During December 2004-January 2006, ARM specialist Richard E. (Rick) Barry
of Barry Associates surveyed records professionals and users on Electronic
Records Working Group Reports in what he called a pro bono survey on
"Overcoming Barriers to Major Users in Accessing Electronic Records."
Rick, who worked as an expert on a number of working groups in Washington,
then posted occasionally to this List, He and I discussed interdisciplinary
communications here at times.

Two questions, with some context first, incluoding an item from this
listserv in 2005.   Rick Barry was very attuned to outreach across the RM,
archives, and history professions.  Around the same time that he did his
survey, Rick hosted a dinner at his home for an evening discussion of
records and archives issues with a small group of guests, who included Dr.
David Wallace of the School of Information, University of Michigan, and I,
as a Federal historian and an archivist, among others. Lively and
thoughtful dinner conversation at Rick's and I'll add as an aside, a great
wine cellar.

This dinner took place toward the end of the time period (1999-2007) when I
was doing outreach to historians, records managers, and archivists on
electronic record keeping challenges (including an increasing chilling
effect) as well the impact on records of cultural elements within the
Federal government.  Historians working within the Federal government as
civil servants, among them Eduard Mark and John Earl Haynes, then were
among the first to recognize in certain workplaces a chilling effect that
affected records content and creation.  This was due to some of their
assignments on the job in supporting Federal policy makers.

The work of some Federal historians then required (and still does) applying
critical analysis to the content of records and writing conclusory history
narratives with contextual information foir decision makers.  This often
required research both in historically significant records created during
the 1960s and 1970s and in more recent records, some still considered
active in their agencies and departments.

The impact of a chilling effect or fear of creating and preserving candid
records (especially pre-decisional ones) was not universal in all
government components.  Then, as now, some agencies and departments were at
higher risk of what Haynes referred to as "pre-emptive sanitization."
Others showed less signs of that.  Perceptions of what I then called "the
fear factor" among records creators varied depending on the agencies where
the people to whom I reached out worked.  Some were highly aware of of a
"chill," other (more lucky) officials did not see much of one, if any.

Suzanne Garment (former scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, now
an attorney and writer) did not use the phrase "weaponizing the content
records" in an article she wrote about access to records in 2015.  But she
did acknowledge in a March 2015 essay the adversarial and political nature
of some access requests and the decrease in candid, insightful records.

Haynes's perception over a decade ago of how this occurred is especially
valuable.  That Haynes had worked as a government policy making official
prior to joining the Library of Congress as a historian enabled him to
share with me in public forums some 15 years ago his take on the chilling
effect. I included his views and other assessments in a message I posted
here in response to a posting by Rick Barry - link to Rick's and my 2005
recmgmt-l exchange here:
https://lists.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0507A&L=RECMGMT-L&P=R997&X=52EC2265E80C74239


My discursive Listserv reply to Rick Barry left out one of his Haynes'
points about his time as a policy making official.  Haynes explained in a
public forum, "We cared greatly for our policy goals which we regarded as
in the public interest and were determined that nothing would exist in the
record of use to our political opponents or those of the media seeking
controversy."

As I noted in a recent message about mitigating risk, things played out as
they did in the records area 10 or 15 years ago.  But I still remember and
appreciate Rick's interest in outreach and dialogue across information and
knowledge professions.

Rick Barry's website remains accessible and includes the report he posted
in 2005 summarizing his survey results.  https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.mybestdocs.com_&d=DwIBaQ&c=pZJPUDQ3SB9JplYbifm4nt2lEVG5pWx2KikqINpWlZM&r=b5NZPQUb9_r2rQ3Zd74ATT3aSs9yKyRnJLOhqJvd7fE&m=TBu-B97tAa5XhkiL6yjlo8gJmTYXxNIQFvM_5r-hDlk&s=b5ISmxbsr8oOW-SwbTjNJhS4ZgQ2cHssi_inGpVFCGA&e= 
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.mybestdocs.com_&d=DwIBaQ&c=pZJPUDQ3SB9JplYbifm4nt2lEVG5pWx2KikqINpWlZM&r=b5NZPQUb9_r2rQ3Zd74ATT3aSs9yKyRnJLOhqJvd7fE&m=TBu-B97tAa5XhkiL6yjlo8gJmTYXxNIQFvM_5r-hDlk&s=b5ISmxbsr8oOW-SwbTjNJhS4ZgQ2cHssi_inGpVFCGA&e= >  (The website is a snapshot in time but you
still can access some interesting articles and reports on it).  Rick posted
a lot of content on this site through about 2007 or 2008 but I haven't seen
new content on it for many years.  The last I saw Rick commenting on
archives and records issues anywhere online was at some NARA blogs about
five years ago.

My questions are:

1.  Is anyone still in contact with Rick Barry?  As you can see from his
bio (click on About Rick on the left menu at link above), he started
working on IT issues in 1960.  He had extensive military experience
(including in Vietnam and with CINCPAC communications and command and
control initiatives) and civilian experience working on computer,
information and records issues. He continued doing consulting work on ARM
issues after retiring.  He well may now be truly retired (we stayed in
touch until about ten years ago).  Does anyone have publicly available
email information for him?  (I only have the email he used as a List
subscriber in 2005).  Or if you are in contact with him, would you ask him
to contact me at [log in to unmask]

2.  Rick's 2004-2005 survey had a wide-reaching intent although as he
noted, he saw few links to it at ARM or historian listservs or other online
forums.  (I helped him publicize it in a couple of history forums.)  The
release of the survey over the holidays might have been a factor in
response rates. I value Rick's efforts and remain very interested in
interdisciplinary communications, cross cutting issues, and data
collection.

Do List members know of anyone *outside the Federal government* who has
surveyed impacts or otherwise assessed the records life cycle as it affects
creators of records, records managers, It professionals, information
security officials, archivists, and internal and external users of records,
including academic, corporate, and government historians?

I'm especially interested in holistic overviews of actions with records and
information where I can trace person A in an organization did this, B
reacted to their job requirements with this, which had this impact on C,
which affected D this way.  And on through operational choices (and when
those existed, strategic and tactical choices) that affect the records life
cycle.  More so than looking separately at narrower, functional specific
assessments. I'm especially interested in hearing from any RMs or
archivists who have had professional opportunities to do such assessments
holistically throughout the records life cycle, including the effect on
institutional knowledge impacts.

I have a good sense of the focus and work of attorneys and corporate
counsel and am looking primarily for holistic assessments of the work with
records and infoirmation of the other stakeholders I listed.  I'm
interested in any such comprehensive analysis done recently or now, while
recognizing more will be done retrospectively as well, as impacts up and
down the line throughout the life cycle become even more visible.

Thanks in advance,

Maarja
[log in to unmask]
Washington, DC
Twitter:  @ArchivesMaarja
Blog:  Archival Explorations https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__archivalexplorations.wordpress.com_&d=DwIBaQ&c=pZJPUDQ3SB9JplYbifm4nt2lEVG5pWx2KikqINpWlZM&r=b5NZPQUb9_r2rQ3Zd74ATT3aSs9yKyRnJLOhqJvd7fE&m=TBu-B97tAa5XhkiL6yjlo8gJmTYXxNIQFvM_5r-hDlk&s=e-4PrMlJy5GUgb_D51S6yjiYiAcIUhRjyMFUG01x4TU&e= 

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