Regarding physical records vs. paper records:  the best example in my 
experience of physical records is core samples.  In the oil and gas industry 
they are routinely collected and managed in the same way as records.  They 
are warehoused and indexed, and retrieved and returned.  Records are 
sometimes created from them (analyses, decisions to drill or not to drill, etc.), 
but it is the source record and future geologists will want to see the sample 
itself, not any resultant records about it.

Regarding spoken words as records - if the oral tradition is the only available 
history, that's what you have to go with, and perhaps you document it, thus 
creating a record.  When there is no video, audio, or other recorded evidence 
in a legal dispute (rarer and rarer these days, with Facebook, Twitter, and 
ubiquitous camera phones), all that can be considered is witness testimony - 
the spoken word again subsequently recorded.

Wayne Hoff, CRM
Calgary, AB

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