Metadata & ISO 9000 Compliance.

AT THE CORE

* Why metadata standards are an essential information management tool

* What are the goals of the Australian research project on recordkeeping metadata

* How ISO 9000 guidelines can serve as an effective blueprint for information management

New technologies, dynamic organizations, economic globalization, instantaneous communication, and a host of other forces are challenging records managers to adjust their traditional practices and procedures. Computers coupled to telecommunications networks affect how organizations do business, where they do business, when they do business, and how they capture and maintain evidence of their business actions.

Organizations wishing to compete in the modern marketplace often need to conduct business worldwide. They must be prepared, therefore, to comply with complex rules, regulations, and standards promulgated by international bodies. Advances in technology and globalization have changed organizations, work processes, and records, and, at the same time, altered the role of records managers.

These challenges also bring new possibilities. For example, international standards such as the ISO 9000 suite of quality standards highlight the essential role that records play in the operation of a quality company, in particular by providing essential evidence of the operation of quality systems. These standards "provide the first concrete evidence in decades that conventional records management is alive, necessary, and an integral part of 20th century business operations" (Brumm 1996).

The ISO 46/SC11 Committee is currently in the process of developing a records management standard in response to worldwide agreement to internationalize Australian Standard AS 4390 Records Management as a basis for international best practice. Among other things, the new records management standard is intended to play a special role in relation to ISO 9000 by providing a benchmark for the management of quality records, which are those records and documents used to demonstrate compliance with specific requirements and effective operation of a quality system.

Meeting the ISO 9000 requirements promotes the role of records managers while simultaneously testing traditional recordkeeping's methods and techniques. Information technology exacerbates problems of preserving records, but it also facilitates the development of techniques, tools, and, consequently, new responsibilities for records managers. For example, to ensure systems capture adequate metadata persistently linked with records, records managers will have to identify, prior to records creation, the specific types of metadata that reliable and authentic records require.

During the last few years a number of research projects have studied the types of metadata needed to create, manage, and make accessible quality records (i.e., reliable, authentic, and usable records). This article will briefly discuss the purposes of recordkeeping metadata with reference to emerging records management standards, and the models presented by two projects, one in the United States and one in Australia. It will also briefly review the ISO 9000 requirements for records and illustrate how metadata can help an organization meet these requirements.

Metadata

Metadata has been defined as simply "data about data" or "data concerning data characteristics and relationships" (Rob and Coronel 1995). This definition, which seems so elementary at first glance, disguises a complex but fundamentally important concept. Some individuals apply the definition narrowly while others include many different types of data under its rubric.

Systems designers have limited their use of the term to refer to the data held in data dictionaries and data directories. This type of data is quite basic. For example, data dictionaries generally contain information about the table, databases, indexes, and data elements. They usually include names, validation rules, display formats, all access authorizations, and relationships among the data elements. On the other hand, the Dublin Core Metadata initiative, which has developed a metadata standard for Internet resources, defines metadata far more broadly as "a description of an information resource."

According to the Dublin Core Guide (available at www.purl.org/ DC/documents/working_drafts/ wd-guide-current.htm), the term meta derives from a Greek word that means "denoting a nature of a higher order or more fundamental kind," such as metalanguage or metatheory. They posit that "metadata can serve a variety of purposes, from identifying a resource that meets a particular information need, to evaluating its suitability for use, to tracking the characteristics of resources for maintenance or usage over time." This definition embodies any information needed to locate the resource, maintain it over time, or to evaluate it.

The Australian Metadata Recordkeeping Project defines recordkeeping metadata very broadly to include "all standardized information that identifies, authenticates, describes, manages, and makes accessible through space and time documents created in the context of social and business activity."

