Electronic community networks have sprung up across the United States over the past twenty years and those that are geographically based are documenting local history. These networks are dynamic and fast changing products of the proliferating communication infrastructure that is beginning to alter the way people share ideas and exchange information in this country and across the world. These networks are sometimes defined as communities themselves and they are the focus of this literature review.

The topic of electronic community networks is of interest to several disciplines including library and information science. For archival institutions such as local history museums, local history repositories, and government agencies that are responsible for preserving the documentary heritage of a local community, these networks add not only a potential new definition of community but also a potential new dimension to the work of the repository. The dynamic information these networks contain and help disseminate in a community is more often than not within the scope of the acquisition policies of the local archive or repository. But, most institutions have not yet developed policies and practices to routinely capture, preserve, and maintain accessibility to the content in these dynamic electronic formats. This literature review begins with a discussion of community and electronic community networks and then explores appraisal and electronic preservation in the archival environment.

The review explores multiple topics, each with its own section in order to describe the major content of the topic: electronic community networks, community, archival appraisal, and electronic preservation. The descriptions are aimed at illustrating the relationships and interdependence between the areas. In the Community section of this review, citations are included that examine social transformations and clearly connect communities and technology. Many articles on electronic community networks are readily available, but for this review, the citations selected for inclusion in the Electronic Community Networks section are primarily those generated in the academic research community. In the Archival Appraisal section, citations that illustrate competing perspectives on the theory and practice of archival appraisal are reviewed. The section on Electronic Preservation is in progress. For an explanation of the search strategy used to explore and develop a map to the topics of community, electronic community networks, and archival appraisal, readers may consult the Technical Note at the end of this paper.

Definitions of community include views that are based on the varied concepts of territory, attachment, interest or affinity, action, and the needs of people. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED 1989) lists several definitions for community including:

• Joint or common ownership
• Common character or identity
• People sharing common practices, fellowship
• A body with common or equal rights
• A body organized into a political or municipal unity, people living in the same locality, social intercourse, fellowship, and life in association with others.

The word community originates with the Latin word "Communitatem" which is translated to mean fellowship, according to authors EileenYeo and StephenYeo (Yeo and Yeo 1988). They point out that none of the definitions in the OED list electronic community networks at this time, but there is potential for a future inclusion. A case can be made that many of the descriptors used to define community (people, social intercourse, and fellowship) also describe electronic community networks. These networks are about people interacting and forming relationships with each other, however, they are using a technologically current method to communicate and connect.

People are interested in how the concepts of kinship, fellowship, communion, and collaboration among people work. This interest has resulted in investigations into how communities form, build, and transform. One name and reference repeatedly appears in the literature, that of Ferdinand Tönnies who, in 1887, described determinants of local social bonds (Tönnies trans. and ed. by Loomis 1957). He developed the theory of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, two concepts which have become seminal in the study of sociology. These two words have come to represent two different ways of thinking and even living. Gemeinschaft translates to "community of place and mind" and gesellschaft translates to "society." In his work, Tönnies used these terms to illustrate the shift of values that took place when society moved from a hunting gathering focus to an agricultural focus. He described this shift from gemeinschaft as a shift away from a vision of life as a sacred close knit community to gesellschaft, a more secular society with less closeness and more formal organization. Again, as society transformed from an agricultural base to an industrial base, the shift has been described as moving from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft. Tönnies' basic point is that as modern society advances, the world continues to drift further away from gemeinschaft. This movement displaces community values, sentiments, and commitments. Connections among people become less personal and more contrived in this shift. This theory represents an exaggerated view of the real world, but the work of Tönnies is widely referenced as a landmark work by others who study community, society, and the human-centered elements of social history.

One hundred years after Tönnies, writers such as Robert D. Putnam are discussing the disappearance of "social capital" in America (Putnam 1996), meaning the disappearance of networks, norms, and the trust that enables people to work and act together effectively. He references the work of Alexis de Tocqueville who visited the United States in 1830 and was impressed with the propensity of all Americans to form associations. This visitor recorded in his book, Democracy in America (Tocqueville 1969), that in America there were a thousand different types of associations-- religious, moral, serious, futile, very general, very limited, immensely large, and very minute associations. Tocqueville recommended that this phenomenon be studied. Putnam presents that view that this propensity to form associations is changing. His study leads him to conclude that technology, particularly television, contributes to a movement away from associations and community and moves instead toward isolation and a decentralizing and fragmenting of our society and culture.

Putnam's view is not shared by all. The role of technology and its influence on community is studied by scholar Claude S. Fischer who finds in his examination of the historical record that the impact of technologies is negligible on communities. He finds that social lives remain largely the same regardless of technology, but the definition of locality may extend geographically due to the introduction of technology, particularly communication technologies (Fischer 1997). Fischer is known for his important work tracing the impact of the telephone on American society (Fischer 1992). Among Fischer's mentors is Ithiel de Sola Pool, a well known professor of political science and a prolific writer and speaker on the topic of civil liberties and the safeguarding of people's rights.

