Public Policy, Advocacy, and the Web. Archivists and other records professionals have long been interested in the public perception of their work and societal value, but this has only begun to be translated into specific actions to change both perception and policy. The Society of American Archivists has become more active in issuing policy statements, including a section on its Web Site for “position statements and resolutions.” For example, SAA issued a “Statement On Copyright Issues for Archives in Distance Education” on February 5, 1999 (http://www.archivists.org/statements/distance_education.html). Other professional associations connected with archivists and records managers seem not to have taken a more active stance with policy statements.

However, when we compare what our professional associations have done in terms of advocacy with other policy groups, we will find them wanting. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/), with a mission to protect free speech and personal privacy in the digital era, provides much greater resources than any of what are provided by the archival and records management professional associations with more news, supporting documents, and other resources. One state organization, The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (http://www.privacyrights.org/) provides advice to Californians about how to protect their personal privacy, including a number of online publications. One of its fact sheets is entitled From Cradle to Grave: Government Records and Your Privacy (http://www.privacyrights.org/FS/fs11-pub.htm). There are lessons to be learned by looking at how these organizations are using the World Wide Web to advocate their views about public policy, legislation, legal cases, and other similar matters.

There are many policy centers, from all spots on the political spectrum, investigating the impact of the Internet and other electronic media on society, such as the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania (http://www.appcpenn.org/), RAND (http://www.rand.org/), and The Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/). Some of these have produced research on public policy issues related to records management, such as RAND’s 1996 Electronic Information Media and Records Management Methods: A Survey of Practices in UN Organizations by Tora K. Bikson and Sally Ann Law, considering “four main content areas related to problems of records management in an electronic information environment: (1) the roles of three electronic media--telex, facsimile, and electronic mail--in organizational information handling systems; (2) the properties of computer-based information exchange among organizations that have introduced electronic mail; (3) associated technology options and constraints, as well as standards that have been adopted or are being considered; and (4) policies, guidelines, training programs, and plans UN organizations are implementing with respect to electronic records management issues.” However, it is the policy centers directly focused on information technology that records professionals need to follow.

That policy and the Web go together can be discerned from examining The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org/), a “non-profit, non-governmental, international, professional membership organization” focusing on standards, education, and policy issues. This group’s mission statement -- "To assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world" – is explained to suggest that the Internet is for everyone, “proving to be one of the most powerful amplifiers of speech ever invented” and “becoming the repository of all we have accomplished as a society.” The Internet Society includes considerable information regarding its basic principles of “open, unencumbered, beneficial use,” no censorship, no “excessively restrictive governmental or private controls,” an “open forum for the development of standards and Internet technology,” and other issues. Records professionals can see in these matters points of mutual concern, but they should also see the need to develop policy statements with a particular focus on the Web and records. Legal issues, especially intellectual property, have become a major driving force in recent discussions about the Web, with many implications for records professionals. The UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/hp.html) has as its goals the following: “To provide resources for academics, practitioners, students, and interested ‘netizens’; To help generate solutions to problems that are arising in cyberspace; To identify compelling legal and policy issues in this area; To further the development of Cyberspace Law as a separate discipline; To provide a vehicle for the dissemination of new ideas; [and] To help foster the growth of new electronic communities in this area.” Along with news on legal matters, it regularly updates a Cyberspace Law Bibliography, an excellent resource for records professionals needing to reflect on the larger context of the legal implications of electronic records management. Many of the citations can be accessed online.

