Re: Open database versus closed database. The point made by Bogdan.

Traditional registers of incoming and outgoing mail, ledgers, and any book where entries are regularly made are open and yet designated as records since they begin to receive entries. Thus, I do not think that the issue is whether the database is open or closed but whether the entered data ate unchangeable and the composition rules are fixed. If this is the case, the same query will receive the same answer all the time. 

Then the question becomes: is the database one record in becoming (till it is closed, perhaps once a year) or does it include as many records as are the possible queries that will produce them? In other words, is a database with unchangeable content and fixed composition rules a record like a register or is it an aggregation of records like a series? 

I think the answer to whether a database is a record is "it depends on whether the creator treats it like a record, a bunch of records, or no record at all" -- as Natasha said. The more it changes...

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
470-1961 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Phone 604 822 2587 | Fax 604 822 6006
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Director I Centre for the International Study of Contemporary Records and Archives
www.ciscra.org

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