Susan K. Soy

Program of Work

For the Graduate School of Library and Information Science
The University of Texas at Austin (Name Changed 2002 to School of Information)
Draft 2/27/2002 submitted to Dr. David B. Gracy, II and Dr. Philip Doty

PROGRAM OF WORK--REVISED

Educational Background

B.A. University of Northern Iowa, Library Science, Education, Minor in French, 1970
M.A.L.S. Rosary College (now Dominican University), Library and Information Science, 1975
M.B.A. California Lutheran University, Business Administration, 1981
Certifications University of California at Los Angeles, Systems Analysis and Systems Management, 1985, 1986
Admitted to Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Texas at Austin,
Admitted to Program, Summer 1996

Statement of Research Interests

Today’s record of community life is portrayed increasingly in digital media, one example is the electronic record of our time being created in electronic community networks. Electronic community networks elucidate issues, events, organizations, and politics in communities through discussion groups and information posted on these networks. They represent the life and times of specific geographic regions and special interest groups as viewed by the creators and participants. This program of work centers on the study of this piece of our digital cultural heritage, in particular on the appraisal and preservation of our social memory as represented in the communicative content contained in electronic community networks.

An open question is how our library and archival institutions, originally established to house and make available print documents, can expand to include digital archives. The templates, tools, and descriptive mechanisms necessary to make digital works available as research material are not fully developed in archival institutions, although a number of projects and frameworks are actively exploring potential preservation management tools and services (Hedstrom & Montgomery, 1998). The necessary standards, policies, and practices required to preserve digital media will influence the future availability of information useful for study of social history and particularly societal changes brought about through large scale use of the Internet. Electronic community network information is currently in danger of disappearing entirely if methods of appraisal, capture, and preservation are not devised and promulgated in our archival institutions.

My proposed program of work involves three parts. Each part concerns aspects that impact electronic community networks as documentation of our cultural heritage: (1) archives and appraisal techniques used in archives, (2) electronic records management, and (3) policy frameworks and communication media.

I. Primary Study Area: Archives and Appraisal Techniques

My primary study area will build the foundation needed to compare the electronic community network with other types of materials and records traditionally acquired and preserved in archives, particularly those archives that strongly identify with a geographic locality and special interest areas. Appraisal is the bedrock of archival enterprise and the process that builds holdings of enduring value. All other aspects of archival work follow this process of determining the value and disposition of records.

Archival and preservation courses will provide the foundation for the exploration of appraisal techniques that can be applied to electronic community networks. Other areas of study include the fundamentals of arrangement and description that are basic to determining the essential core elements of description that lead to the organization and retrieval of information contained in the electronic record. Study of the clientele and reasons for use, problems encountered, and delivery mechanisms preferred by users of archives are additional areas for study and clarification. The doctoral seminar in Uses and Users of Information completed in the Spring of 1997 provided the opportunity to explore common research methodologies and to begin a small investigation into appraisal practices and electronic community networks. Disciplinary and Professional Development of Library and Information Science provided the opportunity to examine and better understand the interconnections between the information professions and the closely related disciplines that will influence the development of digital repositories. The seminar in Research and Writing provided the opportunity to sharpen writing skills.

Total Hours: 15

II. Secondary Study Area: Electronic Records Management

Electronic community networks provide new and varied ways for people to communicate. Some varieties of community networks are created by people at the grassroots level to focus on a particular political issue; some are created at the municipal government level to convey information to citizens; and some are commercial in nature. Some community networks are static; many are interactive, changing daily, and are highly interconnected with electronic links.

Coursework in electronic records management explored issues in the creation and retention of the electronic record covering functional requirements, standards development, retention requirements, and the essential components of electronic records. This coursework provided a foundation for exploring strategies and approaches for prolonging the life of fragile materials in information environments of diverse types. Current coursework in Preservation in the Digital Environment offers the opportunity to address specifications for systems and processes that will preserve electronic records for the long-term.

