University Park, PA -- A decade or so into the electronic-information revolution, who doesn't have at least a box, if not office drawers, full of computer disks that may contain important information? Software and hardware updates in many instances render these unreadable. Additionally, the ease of change that makes the Web such a timely information resource also overwrites and deletes the historical record.

Alarmed at the potential loss of important historical materials as well as legally mandated documents, the CIC University Archivists Group, recently approved a statement on Standards for an Electronic Records Policy. Penn Staters on the group included Jacqueline R. Esposito, Penn State University Archivist, and Leon J. Stout, head, Public Services and Outreach, in the University Libraries' Special Collections Library. Esposito explained, "The CIC, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, headquartered in Champaign, Illinois, is the academic consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. Its programs encompass nearly all aspects of university activity."

CIC archivists and records managers emphasize the critical importance of having electronic records addressed as an institutional policy issue. In developing the standards statement, they focused on identifying key components of an electronic records policy that could then be customized to meet individual CIC institutional settings, needs, and environments.

They envision the standards statement as the beginning of a series of documents on a variety of electronic records topics. For example, the group plans to development a series of 'talking point' documents designed to address a single electronic records topic and to be used to initiate discussions or simply describe baseline considerations about an issue or the implications of a particular technology application. Already, they have developed an initial document on Web-based learning systems and records-keeping issues.

They are focusing on an implementation strategy that will bring the standards to the attention of variety of CIC groups, such as institutional administrators, chief information officers, librarians, information-technology work teams, and others. It is particularly important that electronic records management policy standards become incorporated into strategic planning processes, specification documents, and other critical areas, so that academic institutions can identify and safeguard their official records and protect institutional liability.

The standards statement is available at: www-personal.umich.edu/~deromedi/CIC/cic.htm. For more information, contact Esposito at jre@psulias.psu.edu or 814-865-1793.