Still another view of community is represented by Howard Rheingold who wrote the bestseller, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, which since it was published in 1993 has been translated into six languages and has sold over 100,000 copies (Rheingold 1993). In this book, Rheingold conveys his own very positive personal experiences using an electronic community (The WELL). His book describes a social network filled with human understanding and closeness, fellowship among those who share the common link of the WELL, and good works that develop as a result of this common bond. Rheingold's personal experiences later inspired him to create another electronic community and his popular bestseller may have contributed to what the media is describing as a resurgence in interest in the community and particularly the type of community that can result because of increasingly prevalent and far reaching communications technologies.

David J. Russo has developed the theory that human life is organized on ever shifting levels of community. He classifies the levels by size. He discusses little communities (towns and rural areas); intermediary communities (cities, states, and regions); and the big community, nations, federations, and empires (Russo 1974). He develops the position in his work, Families and Communities, that human beings live simultaneously in a hierarchy of communities from neighborhood to nation and that to understand today's mass society, we must understand the history of the communities that have come before. He ties history, sociology and communities together.

Arthur Armstrong and John Hegal III are interested in the economic potential of community and claim that the notion of community is at the heart of the Internet. They are actively studying it from the business point of view and want to provide consumers with the ability to interact in a community with commerce at the core of it all (Armstrong and Hagel 1998). These authors propose that the human need for community is going to be the next technology commodity. People familiar with the Internet will recognize this thread of thought in the Yahoo community pages, in the concept used by CitySearch, Inc., and also in the Austin-based company, drkoop.com, Inc.

Douglas Schuler, an author, speaker, and college professor, is interested in reversing what he believes to be the fragmentation of society by building socially active electronic communities that emphasize people over the technology and use democracy as a basic element. In his book New Community Networks: Wired for Change, he developed a model for electronic community building that uses set of core values as the central building blocks for these networks (Schuler 1994). His work is referenced by many others, and in addition to his book, he is a popular speaker at conferences and has contributed many articles on the topic of community networking. Barry Wellman is another well published researcher who studies computer networks that link people as well as machines into social networks. Recently, his work focuses on employment issues and delves into telecommuting and telework activities and projects (Wellman 1996). Shoshana Zuboff has also tackled this research area, examining how computers affect work and power in the workplace (Zuboff 1988). She asks whether participation in on-line communities increases an individual's feeling of power. Both of these authors are repeatedly referenced in sociology and computer-mediated communication literature.

Some researchers, like Ronald D. Doctor, are interested in the social equities or inequities that result from the increasingly computerized society in America. Doctor notes that the literature of information democracy stresses that society and technology are interdependent and that current activities are designed to spread the benefits of technologies. But the facts show that the majority of the recipients and users of the technology are in the upper and middle income brackets of American society. He fears this disparity is a warning signal that points to the need for policy and actions that foster an equitable distribution of information resources in America as well as training and encouragement for their use (Doctor 1992, 80).

The prevalence of computer technology and its influences in the public sphere, both good and bad, provide new areas for research and new terminology. In another landmark title, The Network Nation, the topic of social transformation and community is tied to computer-mediated communication, electronic mail communication, Internet communication, and electronic communities (Hiltz and Turoff 1993). These are rich research areas and each one may eventually add to the definition list for the word "community."

This portion of the literature review reveals that when the topics technology and community are combined, they lead into many areas: economics and commerce, democracy, work and education, conviviality with others, social inequities and training, computer-mediated communication, and public policy needs. Technology combined with community raises a question about potential re-evaluation of the importance of geographic proximity in defining a community.

Visionaries J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor describe community combined with technology in this way (Licklider and Taylor 1968, 30-31):

Thomas Bender, in his 1978 study entitled Community and Social Change in America (Bender 1978, 10), develops the point that community is a strong mix of place and culture, a place he defines as "locality based action" or social interaction. Thomas Bender argues that community is like an equation. It adds place to social networks and produces action. He laments that at this time (1978) too few researchers have considered the concept of the social network.

Researchers now are beginning to work on the concepts that Licklider, Taylor, and Bender discussed and dared to predict would become important. Researchers are beginning to examine how social networks form and transform on-line. But, thoughtful research on electronic communities, their definition, their potential impact on social transformation, and their relationship to previous research remains sparse, especially compared with the number of popular articles that discuss primarily the potential benefits of technology and the potential social good that will be derived from technology. More research is needed to describe how neighborhoods, communities, or social networks form as a result of on-line communication, how they build or re-build relationships, how they change as a result, and the durability of these efforts. One of the on-line communities or social networks that Licklider, Taylor, and Bender predict is classified as the electronic community network. In the next section of this review some of the research that begins to seriously examine the electronic community network is described.