The doctoral seminar Organizing and Providing Access to Information provided an opportunity to examine both the management of the electronic record as an information form, and technologies and retrieval methods that are likely to provide greater access to electronic records in archival institutions. Administration of Information Resources provided an understanding of what is needed to plan for and incorporate all forms of media into existing systems.

II. Outside Study Area: Policy Frameworks and Communication Studies

Our growing dependence on electronic communication and information sources influences the formation of policies that affect the rights of individuals to access and use electronically available information and the standards used to manage, describe, and preserve it. Some people such as Brewster Kahle are working on large-scale projects such as the Internet Archive to preserve some material for study of the Internet itself. Kahle predicts that "We are given an opportunity through the digital medium to create libraries and disseminate knowledge in ways never possible before, and if we make the wrong steps, we can lose not only this opportunity, but also our cultural heritage that's in digital form" (cited in James, 2001). Questions about how electronic information can be appraised and prioritized for preservation are being voiced more frequently as people begin to realize that important elements of social history and cultural heritage are increasingly endangered. Numerous policy questions accompany the new electronically-based information and communication media we use daily.

To explore policy frameworks, I completed Public Policy and the Internet at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, in the Summer of 1997, exploring telecommunications and legislative arenas that shape both the commercial and community-based applications of the Internet. This course touched on the nature of policy decision-making and provided the opportunity to examine the relationship of archival enterprise to the Internet and to discuss intellectual property rights, preservation of electronic records, and standards development. The Digital Government seminar examined digital information resources and the delivery mechanisms can influence people's attitudes and change entire workplaces as well as the influence of federal policies. In the Department of Communication Studies, I completed New Communication Technologies in the Workplace and Microtheory/Research in Organizational Communication, learning about research involving new communication media and computer-mediated communication. A summer studying Organizational Development offered by the Department of Education Curriculum and Instruction provided the opportunity to reflect on organizational behaviors and practice using a reflexive approach to understanding and writing about my own workplace.

An independent study in LIS under Dr. Gracy's guidance will begin the process of exploring how community is currently defined in local archives and will begin the process of forming a scope of work for research about how archivists conduct appraisal of computer-mediated communications such as the electronic community network, make choices about metadata and descriptive terminology, work collaboratively with others to approach these issues, and view their role in the process of forming social memory.

IV. The Dissertation

Archivists confront many issues of a technical and administrative nature, among them the overabundance of records, and the professional and technical challenges posed as a result of the increase in electronic records. Archivists are challenged with the responsibility to identify and preserve records of continuing and enduring value, and to make these appraisal decisions in collaboration with records creators and managers within organizational structures. These decisions are complicated further by the companion issues of the longevity of the medium and of the hardware and software systems that permit access to and interpretation of the information it contains, the associated costs with the ongoing maintenance and long-term preservation activities, and the laws that relate to local duplication and storage of information by libraries and archives.

The work that I intend to pursue will help us understand how archivists define which electronic resources will be preserved. I propose to explore:

1. What policies, guidelines, and training manuals are used now to address the identification, appraisal, retention, preservation, and research use of the electronic community network record and related forms of computer-mediated communication in local history archives?

2. Which communities and local archives are currently preserving electronic community networks and related computer-mediated communications and what institutional or organizational strategies are used formally and informally to acquire these collections? What are the common characteristics of an archival program or organization where the electronic community records are retained, described, and preserved? Do geographic communities with electronic community networks operated and maintained by local government more frequently support retention and preservation than those whose origin is more grassroots or interest-oriented?

3. Do the traditional principles, theories, and methods of appraisal apply to the electronic community network or are there other value perspectives at work in actual practice? How do archivists describe their decision-making practices as they appraise the electronic community networks or other new communication media generated by individuals and community groups?

4. From the archivists' viewpoint, what barriers prevent archivists from developing and implementing programs to acquire, retain, and preserve the electronic community network?

5. Do archivists view themselves as contributing to the collective memory of society through the actions they take and the appraisal decisions they make?

