Owen,

You are a continual surprise to me.  In my wildest dreams, I hadn't placed myself on the same e-mail distribution as ted@xanadu.net and these distinguished contributors.

I have been looking at your summary.  I readily align with what I read into it as an underlying manifesto: that the peoples records (including documents and data and other forms for capturing coordinated human activity) are preserved for access and reuse without impediments.  In this vein, we desire that those who operate in the public interest -- in government and elsewhere -- have technologies that serve full accountability and that afford unparalleled levels of visibility and usability across time and space. 

At a grounded, practical level, I see three areas:

1.      Demonstrating practical records management with available and emerging tools.  Tools that preserve what is familiar and used today in forms that are durable for access, faithful presentation, with derivative usage afforded as much and as long as one desires.  I see two sub-themes here.  First, having records in forms that are publicly established and freely usable, independent of the private, proprietary or public characteristics of the tools employed to create, store, access, comprehend, and manipulate the content carried in those forms.  Secondly, having open, fully-disclosed implementations of essential tools for those operations such that there is always a path onto new platforms and media that preserves the value of legacy materials and ensures continuing usability of material in established, public forms as long as necessary.
        I say that what we are seeing with XML, with WebDAV, and with open-source tools such as those available through W3C, OASIS, and other sources. 
        This is very important, not only for giving us a grasp on practical day-to-day concerns sometimes most-easily explored in the small, but in creating a level of shared experience around what it is like to seriously take on accountable preservation of the record of enterprise.

2.      Looking at what must be kept and preserved *about* records that supports accessibility, interchange, convertibility and so on to the degree that time, space, and the obsolescence of media, equipment, software and other platform specifics force us to comprehend.  It is not clear to me that we have a grip on the subtleties of data about records and questions of semantics (or intent) versus syntax (or form).  I certainly thing that work on metadata interchange is leading us to where we are beginning to understand the question.  Again, the provision of open mechanisms, public formats, and assured existence of some covering set of tools that are themselves public property become important.

3.      Finally there is the area that people more visionary than I are continuing to extend.  That has to do with novel (still) arrangements that involve the intimate incorporation of records, as we might think of them, activity itself (and probably vice versa).  Where, to put it badly, the activity is the record (and probably vice versa).  These may cast content in quite different forms, and deal with questions about the many views and structures of content that not only exist side by side, but that are themselves dynamic, growing expanses of information about the topics and activities that concern us.  Xanadu struck me as an instrument of this level of vision and I disqualify myself from having anything more to say that hasn't already been said better.

My interest.

The work that I support on AIIM DMware is situated, for me, in (1) and, very slowly, (2).  I see one as essential for providing the particulars that demonstrate why we are looking to (2) and (3), and what the barriers are that have headway in these areas be non-trivial.  Although once we find an appropriate perspective on metadata and content structures, perhaps it will end up seeming obvious and almost trivial after all.  One would hope.

I shall now blush and quietly step away from the pulpit.

Owen, is this what you are looking for from us?

-- Dennis

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-----Original Message-----
From: Owen_Ambur@fws.gov
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 14:26
To: Kathy_Moran@idg.com
Cc: ejw@cse.ucsc.edu; ted@xanadu.net; infonuovo@email.com;
MORRISR1@LEAVENWORTH.ARMY.MIL; Michael.Todd@osd.mil;
lewis.bellardo@nara.gov
Subject: Re: Federal Open Source Conference - Records Management & XML



Kathy, per your request, here's a quick first-draft synopsis of the session
I'd like to lead ... IF we can find some folks who are willing and able to
share some degree of pertinent knowledge and wisdom with us at the Federal
open-source conference:

"Simply finding records for internal business purposes -- much less
responding to FOIA requests and subpoenas in litigation -- is far more
cumbersome, time-consuming, and costly than it should be.  Moreover, at the
root of virtually every scandal as well as every program management
inefficiency criticized by GAO is an ineffective records management system.
Indeed, "accountability" was by far the top benefit of eGovenment cited by
members of the public in a poll conducted by Hart-Teeter for the Council on
Excellence in Government.  Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has observed
that the hype surrounding rapidly evolving technology has diverted
attention from the basic need to manage records effectively.  ISO 15489
highlights the conceptual requirements for records management that are
applicable to all organizations, worldwide, and DoD Std. 5015.2 specifies
the legal and technical requirements that are applicable by law to all U.S.
federal agencies.  Various COTS products have been certified under the
5015.2 standard; however, the standard does not provide for
interoperability and all of the certified products are proprietary in
nature.  This session will explore the needs and potentials for: a) an
XML-enhanced, open-source alternative certified for Federal (We the
People's) records management purposes, and b) internationalization of the
5015.2 standard as a logical extension of ISO 15489 to provide testable and
implementable interoperability specifications for records management on the
World Wide Web."

I'm copying a few folks who might be able to help us determine whether
sufficient knowledge and wisdom might be available for presentation at the
conference so as to justify scheduling of such a session.

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