The topic of electronic community networks appears in the literature of sociology, computer technology, political science, library and information science, psychology, anthropology, and communication science. Many popular articles exist and can be uncovered in literature searches, but exploratory research using electronic community networks as the subject for scientific inquiry is not yet a large body of rigorous research. This section describes most of the frequently cited academic research effort that is in progress or has been completed. Most of this research can be located and monitored using on-line "connectors" found on the World Wide Web and built by organizations and individuals interested in electronic community networks. With each citation included in this section of the review, the further research that has been recommended by the researcher is mentioned.

The first thesis on electronic community networking appeared in 1995 and was produced by Andrew Avis (Avis 1995) as a part of his communication studies work at the University of Calgary, Canada. His emphasis is centered on the emerging broadband networks and universal access to information for Canadians. He reviews and critiques regulatory efforts in Canada and uses the case study method to examine the organizational documents provided by two electronic community networks. As part of his case study, he conducts interviews with both system founders and network users looking for evidence of three specific actions or benefits flowing from the electronic community network: increased participation in the democratic system, increased access to education, and community development. He concludes that community networks are not being used to their full potential, at least not in the area he studied. He suggests that longitudinal studies are needed to track the development of electronic community networks and that they could be used as forecasting guides in public policy planning. He recommends in depth study of democratic participation in community networks, systematic tracking and classification of electronic community network users, and content analysis of the interactive discussions that take place in the political debates held on these networks. More research on the potential benefits of partnerships formed between local schools and local community networks, particularly benefits to the education community is recommended. He questions whether electronic community networks provide useful information and poses that question as a potential research topic.

Anne Beamish (Beamish 1995) provides descriptive research in her thesis for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Planning. Like Avis, Beamish considers the community network to be a computer-mediated form of communication and her definition of a community network limits it to a geographically-defined community of people. From her work, she concludes that the amount of participation is the key to the sustainability of the community network and that communication with government entities is of key importance in the viability of the community network. She works on the assumption that clear goals, flexibility, and sustainability are necessary for electronic community networks to succeed in their goals to strengthen the community, increase democratic participation in governmental processes, and ensure that everyone has access to the "information highway." She finds that the American electronic community networks she examined do not provide much opportunity for public debate and discussion and that most do not provide communication access to public officials in local government. She describes these as shortcomings or weaknesses. For the short-term, she recommends that electronic community networks find stable ways to sustain themselves and place more emphasis on public forums and discussions. She recommends further research on equity issues, volunteerism, and sustainability. She is continuing her research in doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Neil K. Guy also studied electronic community networks for his Master of Arts degree in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada (Guy 1996). His study reveals a gap between the intentions listed in the mission statements of the electronic community network organizations he examines and the actual practice conducted as conveyed in interviews held with the volunteers using the electronic community networks. The general goal of community building was high on the list of priorities in mission statements, but low on the priority list in actual implementation of the networks. Sixteen Canadian community networks, all located in British Columbia, were used in this study. Guy's definition of electronic community networks classifies them as a form of computer-mediated communication that emphasizes the geographically defined local community rather than community built on common interests. Guy makes the case for the significance of his study by stating:

Andrew S. Patrick, Alex Black, and Thomas E. Whalen, working for Industry Canada, a Canadian government ministry (Patrick 1997, Patrick and Black 1996, and Patrick and Whalen 1997), have conducted three studies of the demographics and attitudes of the users of one community network, the Canadian National Capital FreeNet in Ottawa. In one study, they surveyed approximately one thousand users. They maintain a Web site for dissemination of the demographic data and research they are conducting on an ongoing incremental basis. They hope to develop an empirical methodology for evaluating the potential of new electronic networking services that will be successful in commercial, private, military, and public sector settings. The National Capital FreeNet is the test-bed for their work because of their ready access to the internal workings of the system and because this electronic community network is generally considered to be a success as a large public system.

In her Cross-Cultural Comparison of Community Computer Networks, Kristin M. Surak (Surak 1998) attempted an international survey to compare how the general characteristics at a national level appear in the local community networks of a country, to determine what characteristics are held in common regardless of national origin, and to determine how national origin affects financial stability, content, and collaboration in the electronic community network. She hoped to expose and classify the external factors that form community networks by examining them on-line and through evaluating survey results. Three countries are represented in the study, Australia, the United States, and Canada. According to her analysis of the survey responses from each country, all three countries share common goals concerning access to information, especially local information, email, aiding other community groups, and linking groups to the community. She finds few differences based on national allegiance or character. She suggests future researchers compare urban and rural-based electronic community networks and look into the role of libraries in the development of the electronic community network.

