabled us to be able to contrast the fundamental differences between records and information as viewed in definitions of various information profession literatures.  Evidence provides an important, practical means by which to define recordkeeping functional requirements and it has other possible benefits for other archival functions such as appraisal and descriptive standards.  Instead of elaborate and highly subjective schemes to describe content, this emphasis on the record's evidence (that is, the evidence of a transaction that the record captures) provides a means by which to focus on such aspects as the record's origins in compliant regulations and the record's functions and reflection of activities.  The idea of evidence and a compliant organization are crucial to the recordkeeping functional requirements use and means that the archivist/records manager is seeking aspects of compliance (helping organizations discover external regulations) and applying them to their own organization rather than merely seeking to save old records for often difficult-to-define historical purposes and values.
	Project Conclusions and Successes.  There were a number of successes associated with this project.  As hoped, the work on the project over the past few years has nurtured students' interest in research and built a better potential foundation for research.  Two doctoral students (Wendy Duff and David Wallace) are presently  preparing dissertations related to the project, one on the PROFS case and the other on the value of the literary warrant.  In addition, the research agenda generated by the project and its reports have been integrated into the regular archives courses taught by Richard Cox.  
	While we know that archives and records management education programs have struggled with the precise focus for their programs, the stress on records and recordkeeping systems has proved to be an excellent focal point for such education.  While the SAA CART curriculum project concluded that to be a good electronic records archivist required a knowledge suitable to be a good archivist, this research project opened up the essence of the knowledge beyond what we already possess in terms of curriculum guidelines.
	This matter of what can and should be taught in the programs educating archivists and records managers is one requiring more attention.  Working on developing a precise definition of a record has caused us to see how far from records both archivists and records managers have wandered.  Archivists, in contrast, have tended to stress the cultural or historical role, while records managers have shifted to the information side.  In both disciplines' literature it is difficult to find articles or textbooks that provide any source of precision about what a record is or how it needs to be defined; we had to bring together a group of experts to help us work out the functional requirements.  Both shifts have taken us far from being able to describe meaningfully ourselves, our mission, and our activities in modern society.  Records need to be our focus, as the source of evidence of the work of organizations and individuals and for purposes of corporate memory and accountability -- in other words, records provide both essential information and, in some cases, even a historical/cultural/symbolic source.  Both archivists and records managers need to stop feeling apologetic about their focus on records in the Information Age.
	Developing the concept of a warrant for the recordkeeping functional requirements has also provided a clue to a new mission, one discussed with interest by some of the outside experts we used in our work.  The idea of the warrant drives us to cite external regulations, legislation, and best practice as the primary mandate for the management of recordkeeping systems, rather than a more vaguely defined argument for the historic value for records.  Archivists can think of any documentary fragment as having potential value to someone, but this should hardly be the compelling reason for their work.  This focus makes archivists shift their attention from looking through closets for old files to becoming the experts on why records should be managed by any institution and for society.  This focus should also move records managers away from running records warehouses to advocating throughout their institution (and the society) why records need to be carefully managed by all professionals, technicians, and clerks.  Archivists and records managers need to be scholars ("experts") in records and recordkeeping systems.  Our teaching can be built around why records systems are created, their continuing evolution, their historical continuity, and their value.  Basic archival and records management functions are viewed through this broader perspective on records and recordkeeping systems.  	How is this different from what archivists and records managers have been doing generally?  For archivists, it means that they are not just worrying about identifying and describing records for historians (that hardy but definitely minor constituency) but in understanding records and their accompanying systems for all potential users.  For records managers, it moves them from the false gods of economy and efficiency to the use of information in records for the institution's good and its mission.  In doing this there are wonderful sources to use, case histories and studies about the relevancy of records for all aspects of society and its institutions, many of these done by journalists, political scientists, sociologists, communications theorists, and historians of literacy.
	We also learned a number of other lessons about research in the archival and records management professions.  As already noted, the nature of the project moved from pure research to a modelling exercise, partly because of the timing of the development of the recordkeeping functional requirements -- we needed to have the requirements before we could move on to other research.  But there were other reasons for this as well. The nature of the project also mandated that much of the time of project personnel be spent on public presentations and educational efforts, a reflection of the eager interest being shown by the records professions for an improved, specific model defining archives in a way that could be used in the design of information or recordkeeping systems holding records.
	Directions for Future Work and Research.  As has been suggested in a number of places throughout this essay, the work of this project has suggested many other areas for future work and research.  We have determined to commit to the maintenance of the project site on the World Wide Web as a means of disseminating information about future work, as a link to other related electronic records research and application sites, and to serve as a teaching tool.  We are now working on making additions to the home page, including adding explications of the various parts of the site so that they can be more widely understandable by users, a glossary page for terminology used in the project, and other warrant sources.  At the least, we hope to internationalize the project by developing pointers to projects around the world using or adapting various aspects of the functional requirements developed at the University of Pittsburgh and identifying warrants from other countries.