This concept of recordkeeping metadata emerges from Australian records continuum thinking.(1) Records continuum approaches are based on establishing an integrated regime of records and archives management processes for the entirety of the record's existence. This includes iterative processes that capture and inextricably link authoritative metadata to documents created in the context of social and business activity from the time of their creation and throughout their life spans. The primary aim of these processes is to provide the intellectual and physical controls that enable reliable, authentic, meaningful, and accessible records to be carried forward through time within and beyond organizational boundaries for as long as they are needed for the multiple purposes they serve.

The Australian Metadata Recordkeeping Project also identified the following eight goals or purposes that metadata serves:

1. unique identification

2. authentication of records

3. persistence of records content, structure, and context (involving capturing and fixing their content in final form and format, ensuring that their structure can be preserved and represented, and maintaining sufficient organizational and functional context to preserve their meaning over time and beyond their limited context of creation)

4. administration of terms and conditions of access and disposal

5. tracking and documenting use history, including recordkeeping and archiving processes

6. enabling discovery, retrieval, and delivery for authorized users

7. restricting unauthorized use

8. assuring interoperability in networked environments(2)

The idea of metadata is not new to records managers. They have always captured metadata about their organizations' records in their records systems and related tools. For example, a records retention schedule contains information about each record series, such as classification number, title, office of origin, and retention period.

Records Management Standards

The aforementioned purposes of recordkeeping metadata were derived from analysis of a range of record-keeping standards and specifications of best practice, including the Australian Records Management Standard, AS 4390. This standard functions as a voluntary code of best practice applicable to all records (including electronic records) and all sectors. It incorporates a comprehensive methodology for designing and implementing recordkeeping systems and strategies for ensuring the creation and capture of records. It also specifies the attributes that records need to function effectively as evidence, drawing extensively in this regard on the Functional Requirements for Evidence developed by the University of Pittsburgh's Electronic Records Project (see www.sis.pitt.edu/~nhprc/prog1.html). The recordkeeping processes of appraisal and disposition, records control (registration, classification, indexing, and tracking), as well as storage and preservation requirements, are also specified.

The proposed international records management standard builds on and extends many of the features of AS 4390, including a statement of recordkeeping principles, provisions for the assignment of recordkeeping responsibilities, recordkeeping strategies, the design of recordkeeping systems, and an overview of the processes involved in creating and managing reliable, authentic, and usable records. The role envisaged for the new international standard in relation to the ISO 9000 series of quality standards is already being played by AS 4390 in Australia. According to David Roberts in "The New Australian Records Management Standard," a paper presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA), AS 4390 plays

   ... a special role for organizations certified, or seeking certification,
   under the AS/NZS ISO 9000 series of standards for quality systems. Under
   these standards, quality records must be kept to show conformance to
   specified requirements and the effective operation of a quality system.
   Quality records represent a crucial source of evidence for the
   certification process and the quality systems. Standards impose stringent
   recordkeeping requirements for this purpose. The Australian Standard ...
   serves as the benchmark for the management of quality records.(3)

Metadata standards are an important tool in establishing the kind of recordkeeping schema specified in these kinds of standards.

Metadata Projects

Traditionally, North American records managers have captured and managed metadata about records during the active or semi-active stage of the life cycle (i.e., after the creation of the record). The Australian continuum approach, which is closely related to registry system approaches in Europe, suggests that records managers should be concerned with managing metadata about records at (or even before) their creation as well as the iterative processes that add metadata throughout the record's life. This approach requires the identification and presentation of the metadata that supports recordkeeping through time and space in a formal, standardized way. Recently, two research projects have focused on doing just that.

The University of Pittsburgh Electronic Records Project proposed a model for a metadata encapsulated object that would ensure business-acceptable communication (BAC). The project participants developed their model by examining the laws, regulations, standards (including ISO 9000), and literature related to recordkeeping. They derived a comprehensive set of functional recordkeeping requirements based upon this literature or "warrant" as their called it. They expressed each requirement as a set of production rules from which they delineated the metadata elements needed to create, maintain, and use reliable and authentic records.