Libraries have been partners in electronic community networking from the very earliest network, Community Memory in Berkeley, California, forward and a number of them have found the partnership to be worthwhile. Community networks are generally acknowledged to represent a complement to the public library and cooperation and collaboration between the two organizations seems to come easily. More library participation may be on the way. Just published is a book by Stephen T. Bajjaly, The Community Networking Handbook (Bajjaly 1999). This book is intended to help librarians understand and become productive partners in community networking projects. Stephen Bajjaly is an assistant professor in the College of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina. His book references a number of Web site links to newsletters, reports, and community networks across the world.

Doug Schuler and Jamie McClelland (Schuler and McClelland 1999) have recently published a report from the Libraries for the Future Telecommunications Advocacy Project called Public Space in Cyberspace: Library Advocacy in the Information Age. This report focuses on libraries connecting with communities and devotes one chapter to libraries and community networks. It references resources such as the Association for Community Networking, the Community Connector, a Web-based periodical which focuses on community information and communication resources, the Alliance for Community Technology, the Cultural Heritage Initiative for Community Outreach, the Internet Public Library project, and many electronic community network sites in hundreds of cities and a smaller number of rural areas.

Yet to be published is a work being proposed by Lawrence Hecht (Hecht 1998) who is studying at the Georgetown University School of Public Policy. Hecht is proposing to study community network services and the factors affecting the probability and quality of computer and information services in the local community. His study plan is based on the theory that community networks are an effective tool for providing needed services to disadvantaged communities. To explore this theory, he is examining the internal and external factors related to the number and quality of services offered by a network. His data sample will include fifty networks operated by non-profits, the government, and private companies. Lisa Servon of Rutgers University also has work underway. She is interviewing community networking leaders from across the country because of her interest in public policy issues related to community networking, and Michael Longon of the University of Colorado, Department of Geography, is working on a dissertation describing the community networking movement. He, too, is conducting interviews nationwide with founding leaders and members of well established community networks.

The majority of the completed research use a small sample size and, with the exception of the Patrick, Black, and Whalen on-going work for Industry Canada, little content analysis has been conducted. Most of the research effort has been descriptive and relied upon interviews and information from developers of the concept in the community and the volunteers who established the networks. In some cases, the researcher has been actively involved in the community network under study or has played some role in the community networking elsewhere.

Others who are studying electronic community networks include Mary E. Virnoche, who is actually a participant-observer researcher using the Boulder Community Network as her research site (Virnoche 1998, 1999) and Doug Schuler, who is a founder of the Seattle Community Network and has written what is known as the definitive work to date on local electronic community networks, The New Community Networks: Wired for Change as well as other notable articles (Schuler 1996, 1998). Many other articles on community networks and computer use have been published, such as "Nurturing Neighborhood Nets," (Chapman and Rhodes 1997), "Community Computer Networks: Building Electronic Greenbelts" (Cisler 1993), and "Assessment and Evolution of Community Networking" produced by the Morino Institute (Morino 1994). These books, reports, and articles chronicle the history of community networking in the United States and elsewhere and provide time line links to the events and places that have attempted to build community or influence decision-making through initiating electronic community networking projects

Karen E. Pettigrew and Margaret Ann Wilkinson examined electronic community networks from the point of view of providing information and content in the way that a library would provide content. They compared the differences between information and referral agencies and electronic community networks from a policy perspective and reported their results in an article, "Control of Community Information: An Analysis of Roles" (Pettigrew and Wilkinson 1996). They compared research that has been conducted on information and referral agencies with electronic community networks and found that little research had been conducted with information and referral agencies. Pettigrew and Wilkinson find in their comparison that the two have compatible but different roles in the information process. Both share the perspective that they want to empower individuals and help inform people, but community networks take a broader view and tend to provide all data that are flowing anywhere that might be useful to a community. Information and referral agencies, on the other hand, tend to restrict themselves to providing quality information that is about a community. No work has been done to compare the quality of information coming from the two types of networks or the preferences between the two that community members might have, or the distinctions between the two that the community members might make. No research has been done on what impact the electronic availability of information has made on the public's help-seeking behavior and no research has been conducted to determine what happens when the information and referral agency provides community information through the electronic community network.

This section of the literature review finds that the academic research in electronic community networking is sparse. The topics lead back to familiar themes: economics and commerce, democracy, work and education, conviviality with others, social inequities and training, computer-mediated communication, and public policy needs. The Pettigrew and Wilkinson finding that indicates that electronic community networks provide a broader range of access to data may make it less attractive to archivists who are charged with the responsibility of appraising and selecting materials limited in scope to the local geographic area. Since no studies and no research has been identified that specifically addresses the relationship of the electronic community network to the appraisal practices of local history museums, repositories, or societies, this area needs examination. The next section of the review discusses different viewpoints and perspectives that archivists use in the appraisal process.

