Ilona, I think archivists are doing leading edge stuff on digital ingest
and appraisal as well.

Three trends are going to impact our field significantly in the near to
long term future: the ongoing economic downturn, cloud computing, and the
continuing explosion of collaboration and communication tools. The economic
situation will make acquiring and maintaining electronic records management
systems more difficult, except in those areas where the risk profile
clearly justifies them. In a trend that will accelerate, the ability to
control records at their source will lag considerably behind the ability to
create those records. In addition, cloud solutions are only the most
current version of "storage is cheap", and many organizations' response to
risk may be "keep everything" since that is easier and - initially anyways
- cheaper. Because of the economy, there is every incentive to make short
term gains and put off long term pain.

I think what archivists are doing right now in terms of acquiring and
appraising digital collections will inform records management practice in
this environment, particularly those of us who may be faced with growing
amounts of inactive/legacy digital content. In many ways, I'm convinced
that what archivists are doing right now to preserve our digital past is
going to have a big impact on how many of us address our digital future as
records managers.

I don't have a CA myself, but I employ someone who does, as I've always
appreciated the role archivists play in a public records environment, and,
increasingly, in our digital environment as well.

Perhaps its time for a digital "Hoover Commission".

-- 
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Multnomah County Records Management Program
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
ph: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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