The project (see www.sis.pitt.edu/~nhprc) envisioned a-record object encapsulated by layers of information that serve different recordkeeping functions:

* The handle layer uniquely identifies the record and provides index terms that make the record retrievable.

* The terms-and-conditions layer contains instructions concerning access to the records, including restrictions imposed on access as well as retention information.

* The structure layer consists of metadata about data structure and information about software and hardware dependencies.

* The contextual layer identifies the provenance of the record (i.e., the person, system, or instrument that is responsible for generating the record).

* The content layer contains the content of the record.

* The use-history layer documents significant uses of the record subsequent to creation.

According to David Bearman, "Towards a Reference Model for Business Acceptable Communications" (available at www.sis.pitt.edu/ ~nhprc), the metadata "guarantees that the record will be usable over time, only accessible under the terms and conditions established by the creator, and has the properties required to be fully trustworthy for purposes of executing business." Furthermore, the metadata enables records to be legible, retrievable, and preserved across time.(4) Metadata also provides record retention and disposition information.

Recently, Australian researchers working on the Strategic Partnership with Industry -- Research and Training (SPIRT) Project have focused their attention on recordkeeping metadata. The project developed a recordkeeping metadata schema (RKMS) by "analyzing business, organizational and social contexts of recordkeeping, national, and international standards which specify recordkeeping requirements, and existing generic resource discovery and recordkeeping sector specific metadata schemes" (McKemmish and Acland 1999). The standards and specifications analyzed included the Australian Records Management Standard, AS 4390, the .University of Pittsburgh's functional requirements for recordkeeping with the related BAC model, and the electronic records templates developed by a University of British Columbia project (see www.slais.ubc.ca/users/duranti/), which also provided the basis for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2-STD Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (see http://jitcemh.army.mil/recmgt/dod50152.doc).

A conceptual model that places records in their business contexts was developed to provide a framework for the definition and standardization of a set of recordkeeping metadata (see Figure 1). The conceptual framework depicted in this figure can be described in this way:

   People do business with each other. In the course of doing business, they
   create and manage records. Optimally their recordkeeping actions form an
   integral part of the business activity. The records created in the course
   of doing business capture the business done in documentary form. Business
   is here defined in the very broadest sense to encompass social and
   organizational activity of all kinds ... People do business in social and
   organizational contexts that are governed by external mandates (e.g.,
   social mores, laws, regulations, standards, and best practice codes) and
   internal mandates (e.g., policies, administrative instructions,
   delegations, authorities). Mandates establish who is responsible for what,
   and they govern social and organizational activity, including the creation
   of full and accurate records. Authentic records of social and
   organizational activity provide evidence of that activity and function as
   corporate and collective memory. They also provide authoritative sources of
   value added information. And they account for the execution of the mandate
   -- internally and externally, currently and over time (McKemmish and Acland
   1999).

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

With reference to this high-level conceptual model, the RKMS is presented diagrammatically (see Figure 2) as essentially concerned with three classes of entities: business entities, people/agent entities, and records entities, "as well as with the complex relationships between them," and the external and internal mandates that are associated with business, people/agent, and records entities and govern the relationships between them. Furthermore, business recordkeeping entities form a subclass of the business entity class.

[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The RKMS envisions description and management of records, agents, and business at different layers of aggregation. A taxonomy of layers has been defined as represented in Figure 2.

A highly structured set of metadata elements and' qualifiers has been defined. It is broken down into four subsets, one for each of the entities and a recordkeeping business subclass. Each of the subsets delineate the elements needed to identify and describe the entity to which it relates. All of the subsets include the following elements: category type, identifier, title, date, mandate, place, functional classification, relation, abstract, and language. In addition, the business and recordkeeping business subsets include a business rules element and qualifiers; and the records subset, subject, documentary form, appraisal, control, preservation, retrieval, access, use, and event history elements.