Little mention is made in community networking literature about the issue of preserving this electronic form of local information for later access by members of the public whether they be general curiosity seekers, historians, social scientists, or Cub Scout leaders introducing youth to the history and development of a locality. Electronic community networks as an electronic method of holding public discussion, delivering information content to community members, and documenting decision-making in the community goes largely undiscussed as a potential form of local history. Doug Schuler does quote a participant in the Community Memory project in Berkeley, California who has given some thought to the fact that he was a leader in something that was a first of its kind, a project that began in the mid-1970s and no longer exists in 1999. Community Memory is documented today only in the articles written about it, in articles that interview the founders of it, and in the remembrances of those who participated in it. This participant noted that he remembers the experience as "almost a dream" and that it seemed to exist for just a "hot minute." Should this project have been acquired and somehow saved for future researchers to examine? Doug Schuler raises this question and points out that the perspectives of ceremony and memory are critical to the new community (Schuler 1996, 63). He says:

C. Wright Mills, who wrote The Sociological Imagination in 1959 (Mills 1959), pointed out that the social sciences are composed of biography and history of the individuals and the collective. He encourages the readers of his small book to get a "comparative grip" on the matter of social sciences by examining and imagining how others would have viewed it at that time. He reminds readers that to understand man, man has to be considered not as an isolated fragment, but as an actor in history playing in a larger historical scene. He suggests ways to use the imagination to understand the social sciences. Mills' points are valuable and deserve to be mentioned, but more than imagination is needed. Chauncey Bell, Senior Vice President of Business Design Associates, Inc. told archivists at the annual meeting of the Society of California Archivists that archivists are under attack and that the key weapon in the arsenal for archivists to use in countering this attack is listening. He connects appraisal to listening:

The important work of making choices about what to acquire in order to document a locality more often than not falls on the shoulders of the local archivist. After the local archivist does his or her job, the social scientists, the historians, the anthropologists, the genealogists, the Cub Scouts groups, and the students of computer-mediated communication will then have the resources to use in the study of the locality and the people who contributed to life and decision-making processes used in the building and growth of a community.

The idea of archives as collective memory is often presented as a way of discussing the social and cultural role of archives. Kenneth E. Foote (Foote 1990) tells us that collections of documents and artifacts in archives are very much a "communicational resource" that transfer information and sustain memory from one generation to the next. Further, these resources can communicate or warn future generations of potential threats. As examples he mentions locating nuclear waste storage areas and avoidance of ill-fated decisions based on past history.

Traditionally, the documents and artifacts acquired by archivists possess a physical durability that allow them to be passed on from one generation to the next. Together they portray an accurate description of the demands of contemporary life especially when these representations and descriptions can be corroborated with representations in other institutions. Electronic representations may add to this corroborative material and provide a new classification category, digital object. In his article, Foote also reminds us that archives have an important role to play in preventing "selective forgetting" or effacement of unpleasant, unflattering, tragic, or distasteful memories. Traditionally, archives provide a "chain of unbroken custody," provide unquestioned authenticity, and can warrant to future generations that the true record of contemporary life complete with all of its unpleasant facets is being provided. The digital object needs this same warrant.

The appraisal or selection of the records to represent a locality or time period is one of the most weighty and important aspects of the archivist's work. It is no surprise that the appraisal process is the subject of great debate and sometime heated disagreement on how it should be conducted. In 1981, Archivist Frank G. Burke asked a series of penetrating questions, many of which still stand today (Burke 1981). How can archivists be objective in their selection of resources that represent the collective memory and documentary heritage of a place, people or time? After all, archivists are just people and as people, they possess biases. What measures can archivists take to reduce the impact of their own biases and interpretations? What are the conceptions present today that will color the archivist's appraisal decision-making? Can archivists foresee what portion of today's records will be needed by future researchers? How do archivists appraise so that the social history of a community is fully documented?

Fredric Miller (Miller 1981) has studied these issues. His list of disciplines that are interested in social history and local records includes anthropology, demography, geography, psychology, sociology, economics, and political science. Miller dissected the issue of appraisal and determined that there are at least three views of appraisal. One view is positivist, behaviorist, and very much quantitative in tradition. Archivists with this view are labeled cliometricians and they collect, provide, and use data. Another view is oriented toward anthropology and sociology with a Marxist or Weberian predilection. Qualitative sources are easily understood among this group of archivists and they easily apply interdisciplinary theory to history. A third view is a structuralist or cultural approach. These archivists tend to view historical particulars in terms of the evolution of social structures. This is the group that most understands social history and the disciplines that attempt to look at all layers of society and to take a holistic view of the time. Miller strongly believes that collecting policies in archives should be framed with deliberate consideration of the limitations of subject and source. He favors the holistic view and the cultural approach. He believes that collecting policies should be directed toward the broadest possible level of citizen organization and participation and that the role of the archivist is to proactively approach key individuals active in specific arenas on the basis of the contribution they are making to society and events in a community. He accuses archivists of ignoring social history by accepting only the papers and manuscripts of the elite in a locality and warns against this practice in his writing. He professes a proactive view for the archivist in documenting the history of people and encourages that this is the correct course and much preferred to documentation of the history and function of organizations. To press his points home through empirical study, he analyzes the use of series in archives by conducting an analysis of the citations and sources listed by social historians in their research (Miller 1986) over time. Based on the data he extracted, he concluded that social historians are frequent and capable users of archives. Several distinct patterns of use were drawn from his data depending on the time period under study. The data show that very different kinds of records were generated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sources such as diaries, for example, become quite less common in the twentieth century than in the nineteenth century.

