Developing electronic records capacity in the small collecting repository: the Documenting Internet2 Project

Abstract

What options are available to a small scale collecting repository when the core documentation in its primary subject area is no longer created in traditionally manageable formats? How well do traditional methods for appraising institutional records, which were developed in the context of stable, structured organizations, adapt to increasingly distributed, dynamic organizations whose records are primarily born-digital? For a collecting repository whose subject area is high technology, the problem feels particularly acute: the irony of trying to capture adequate documentation of developments in information technology in paper only is ever present. These questions were at the core of a collaborative project, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and administered by the University of Minnesota’s Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) Center for the History of Information Technology between 2003 and 2005. In this article, we describe a few of the methods, findings, and ideas for further exploration generated during “Documenting Internet2: A Collaborative Model for Developing Electronic Records Capacities in the Small Archival Repository.”