The elements and qualifiers defined in the recordkeeping metadata schema identify and describe significant features of the business contexts in which records are created, managed, and used. They identify and describe the people or agents involved and the records themselves. They also link business contexts to the people or agents doing the business and the records that document it, and they reference the mandates that authorize and control business activity. The elements and qualifiers enable description and management of recordkeeping business functions, activities, and transactions that are concerned with recording, managing, and enabling the use of records. They also provide for the tracking and documenting of the recordkeeping business itself (through the event history element).

Many of the elements are consistent with other metadata sets such as the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) (see www.naa.gov.au/govserv/agls) or the Pittsburgh BAC. Furthermore, the sets are extensible (e.g., BAC structural layer elements could be used to extend the storage and retrieval elements in the RKMS).

A significant component of the research activity undertaken during the project was comparative analysis and conceptual mapping of the elements in existing best-practice generic records and archives metadata sets, and standards (e.g., the generic Dublin Core metadata set, the records management metadata in the DoD specification, and the archival descriptive metadata in ISAD [G]).

The mapping processes, which informed the development of the RKMS metadata set itself, point to one of the major uses of the schema -- as a framework in which other sets, targeted for application in specific sectors, can be developed and mapped. For example, the National Archives of Australia's Record-keeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies, released in June 1999 (see www.naa.gov.au/gov serv/agls), was developed within this framework and can be mapped against the more comprehensive RKMS. Equivalencies and correspondence can thus be made between it and other metadata sets, each one being read against the standardized metadata framework provided by the SPIRT schema.

The preservation of reliable, authentic, and meaningful records depends in part upon the maintenance of essential metadata. Therefore, metadata is a vital tool in helping an organization fulfill the recordkeeping specifications required by external bodies, including compliance with ISO 9000 requirements.

ISO 9000

ISO 9000 is an international standard for organizing and documenting processes and procedures used to establish a quality system for organizations of all types and sizes. The purpose of the guidelines, first published in 1987 and revised in 1994, is that of improving the quality of products and services while increasing productivity and reducing costs. They provide a mechanism and structure for building and maintaining a system of excellence that internal staff and external clients and users can depend upon and trust.

ISO 9000 guidelines serve as an effective blueprint for management since they specify the types of procedures and documentation that a company must develop, the records or evidence it must create, as well as the training and measurement that a company must conduct on an ongoing basis if it hopes to do business with other ISO 9000 registered organizations. In the decade since its publication, the standard has received worldwide acceptance, with many governments and industries adopting it outright. More than 80 countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Japan, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have adopted the ISO-9000 series (see www.inforamp.net/~qmi/iso-9000.htm).

This standard has increased the importance and profile of many records management programs. Organizations have always kept records, but prior to ISO 9000 many managers considered them merely a necessary evil instead of an essential component of a quality system. Schuler, Dunlap and Schuler's partially tongue-in-cheek summary of ISO 9000 philosophy demonstrates the importance of records: "If it moves, train it. If it doesn't move, calibrate it. If it's not written down, it didn't happen." This short credo identifies the three pillars of any quality system: training, measurement, and documentation.

A quality system requires three different types of documentation: records of business processes, documentation of the business rules that control the business processes, and systems documentation. Records emanate from business processes; therefore they serve as objective evidence of the activities and transactions that support the creation of products or the provision of services. Records provide impartial testimony of the characteristics of those products and services. A quality record "furnishes evidence of the quality of items and/or activities affecting quality" (Brumm 1997).

Documents, on the other hand, tell employees what to do, as well as chronicle how the organization plans to proceed. They contain the business rules that an organization establishes for conducting the business process. Documents include written "procedures, policies, instructions, or other written or graphically depicted methods or ways of conducting oneself or the operations in a given organization" (Brumm 1997).

Rather than emanating from products and services, documents control the processes that produce the products and services. Of course, insofar as managing these documents is itself a business process of the organization, there is a record keeping component to the activity which involves preserving master copies of these documents and evidence of their modification, updating, and authorization. Finally, organizations require systems documentation that describes how the systems work.