The methods people use to communicate today have changed even in the last few years and the nature of the records is likely to change as well. As Nancy E. Peace points out in her article "Deciding What to Save: Fifty Years of Theory and Practice" (Peace 1984), telephones, computers, and air travel now permit communications that once were possible only through written correspondence. The implications as we move forward to the twenty-first century are that the electronic records or digital objects will represent an additional format or type of record for future researchers to use. The records that will contribute to the study of computer-mediated communication, social networks, and social transformations are being created today in these electronic formats. If the record of these communications is lost or preserved only in the diminished, subjective form of a participant's notes or recollections, we will have lost a great deal. Archivists are finding ways to preserve, arrange, and describe these electronic records and electronic communication formats so they can be authenticated, easily located, and readily made available for examination and interpretation in the future.

Because of the ease with which material can be reproduced, modern technology has led to greater physical bulk of records. Our institutions can't begin to keep all of the records being created, even after weeding out the redundancies and duplicates from both paper and electronic files. Archivists are trained to deal with this abundance, but even with stringent weeding, the amount of material is overwhelming. It is clear that archivists need to make rigorous choices, but opinion varies on how to best make these choices. David Bearman (Bearman 1995) believes archivists need to focus on records as evidence and further, need to transfer the entire responsibility for preservation of the electronic record evidence to the record creator. Bearman practices what C. Wright Mills advocates when he suggests that people "re-arrange the file" and look at the extremes on both ends to inspire new thinking and imagination. His viewpoint advocates a radical departure from the time honored "chain of custody" tradition upheld by archivists and presents new challenges for guaranteeing authenticity of the record. Bearman raises the ire of some and the eyebrows of many with his suggestion that archivists have been doing it all wrong for many years. Luciana Duranti, current and 54^th President of the Society of American Archivists, expresses the viewpoint that archivists should remain steadfast in using the methods and theory espoused by Sir Hilary Jenkinson and let theory drive the practice (Duranti 1994). Jenkinson felt strongly that the creator of the record was the proper authority to undertake destruction decision-making. He believed that archivists and historians both are too biased and ill-informed to make destruction choices. Jenkinson's ideas made a strong impact, particularly on archival practice in England and on Luciana Duranti. She, like Bearman, believes that evidence is important and that the creators of the records know best what can be discarded from the historical record. Archivists, she believes, must leave this to the record creator and not interject their subjectivity into the process. Duranti rejects the work of Theodore R. Schellenberg who established the popular system of establishing "value" in the appraisal process. Schellenberg (Schellenberg 1956) believed that records were created for a primary purpose and this purpose was largely administrative, legal or fiscal. Later, after the records had fulfilled the purpose for which they were created, he proposed that the value shifted into providing a secondary purpose. This purpose is to provide informational or evidential value and for these purposes, the records can be said to have continuing value. Archivists in the United States are frequently trained to use this method of appraisal. This discussion shows that the debate moves between two extremes, one which proposes that archival theory should drive the practice in the profession and that other that proposes that the practical and pragmatic concerns of the work, the actual practice, should drive the theory building in the profession.

A more middle of the road approach to appraisal is suggested by Angelika Menne-Haritz (Menne-Haritz 1994). She suggests that despite all best efforts to shape a true and accurate image of society through acquisition practice, the effort will always be flawed. Records are created because the creator needs them. They are not created for posterity, rather they are created to be working tools for decision-making processes and they are therefore likely to be reliable and trustworthy as both evidence and information.

For Hans Booms, an influencial West German archivist who became Director of the West German Federal Archives, reliance on subjective judgment in the appraisal process was not the preferred path. In his writing and speaking, he advocated an active stance for archivists that included determining the records' value at the time of creation and spoke of the necessity for preserving less information due to the sheer volume of record production (Booms 1987). Bearman echoes this thought by suggesting that archivists take on the role of advisor to the record creator and insert themselves into the process at the time the record is created.

Robert Sink, who recently became a fellow of the Society of American Archivists, points out that appraisal is not a decision that is made just once (Sink 1990). He argues that it is an ongoing process in which we ask different appraisal questions at different times throughout the custody of the record. He refers to the work of Frank Boles and Julia Marks Young (1991). Boles and Young developed a systematic appraisal process that fleshes out questions that can be used to evaluate key factors such as the costs of retention of a record over time and the political ramifications of a decision to either dispose of or keep a record. Their systematic method of appraisal can be repeated periodically to reappraise the holdings of an archive. Many consider this formal system as another extreme in a world where human-centered rather than quantitatively centered decision-making traditionally takes precedence. Some have used the Boles and Young work to invent appraisal checklists and question-answer formats to help guide them in selection decision-making.

