> My real reason for posting this, though, is to express some discomfort with
> placing a monetary value on government documents (such as deed books). In
> my opinion, the value of a government document relates to its ability to
> defend and protect the rights of citizens and their heritage. I think about
> the only price you can put on that for insurance purposes would be the
> price of recovery in the event the documents were damaged, lost, etc....
> otherwise I think they are "priceless”.

Value is in the eye of the buyer but I think that establishing a value is important to gaining support for preservation.  For example, I visited a Town that had just spent $200,000 restoring their Deed books; as they had deteriorated to the point where it was jeopardizing land transfers in the community.

So can we say those books were deemed to be worth more than $200,000? The value of the underlying land ran into the billions.  They could have spent several hundred thousand dollars to convert them to digital images to store in the Cloud but over time that would generate significant cost.  So just in a practical sense they have an underlying value.

A breakdown in the system of tracking property defined within the Deed books could generate extremely expensive litigation. Would the Town have liability or do they have protection from being sued for negligence.

The Deed books were stored in a room with simple glass windows and the books were on open shelves.  They previously stored them in book safes but that is what led to their breakdown over the years as the safe was a poor environment.

Valuation is tricky.  If I have a Monet painting and I offer it at auction is might be worth millions.  If I steal someone’s Monet and sell it to a collector privately who knows it is stolen, then is might be worth 1/10th of the open market value.

The same can be true of records.  The records in your file cabinet are worth little. But remove a few documents that are necessary to a defense in a litigation, then those same documents are worth considerable more.

The records manager's primary problem is in failing to define their value. The individual RM should be self-promoting. The collection of RM’s has no benefactor (ARMA spends all your money promoting ARMA and attending the conference rather than promoting the role of the records manager. )  Establishing the value can be accomplished by examining what it would cost to create legal facsimiles. 

> In addition, whatever marketplace
> exists for government documents of intrinsic monetary value (say, a
> contract signed by Abraham Lincoln in his capacity as President - he's
> still pretty famous!) should be illegal, and the "ownership" of those
> documents outside of legitimate institutions open to the public considered
> a form of theft.
> -- 
> Dwight Wallis

I really don’t agree with this for several reasons. If my Great-Great-Great Grandfather was Clark of Lewis and Clark fame and I have the contract that Jefferson signed with him to begin the journey, it belongs to my family. At what point does your desire to have access to my relatives private document exceed my right as an owner of the document. Each decade the government becomes more confiscatory of private property. They use eminent domain to take property.  The various government entities in this country own approximately 60%+ of all the land in the country. If they start raiding family archives then what is left.

A second reason is that government is really not very good at protecting records and artifacts. The National Archives chooses to protect a few documents in heroic style but the vast proportion of the collections sit in little more than warehouses. 

Massachusetts has the best method of protecting documents of historic value as they have Conservation Grants through their Community Preservation Act and they have defined methods for restoring documents and defined standards for vaulting vital records. Due to this individuals tend to donate records that have value since they know Massachusetts knows how to care for and protect the records.

These Standards are important as they define the worth and the protection of the documents. In a more typical government collection, a period of time with unworthy Selectman or Town Council, they can ruin a lifetime of records.  In one NY County,  one Selectman decided he was tired of old records clogging the rooms, hallways and basement and arrived one Saturday and loaded up several pick-up loads and drove them to the Town dump.  In one two year term, one elected official can undo years of dedicated conservation.

Ironically, being in the vault business I am often called in when the corral gate is left open and the most priceless member of the herd is long gone.

A discussion of appraising value is one records managers should be having. In 1980 there were thousands of vaults in corporations with a “wet hen” of a records manager guarding the collection of vital and permanent and intrinsic value records. 

Today we see IT storing their back up tapes in media vaults, they build server vaults for their servers. Larry Medina can provide a more eloquent discussion of why this is not appropriate as a records preservation model. But IT learned one lesson from Ms Tuttle of Wet Hen Fame, management understands putting all the eggs in one basket and protect the basket.  I hope records managers can circumvent that mindset change but I fear it is too late.

While records managers argue about what is worth protecting and what has value, the IT Manager simple says I can store it all in little tiny spaces and we’ll worry about which thing is valuable later but for now protect it all. 

Simple strategy: 1) Data Center and back up tapes off site..........then 2) Data Center and a second date center ( or 3rd or 4th) backing it up........... 3) Data center and tapes on the near term and the Cloud for the archive. TV shows perpetuate the myth. There is always a hidden hard drive with everything or a USB Flash-drive with all the records. Even when the villain burns the place to the ground, the records are always there in the back ups. TV tells us that the most valuable records are always on a little thumb drive.

I miss the days of: Batman to his sidekick Robin: “Robin we need to visit the archives.” Superman to  Krypto:  “Krypto the secret is buried in the archives.” and who can forget Wonder Woman: “Wonder Girl your knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System is our only hope.”

A single document saved the world. Establishing the link to value is critical. 

Allowing government to define what they think should belong to the government is a huge mistake. As we now see with the CIA and NSA deciding which phone calls they can listen in on.  The answer is always everybody. When they collect our phone conversations and our emails it is an abuse of power and that is what government always does. Collecting everything is what IT does best.   But they never seem to figure out the real threats because they track everything. Government and IT can’t help themselves: From the speed trap at the bottom of a long down hill run or 50’ past where the speed drops from 65 to 45. To the IT department that wants all the medical records in the Cloud.  Valuation is the key to returning the RM to the discussion.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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