References to records and documents appear throughout the guidelines and in some cases the two terms are used interchangeably. Unfortunately, ISO 9000 is not always consistent and sometimes uses the term document to mean record. For example, clause 4.6.3 states that "purchasing documents shall contain data clearly describing the product order." Purchasing documents, in this section, refer to business records that emanate from the process of purchasing.

ISO 9000 guidelines provide specifications that relate to the creation and maintenance of quality records. Although records and documents are mentioned throughout the guidelines, two sections provide very detailed requirements for creating and keeping records: clause 4.16 discusses quality records and section 4.5 relates to document and data control.

Clause 4.16 requires that "the supplier shall establish and maintain documented procedures for identification, collection, indexing, access, filing, storage, maintenance and disposition of quality records." It goes on to say that "all quality records shall be legible and identifiable to the product involved. Quality records shall be stored in such a way that they are readily retrievable in facilities that provide a suitable environment to minimize deterioration or damage and to prevent loss."

Clause 4.16 requires the supplier to

* identify, collect, index, store, and access quality records

* prevent loss or damage of quality records

* establish and record retention times of the records

* ensure the records are available for evaluation

* ensure the records are legible and identifiable to the product

Section 4.5, Document and Data Control, delineates the requirements for creating and maintaining documents, such as procedure manuals.

Clause 4.5.2, Document and Data Approval and Issue, requires that "document and data shall be reviewed and approved by authorized personnel prior to issue. A master list or equivalent document control procedure identifying the current revision status of the documents ... This control shall ensure that: (a) the pertinent issues of appropriate documents are available at all locations where operations essential to the effective functioning of the quality system are performed; (b) invalid and/or obsolete documents are promptly removed from all points of issue or use; (c) all obsolete documents retained for legal and/or knowledge-preservation purposes are suitably identified ..."

Clause 4.5.3, Document and Data Changes, specifies that "document and data shall be reviewed and approved by the same function/ organization that performed the original review."

Clause 4.5.2 requires that a master list of all documents, which identifies the current revision status of all documents, be established and readily available; that all documents are available when required; and that obsolete documents are either removed or protected from inadvertent use. Clause 4.5.3 provides guidance on document changes to ensure that any modifications go through the same approval process as document creation. Only authorized individuals can approve changes. These individuals are usually the same people who provided the original approval.

Many organizations find the requirements related to managing quality records difficult to meet. Numerous surveys have found that the primary reason that companies fail to gain certification is due to records-related problems. Hoyle points out that "the requirements for the storage of quality records are more onerous than for the storage of products ... products can be replaced, whereas records can not. Records are results of an event that has taken place. Unless one can repeat the event, lost records are lost for good" (Hoyle 1996). Controlling and managing documents also present challenges. Lamprecht suggests that of all the ISO 9000 specifications "the most difficult paragraphs to comply with (at least for many companies) deal with document approval, issue, changes, and modifications" (Lamprecht 1992).

Electronic recordkeeping and metadata can help alleviate many of these problems. Brumm states: "With optical disk, the speed of access to records is vastly improved, with access times varying from one second to several minutes. Also, multiple users in different locations have access to the same record simultaneously" (Brumm 1995).

Metadata and ISO 9000

As previously noted, electronic recordkeeping provides both opportunities and challenges for records managers who work for ISO 9000 companies. Systems need to capture the appropriate metadata to meet ISO 9000 requirements and to gain the advantages envisioned by Brumm. An examination of the link between one of the metadata models, the BAC, and the recordkeeping requirements outlined in ISO 9000 reveals the valuable role metadata plays in fulfilling these requirements.