The theory and practice of appraisal is documented by Julia Marks Young (Young 1985) in an extensive bibliography of appraisal topics that she developed in 1985 at the time she and Boles were introducing their largely quantitative archival appraisal tool to the archival community. This bibliography was the most comprehensive effort to that date undertaken to gather the varied thoughts and opinions of theoreticians and practitioners on this key aspect of the archivist's work. The bibliography needs to be updated to add the past fifteen years of work and thought, particularly to add the current thinking and debates about the preservation of the electronic records that document localities and contemporary life today. Newer appraisal concepts such as documentation strategy (Cox and Samuels 1988, Samuels 1992) need to be added to this fine bibliography.

Archival appraisal is of key importance and how it is practiced varies around the world and between archival institutions. The methods used will influence what electronic records or digital objects will be available to future researchers seeking to answer questions about the electronic community network and its impact or influence on the local community.

This literature review is incomplete without inclusion of the increasing body of literature concerning the digital preservation of the electronic record. We need the discussion of how to preserve this dynamic type of record, the cost of preservation of this type of record, and the issues of authenticity, privacy, and copyright that electronic records provoke. However, we can see from the overview this portion of the literature surrounding community, electronic community networking, and archival appraisal that these independent topics have strong links to one another. Electronic community networks contain information that may describe the social transformation of a community or neighborhood, contribute to the rebuilding of a neighborhood, document the decision-making of municipal authorities, capture the public's comment on civic issues, and provide insight into the organizations, events, and daily activities of a community. Depending on the goals and mission of each electronic community network, the community they document may exactly match the collecting scope of the local archive or may extend that scope to embrace communities of interest that encircle the globe.

In this literature review, a large quantity of research has been produced on the topic of community and some it can be directly tied to computer-mediated communication, social networks, and electronic community networks. Interest in studying community extends far back into time. Little research has been uncovered in this literature review focused on electronic community network and no research has been conducted to consider the appraisal issues related to this object as a potential significant contribution to the social history of the time. The topic is new and not much thought has been given to its potential as documentation of the social transformation of the community. The three topics reviewed are very much interrelated. People have long been interested in community. The electronic community network may be classified as a new type of community. Archivists are the most qualified to consider the appraisal issues that this type of record raises and these issues have a long history of debate. Without developing questions about the potential value of preserving the electronic community network in traditional local history repositories and without questioning how appraisal practices and theories might view this form of record, we may not even consider the opportunity or most appropriate ways to gather and preserve this record. Because the record is so dynamic in its nature, we might miss the opportunity to preserve it. The questions that need to be posed consider the pragmatic considerations attached to electronic record keeping, the procedural and technical matters surrounding preservation of these fragile electronic records, the appraisal methods currently used in local history repositories, and the potential importance of this record in documenting and defining community.

This literature review began with the selection of databases to be searched and search terms to be applied to in depth exploration of one of four planned literature review areas. The area explored in depth for the Research and Writing seminar is community networking. Some citations related to the second and third areas planned for review, community and archival appraisal, have also been researched while sources related to the fourth area, electronic preservation, have been totally excluded from this review paper and will be added at a later time.

The search was limited due to time constraints, but a goal was set to examine 100 primary sources resulting from the application of these search terms. The goal was not completely met, but the search resulted in many more than 100 potential articles and resources for future examination. The list of search terms and databases used is shown here.

Databases and catalogs at the University Library were used for this portion of the review.

Future literature review work will be expanded to include a comprehensive examination of the three areas left for in depth examination: archival appraisal, electronic preservation, and community.

A systematic pattern for conducting the literature search was developed. It follows this pattern:

The database citations resulting from the search are cumulated into a paper file that records the number of hits for each search term used and takes note of additional search terms which continually reappear in the database being used. The citations which, upon review of the abstracts and assigned keywords, are directly related to community networking or include references to libraries are captured and filed in a notebook. The notebook is divided into sections for each database. The information is captured in this way in order to track what has been completed and facilitate retracing of past search strategies for particular time periods. This system will document steps already taken to help avoid duplication. It will provide a written record of work accomplished and can be used to verify or help analyze whether another step needs to be taken or whether a time period or search term needs to be added to the exploration.

The resources of interest are retrieved from the library and read. Notes are made on each reading and placed in a computer database that will continue to be used to track the resources read over the course of the research project. Keywords are assigned to each reading for later resorting, subject classification, and retrieval. The database being used for this portion of the work is ProCite.

