Ok Ken Begley.  Here are my views:

	-The database in question is PeopleSoft
	-The data in question is financial data only (for the sake of
discussion) -There are no scanned images of actual invoices or anything else
(for the sake of discussion) -Records - and parts of records - can be
generated from 	the system.  Things like: Annual General Ledgers; Bob's
monthly expenditures on his company credit card
 
	1. So, do you think our PeopleSoft database is a record?

No.

	2. Do you think there are records in PeopleSoft?  Or are you
sensible like me and think "No, there are potential records in PeopleSoft."

I agree with you.

	3. What would you say to Big Giant Finance Head, Mr. Snickers, when
he says: "We don't need to generate an annual General Ledger because it's in
PeopleSoft; we can generate it anytime we want to."

If the form data, content data and composition data are fixed and stable so
that it is guaranteed that the same query will always give the same result,
he is correct. If not, he is wrong.

	4. Bonus Question:  what would you say to people who refer to
PeopleSoft as "the database of record."  (Full disclosure: My IT Person used
this phrase and I said the term is halfway between meaningless and harmful)

That they use the expression in the colloquial sense, meaning that somebody
records something in it.

Did you read the article Ken Thibodeau and I wrote on the concept of record
according to InterPARES? It is here:
http://www.interpares.org/ip2/display_file.cfm?doc=ip2_book_appendix_02.pdf.

Luciana


Dr. Luciana Duranti 
Chair and Professor | Archival Studies
School of Library, Archival, and  Information Studies
The University of British Columbia | The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
Phone 604 822 2587 | Fax 604 822 6006 
[log in to unmask] I www.slais.ubc.ca |
Director | The InterPARES Project I www.interpares.org I
Director, Centre for the International Study of Records and Archives
www.ciscra.org I www.lucianaduranti.ca I

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