The first layer of the BAC, the handle layer, consists of two types of information: the record identification metadata and the information content discovery metadata. This layer provides information that ensures that the record meets two of the ISO 9000 requirements -- that is that records are identifiable and accessible. The Transaction-Domain-Identifier characterizes the type of product or service that the record emanated from and the organizational unit that created it. The Transaction-Instance-Identifier captures the date and time, and provides a number that uniquely identifies the record.

The Information-Discovery-Content metadata include descriptors or indexing terms needed to make the record retrievable. It also identifies the indexing standard that was used and the language of the record. This element ensures that the record is indexed and accessible.

The terms and conditions layer includes four metadata sections: Restrictions Status, Access Conditions, Use Conditions, and Disposition Requirements. The Disposition Requirements metadata contain retention and disposition information and provide a citation to the retention policy. This section ensures that the system establishes and records the retention times for all records

ISO 9000 dictates that records must be legible, which means that records are capable of being read or deciphered. For paper records, legibility requires that the print or handwriting is readable. Electronic records exist only as a series of electronic impulses or signals, so an organization must have access to the appropriate hardware and software to translate the digital code into human-readable symbols.

The legibility of the record relies upon information about hardware, applications software, or operating systems dependencies. Furthermore, the system needs to know about any encoding (e.g., ASCII or UNICODE), any methods of encryption or compression if applicable, and any other standards that the record complies with (e.g., SGML). Therefore, the system requires both the record and metadata about its hardware and software environment to meet the ISO 9000 requirement of legibility.

Moreover, all records have a structure, one which is the form or format that organizes or structures the content of the record and makes it understandable. In a paper world, this information is presented implicitly though the layout of the record or the physical format. For example, a letter normally contains the addressee at the top of the letter and the sender's name at the bottom. We understand who sent and who received the letter because of its physical layout. This information may also be provided explicitly through the use of terms such as "To" or "From" in a memo.

The structure of an electronic record display is often a view controlled by software functionality (Dollar 1992). Electronic records may carry structural information in pointers that link physically or logically distinct chunks of information. The elements may be kept in separate files, but metadata makes it possible to bring the files together and render them on a screen. The system needs metadata that describes the record structure so it can render the record as required.

The structural layer of the BAC identifies the types of information that might be needed to make an electronic record readable or legible over time. Moreover, this metadata would help guard against loss of information when records are migrated between software environments.

The contextual layer provides information about the transaction that created the record, including the product or service that the record documents. This layer helps fulfill the requirement that the records are identifiable to or associated with the product involved. It also identifies the specific policies and/or procedures controlling the product or service and therefore fulfills the requirements to document procedures.

The final two layers of metadata, content and use history, refer to the content of the record and specify an audit trail that captures information about the use of the record. The use history layer demonstrates that the records have been kept in a way that diminishes any risk of damage or unauthorized alteration. This layer could also help meet the requirements for document control.

Quality records provide many advantages for organizations and can help companies meet the ISO 9000 certification. Systems must be designed, however, to create the appropriate metadata to ensure they comply with recordkeeping requirements, particularly-those identified by records management standards such as AS 4390 and the proposed international standard, which provide benchmarks for recordkeeping best practice.

The Pittsburgh metadata model and the SPIRT framework provide organizations with standardized sets of metadata that would ensure the creation, preservation, and accessibility of reliable, authentic, and meaningful records for as long as they are of use.

In deciding what metadata to capture, organizations should consider the cost of meeting the requirements of the ISO 9000 guidelines and any related records management best-practice standards -- along with the possible risks of not meeting these requirements.

Endnotes

(1) For more information on records continuum thinking, see www.sims. monash.edu.au/rcrg. See also Frank Upward, "Structuring the Records Continuum Part One: Post-custodial Principles and Properties," Archives and Manuscripts 24, no. 2 (November 1996): 268-285 and "Structuring the Records Continuum Part Two: Structuration Theory and Recordkeeping," Archives and Manuscripts 25, no. 1 (May 1997): 10-35.