Literature Review

A brief review of the literatures of archival enterprise, electronic community networks, and electronic record preservation reveals that a number of projects are in progress to help define archival appraisal structures related to the electronic record and other related aspects. These include work being conducted in InterPARES at the University of British Columbia, Project Prism at Cornell University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Archives of Australia. Some studies have tried to implement experimental or exploratory practices to preserve electronic records of various types such as the work conducted by the Georgia Technology Research Institute, the LOCKSS project, and the Internet Archive. A limited number of studies have attempted to systematically uncover the theory behind appraisal actions taken by archivists including work by Boles and Young (1991), Gilliland-Swetland (1995), Hedstrom (1999), and ongoing work through the InterPARES project (2001). Electronic community networks are documented in studies and research related to the development of communities, but no study has been conducted to explore how archivists construct the meaning of archival appraisal as it relates to the electronic community network.

Master's theses by Andrew Avis (1995) and Anne Beamish (1995) examine the question of whether the electronic form of community networking will exist for the long term. Articles and books addressing the topic of the electronic community network are largely very positive about the sustainability and growth of this form of community communication and civic participation. Longan (2000) identifies two hundred electronic community networks in the United States and Canada alone. Organizations such as the Association for Community Networks, the Benton Foundation, the Morino Institute, and the Kellogg Foundation all support community networking studies and experimentation. At The University of Texas at Austin, the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute is instrumental in fostering online community networks, lending support for conferences and student participation in community networking research. The Getty Conservation Institute has established a forum for interdisciplinary study, research, and collaboration in information management and examination of the technological forces that impact cultural heritage conservation. Still, the interdisciplinary research on this topic is sparse across Communications, Social History, Library and Information Science, and the Humanities in general.

Several networks are of particular interest, including the now defunct Community Memory project (Berkeley, California) and the active Blacksburg (Virginia) Electronic Village Nostalgia Project. Austin has two non-commercial electronic community networks, the Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network (MAIN) and the Austin Free-Net. In addition, Austin has a municipal government network, City Connection, and multiple commercially based Internet sites delivering community information such as CitySearch. All of these electronic community networks currently or have in the past documented civic participation and community life.

A. I have completed courses in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. I anticipate examining community network content available through the Internet and intend to use interviews with archivists and surveys to gather data. I anticipate that I will be using purposive sampling in my research and I will be more interested in interpretation than statistical inference My work will seek to understand, interpret, and focus attention on how archivists reach appraisal decisions. I will be pursuing research that will help us understand the interconnections that can be drawn between organizational culture, organizational life, and the role of the archivist in constructing the memory of society. I hope that my work will lead to a greater understanding of the process of making appraisal choices about communicative media such as electronic community networks and add to the body of knowledge concerning archival appraisal of the electronic record in local history repositories in the United States.

B. Foreign Language is the second research tool that I will be using in this program. I offer Spanish as the language to be used primarily because of its practicality and because it complements my past studies in French.

Total Hours: 9

Works Cited

Avis, A. (1995). The role of community networks: Public spaces on the information highway. Master's thesis, Graduate School of Communication Studies, University of Calgary, Canada

Beamish, A. (1995). Communities on-line: Community based networks. Master's thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Boles, F. and Young, J. M. (1991). Archival appraisal. New York: Neal-Schuman.

Gilliland-Swetland, A. J. (1995). Development of an expert assistant for archival appraisal of electronic communications: An exploratory study. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Hedstrom, M. and Montgomery, S. (1998). "Digital Preservation Needs and Requirements in RLG Member Institutions: A study commissioned by the Research Libraries Group." Mountain View, CA: Research Libraries Group. [Online]. <http: www.rlg.org/preserv/digpres.html> [2002, February 27].]

InterPARES: International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems. (2002).[ Online]. <http://www.interpares.org/> [2002, March 16].

James, M. S. (2001). "Recording history: Archivists adjust strategies to confront changing world." ABCNews. [Online]. <http:///abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/preservation_efforts010710.html> [2002, January 13].

Longan, M. W. (2000). Community and place in cyberspace: The community networking movement in the United States. Doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder.

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