As the work on this small literature review exercise progressed, the decision was made to limit the number of resources that would be actually used in this paper to include the most frequently referenced resources and appraisal literature referenced in one major bibliography authored by Julia Marks Young. All citations read have been logged and will continue to be tracked over the course of the research.

This small literature review effort became overwhelming almost immediately. Many sources are available on the topic of community networking and the topic leads to a variety of disciplines and areas of work within the disciplines. Each one of these is interesting and compelling. Already the database contains over 200 articles and books and that is still just the beginning.

The literature review area which has been excluded from future research as a result of my database search work for this paper is communitarianism. At this point in time, I do not believe that this topic will be a part of my literature review, however, I will attend a summer ALA conference session being presented by one of the leading authorities on this topic, Amitai Etizoni.

2 The WELL is the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, a computer conferencing system that enables people around the world to carry on public conferencing and exchange private e-mail. Rheingold has gone on to form his own conferencing system community on the World Wide Web known as Electric Minds, (http://www.minds.com). See Howard Rheingold. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

3 Other studies, such as Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the "Have Nots" in Rural and Urban America conducted by the U. S. Department of Commerce, discuss potentially important public policy issues such as universal service, the idea that all Americans should have access to communications technology. See Ronald H. Brown. Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the "Have Nots" in Rural and Urban America, U.S. Department of Commerce. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Washington DC, 1995, July.

4 Hiltz and Turoff, a husband and wife team, produced the first edition of this book in 1978. The Network Nation is considered a landmark work. It is worth noting that it was revised a full fifteen years later with a minimal number of changes. Many studies in the computer-mediated communication arena are developing to compare and determine how these new forms of communication are contributing to various types of social transformation. Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff. The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer. Revised ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993.

5 Licklider was particularly important in the early growth of time-sharing for computer systems, head of the Department of Defense Information Processing Techniques Branch of ARPA during the time period that ARPAnet was formed, and is the author of Libraries of the Future, a work sponsored by the Council on Library Resources in 1965 and published by MIT Press. This book predicted many of the computer uses we enjoy today in libraries. See Licklider, J. C. R. Libraries of the Future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965.

6 The home page for Susan K. Soy contains a Community Networking section which links to a growing number of major connectors and university programs engaged in the study of community networking. http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~ssoy/. Another local resource is the Telecommunity Resource Center which can be accessed from the home page for the Metropolitan Austin Interactive Network http://www.main.org. MAIN is one of several electronic on-line community networks in Austin, Texas. Another very well organized resource maintained by Kim Gregson is found at http://php.ucs.indiana.edu/~kgregson/main_menu.html and still another is provided by Peter Scott and is located at http://www.lights.com/freenet/

7 Anne Beamish maintains a personal web site detailing her student work at http://sap.mit.edu/anneb/

8 Network Services Research, the Communications Research Centre for Industry Canada, is located at http://debra.dgbt.doc.ca/services-research and this site chronicles the ongoing research of the National Capital FreeNet. Each research report is published at this site with full details of the research questions, methods, ethical principles, and survey findings used in the research.

9 Community Connector (http://www.si.umich.edu/Community/) is an electronic publication of the Community Networking Initiative of the University of Michigan School of Information, which is a broad-ranging program designed to develop and disseminate information needed by geographically isolated communities.

10 Mario Morino is a successful entrepreneur in the software industry who established the Morino Foundation to help make a difference and drive positive, sustaining social change. Mario Morino discusses community networking as a social innovation that has the possibility of helping people change and improve their lives. Morino also sponsors KnowledgeWay, an organization designed to stimulate an information-based economy in the Washington, D.C. area. See Morino, Mario. Assessment and Evolution of Community Networking, Presented at "Ties That Bind" Apple Computer/Morino Institute Conference On Building Community Computing Network, 1994, May 5. (http://www.morino.org/ties94sp.html and also http://www.morino.org/publications/assessment.html).

11 Information and Referral has been an organized unit of work since the 1940s, while electronic community networking can be said to have begun in the late 1970s.

12 Mr. Bell is a consult who helps private and public enterprise deal with change and stay relevant and active. He has developed sophisticated computer systems for management of his consulting firm and qualifies as a member of the computer industry. His speech can be found at http://www.rbarry.com/cb-sca/cb-sca.html.

13 Kenneth E. Foote, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Texas at Austin, refers to archives as a valuable means of extending the temporal and spatial range of human communication.

14 Others have faulted archivists on this point as well. Foote reports that in 1970 historian Howard Zinn faulted archivists for preserving records of dominant social groups at the expense of the less powerful social groups.

15 The entire Fall 1995 issue of the American Archivist (vol. 58, no. 4) is devoted to the pros and cons of the archival strategies proposed by David Bearman. Bearman is the President of Archives & Museum Informatics, a consulting firm that focuses on issues related to electronic records and archives.

Literature Cited

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Last Updated 05/27/99