Information Society, E-Records and the New Archival Science

Abstract

The study shows how information society is reflected in e-records (volatility, dynamism, mixed private and public spheres), how it transformed the records themselves (no physical aspect, complicated structure, separated elements), and how it conquered the human memory. The basic dilemma of long term preservation is that erecords are dependent upon hardware and software which change rapidly, therefore we are unable to preserve them unchanged. The study talks shortly about integrity and authenticity of e-records which are basic requirements, and then outlines the major preservation strategies (migration, emulation, technology preservation, post-custodial archives, cloud computing) used by archives. In the digital world archival science adopted a lot from information science which caused that standards (ISADg, EAD, OAIS) are the new milestones of archival science. The greatest „yield” of this cooperation is that the data management and procedures are automatable. However, archivists must keep their classical synthetic work in digital world, too: to know and describe the record creator agency, its economic, political and societal environment, to build the system of fonds, etc.