(2.) The SPIRT (Strategic Partnership with Industry -- Research & Training) Support Grant was funded by the Australian Research Council and the National Archives of Australia, New South Wales State Records Authority, Queensland State Archives, Australian Council of Archives, and the Records Management Association of Australia. The project's chief investigators were Sue McKemmish, Monash University, and Ann Pederson, University of New South Wales, with Industry Partner Chief Investigator Steve Stuckey of the National Archives of Australia. See the project Web site at www.sims.monash.edu.au/rcrg/spirt/ index.html for more details relating to the project.

(3) For a discussion of the significance of the standard, see David O. Stephens and David Roberts, "From Australia: the World's First National Standard for Records Management," Records Management Quarterly 30, no. 4 (October 1996): 3-7.

(4) Some have questioned whether the BAC specification contains sufficient contextual metadata to guarantee that the record will be usable over time because the context layer really only deals with the immediate business context of the record.

REFERENCES

ANSI/ISO/ASQC Q9001-1994. Quality Systems -- Model for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Servicing. Milwaukee: ISO 1994.

ASME NQA 1-1994. Quality Assurance Requirements for Nuclear Facilities Applications quoted in Eugenia Brumm, "Beyond Compliance Managing Records for Increased Protection." The ISO 9000 Handbook, ed. Robert W. Peach. Chicago: Irwin, 1997.

Brumm, Eugenia. "Beyond Compliance Managing Records for Increased Protection." The ISO 9000 Handbook, ed. Robert W. Peach. Chicago: Irwin, 1997.

--. Managing Records for ISO 9000 Compliance. Milwaukee: ASQC Quality Press, 1995.

--. "The Marriage of Quality Standards and Records Management." Records Management Quarterly 30 (April 1996): 11.

Dollar, Charles. Archival Theory and Information Technologies: The Impact of Information on Archival Principles and Methods. Macerta, Italy: University of Macerta, 1992.

Hoyle, David. ISO 9000 Quality Assessment Handbook. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996.

Lamprecht, David. Implementing IS09000. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1992.

McKemmish, Sue and Glenda Acland. "Accessing Essential Evidence on the Web: Towards an Australian Recordkeeping Metadata Standard." Available at (http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw99/_archive/aw99/papers/mckemmish (accessed 17 December 1999).

Rob, Peter and Carlos Coronel. Database Systems: Design, Implementation and Management, 2nd ed. Danvers, MA: Boyd & Fraser, 1995.

Schuler, Charles, Jesse Dunlap and Katharine Schuler. ISO 9000: Manufacturing, Software and Service. Albany: Delmar, 1996.

Standards Australia. AS4390-1996, Australian Standard: Records Management. Available at www.standards.org.au/ (accessed 17 December 1999).

Wendy Duff is an assistant professor on the faculty of information studies at the University of Toronto. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. While doing her doctoral work, she was the project coordinator for the University of Pittsburgh Electronic Recordkeeping Project. She has 15 years of experience in the information management field and has written numerous articles on various aspects of archival description, electronic records, and access to archival material. She is presently co-investigator for a digitization and access project on usage analysis funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is chair of the Canadian Committee on Archival Description and a member of the Encoded Archival Description Working Group. Her primary research and teaching interests are metadata, user studies, archival description, records management and electronic records, and finding aids. She may be reached at [e-mail].

Sue McKemmish is an associate professor in the School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She has the M.A. Graduate Diploma, Librarianship and 25 years' experience in the management of organizational information resources with a focus on electronic recordkeeping and recordkeeping metadata. She has helped develop innovative, integrated, multidisciplinary approaches to records management, archival, and information management education at postgraduate and undergraduate levels within the framework provided by records continuum and information continuum theory. She was principal chief investigator for the 1998-99 SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Research Project, is director of the Records Continuum Research Group within SIMS, and a research associate of the new Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology National Collaborative Research Center. She may be reached at [e-mail].