Both of these sites should make records professionals desire such resources related to their particular interests. There are some Web sites that are quite valuable for the notion of records and public policy. The General Accounting Office (http://www.gao.gov/) is the “investigative arm of Congress. GAO's mission is to help the Congress oversee federal programs and operations to assure accountability to the American people. GAO's evaluators, auditors, lawyers, economists, public policy analysts, information technology specialists, and other multi-disciplinary professionals seek to enhance the economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and credibility of the federal government both in fact and in the eyes of the American people. GAO accomplishes its mission through a variety of activities including financial audits, program reviews, investigations, legal support, and policy/program analyses. GAO is dedicated to good government through its commitment to the values of accountability, integrity, and reliability.” Examples of records management reports which can be accessed include Records Management: Inadequate Controls Over Various Agencies' Political Appointee Files (Letter Report, 07/13/94, GAO/NSIAD-94-155), summary available at http://frwebgate2.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=2071818440+7+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve; IRS Records: Inconsistencies Between Statutes Affects Records Appraisal(Letter Report, 10/02/97, GAO/GGD-98-4), available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=gg98004.txt&directory=/diskb/wais/data/gao; and National Archives: Preserving Electronic Records in an Era of Rapidly Changing Technology (Letter Report, 07/19/1999, GAO/GGD-99-94), available at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=162.140.64.21&filename=gg00024t.txt&directory=/diskb/wais/data/gao.

Perhaps the Web site most directly related to public policy and recordkeeping is for the National Security Archive (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/). According to the site, the “National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions in one non-governmental, non-profit institution. The Archive is simultaneously a research institute on international affairs, a library and archive of declassified U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information through the FOIA, and an indexer and publisher of the documents in books, microfiche, and electronic formats. The Archive's approximately $1.5 million per year budget comes from publication revenues and from private philanthropists such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. The National Security Archive was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars who had obtained documentation from the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act and sought a centralized repository for these materials. Over the years, the Archive has become the world's largest non-governmental library of declassified documents. Located on the seventh floor of the George Washington University's Gelman Library in Washington, D.C., the Archive is designed to apply the latest in computerized indexing technology to the massive amount of material already released by the U.S. government on international affairs, make them accessible to researchers and the public, and go beyond that base to build comprehensive collections of documents on specific topics of greatest interest to scholars and the public.”

The National Security Archive’s Web site is rich for records professionals. A document of the month is profiled, such as the "Memorandum of Agreement” between President Bush and Archivist of the United States, Don Wilson, “during the morning hours of Inauguration Day, January 20, 1993. This memo may, in fact, have been George Bush's last official act at the White House.” “Among other highly questionable assertions, the Bush-Archives agreement unlawfully removes what are indisputably agency records from the control of the agencies involved, and purports to give Mr. Bush control over future access not just to the records, as the law defines them, but to the ‘information’ in them or derived from them.” The Archive includes “Electronic Briefing Books” with “online access to critical declassified records on specific issues, including U.S. national security, foreign policy, military history, intelligence policy, and more.” At its site you can find information about how to use the Freedom of Information Act. There are also online exhibitions and information about how to search in and use the Archive’s holdings. The National Security Archive is a rare program in that it provides research materials as well as serves as a prime example of an advocate for the importance of records in society and government.

The Web is also extremely useful for providing considerable information about high-profile cases concerning records, such as in the continuing controversies about the litigation against the American tobacco companies and the assets of Holocaust victims. The important book about the tobacco case, with many implications for how records are managed, is now available in an online version. Stanton A. Glantz, John Slade, Lisa A. Bero, Peter Hanauer, and Deborah E. Barnes, The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996) can now be accessed at http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/cigpapers/. This site provides additional linkages to records related to the case. There are numerous other Web sites with information about records in the continuing tobacco case. The State Archives Department of the Minnesota Historical Society, for example, provides a site with information on how to use the “four million documents, comprising over 25 million pages of paper, as well as video and audio tapes, that were collected in the course of the suit” of the State of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota against the tobacco companies (http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/Tobacco.html). We can find similar resources on the Holocaust case. The National Archives and Records Administration created a special Web site to facilitate research on this matter in its records (http://www.nara.gov/research/assets/) with finding aids, unpublished research papers, and other resources. Similarly, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a site for international activities of Holocaust-era assets (http://www.ushmm.org/assets/index.html). Coupling such Web sites with the ability to follow current news about such cases, and we can easily see how the World Wide Web provides a powerful mechanism for policy information, discussion, and advocacy.