	Additional ideas for research opened up many new avenues to explore.  The idea of studying the economics of complying with the functional requirements in particular organizational settings seems like a logical road to go, building on the notion of what institutions are willing to spend to meet regulations to make them compliant.  Other possibilities for substantial research is considering the need for functional requirements for recordkeeping other than evidence, such as for decision making and corporate memory.  Ongoing debates about the impact of discussions about electronic records on personal recordkeeping and discussions about the degree to which individuals create records that are consistent with the principles generally associated with institutional recordkeeping have already provided another fruitful avenue for research.  While from the perspective of this project it seems that the principles would hold up for personal recordkeeping, there is much useful work on this area remaining to be done.  The notion of  assembling a "cultural" warrant (authority for the maintenance of records for socially-valuable research purposes) could be an interesting and valuable project, as could be the study of how the recordkeeping functional requirements can facilitate the changing nature of designing and implementing records systems.
	Case studies is another area of important future work to extend from this project.  Case studies for demonstrating how the functional requirements can be integrated into the business process, including an examination of whether all the functional requirements are equal in weight for evidence (or for other dimensions such as accountability and memory), will be extremely useful for educational purposes, for refining the requirements, and for enabling us to see whether the requirements hold up across differing institutional types.
	Another form of case study would be to develop practical software tools for both design and assessment or to develop packages promoting certain results of the project as standards, such as the Business Acceptable Communication Model.  There is enough work presently going on using the recordkeeping functional requirements to support work in preparing such case studies, and the slowly developing set of published case studies offered through the Society of American Archivists provide a suitable model for what such case studies could look like.  The use by Australia and the Netherlands of the functional requirements in their standards could serve as the basis for useful case studies.
	The need for educational activities as part of the work of this project has already been discussed.  There are other aspects of educational venues needing to be considered.  Workshops targeting different audiences about the importance and use of the functional requirements would help to make the recordkeeping functional requirements and their potential  accessible to people working in other professions and in the variety of institutional settings making up our society.  In the same fashion, writing articles for journals and other publications in other disciplines and even on a more popular plane would assist in making the requirements better known and even to possess better potential for policy and related uses. For example, communicating with business schools to get the functional requirements used in their courses concerning records would be an excellent means to foster the development of stronger archives and records management programs in businesses.  We already have substantial evidence about the value of such writing.  Popular articles in Technology Review and Scientific American have recently brought such problems to our focus by stressing the current impermanence of electronic records.  Every day articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other national newspapers and media outlets discuss records and their management, maintenance, and access.
	Finally, establishing a Center as a means to foster all the above seems to be a logical activity for us to consider. The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences is now engaged in a planning effort with the University of Michigan School of Information in order to establish an International Center for educating professionals and conducting research in the management of electronic records in a fashion that maintains those with continuing value to the creating organization and preserves those with archival value to both the creating organization and for society.  
	The Center, if established, would support the following activities:
*	Research on all dimensions of the creation, use, and maintenance of records in electronic systems
*	Education of both Masters and Doctoral students to work with electronic recordkeeping systems
*	Publication of reports about research on electronic recordkeeping systems, including the creation of an electronic newsletter to disseminate other work with such systems
*	Lectures by prominent theorists and practitioners on electronic recordkeeping systems and their implications, challenges, and opportunities
	*	Workshops for professionals and managers on current electronic records issues and trends and innovative solutions and approaches for their management
*	Consulting with businesses, government, and other organizations on the management of electronic records
	*	Networking with other centers in Europe, Australia, Canada, and other locations around the world

	The primary aim of the Center would be to solve the technical problems associated with the long-term maintenance of records in electronic form. The Center will provide funding for faculty, students, conference travel, and research in areas of interest that cut across both schools, building on the recent research project funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission with results now being widely discussed throughout the United States and in other parts of the world.  
	Final Thoughts: Implications.  This project is part of a profession's rediscovery of records, including a better message for archivists and records managers to take to the world.  If followed up, further work using the recordkeeping functional requirements represents a shift in what archivists do, where they work, and their strategies and tactics, allies and partners.  As Australian archival educator Sue McKemmish has suggested, this is akin to assuming a better steering role for the archival profession.  We can establish recordkeeping regimes with the ability to capture, manage, and deliver evidence through time, nurturing the recordkeeping culture.  Archivists can better specify what to capture as evidence and how long to keep it, with appropriate maintenance (preservation) strategies.  It provides the substance of what constitutes our guidance, training, and advice.  
	The project also has implications for the new colleagues and partners that archivists and records managers have long discussed as needed for their ability to maintain archival records in the modern office.  As the original tactics considered in the project suggested, archivists need to ally with policy makers, business analysts and related groups, information technology standards setters, information technology designers and  software engineers, the information brokers establishing themselves in the wild new world of deregulated information resources management, and accountability agents.  
	Archivists not only have new allies, but they need to develop creative strategies to implement new tactics.  Again, as McKemmish and her Australian colleagues have suggested, archivists and records managers need to influence, educate, negotiate, monitor, and solve problems.  This is a very different model than the more passive archival role suggested by modern interpretations of earlier writings by archival pioneers such as Jenkinson and Schellenberg.  Armed with a precise definition of record, a definition which can serve as the foundation for delineating recordkeeping systems, archivists and records managers can reject their traditional passivity, in both their own institutions and in the larger society.  These professionals have something to say, and it is important.
Endnotes