>content without context if meaningless. ...
>The on-going value of these records derives from maintaining
>the context that gives their content meaning.

Dwight- 

This is WHY I said:

"And while I agree (again, in part) that context does
come into play, CONTENT is the most critical factor in 
determining the "record status" of a document."

I'm not saying that context is without value, but I don't think that in all
instances context is necessary to determine the record status of the
content.  The old "musty dusty Federal definition of a record"
http://shrinkster.com/16o6 makes no mention of context... in fact it says in
part "...because of the informational value of data in them.."

But to give another example, using your police report citation... with the
larger cities now using networked laptops and many officers creating their
reports through the use of APIs, the data is entered into fields, when the
officer selects "save" or "send" the content is sent to a server and the
data entered populates a database.  If someone calls up the report, on the
screen it appears as a "old timey" looking report with all the lines, boxes,
logos, etc... maybe even a scanned image of the officer's signature... but
the RECORD was the content of this virtual report.  

What makes it have value is the context of the incident it was related to,
but what is being managed and would be produced as evidence is the content.

As to your e-mail example, without all of the associated metadata, the
header information indicating sender, recipient, time sent/received, etc.
the body of the e-mail itself may not have any value... but the RECORD is
ALL of this content, and that what is managed, not just the text in the body.

Larry
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