ARCH-COM 2002-02
26 April 2002
40th
Meeting of the Archive Committee
Present: G. Veneziano (Chairman) (GV); L. Camilleri (LC); A. Hollier (Secretary) (AH); C. Onions
(CO); C. Pettenati (CP);
F. Costa (FC); J. Karlson-Forestier (JKF); M. Desnyder-Ivesdal (MDI);
C. Montuelle (CM); C. Nuttall; T. Pettersson (TP); B. Pollermann (BP); L.
Symons (LS); F. Thizy (FT);
Apologies: X. Daney (XD);
J-M. Laurent (J-ML); S. Maio (SM)
Agenda (as approved at
the meeting)
1. Minutes of last meeting
(ARCH-COM 2001-04)
2. Chairman’s report (G. Veneziano)
3. Progress report
October 2001 - March 2002 (A. Hollier)
4. Record-keeping in the
Divisions and Experiments:
ST Division (L. Symons)
5. Proposed presentation to the Management Board on Long-Term Electronic Archiving (B. Pollermann)
6. AOB
7. Next meeting
1. Minutes of last meeting (ARCH-COM 2001-04)
The minutes were approved with one typing error noted in the 3rd line
of item two.
2. Chairman’s report (G. Veneziano)
The Chairman opened the meeting by welcoming two new DROs and thanking
their predecessors: Martine
Desnyder-Ivesdal replaces Peter Jenni (ATLAS) and Charles Nuttall replaces
Antonella Vignes (TIS). GV reported
that he now has the names of several potential project leaders for the next
phase of the Photo Captions Project (1975 - 1984) and discussions are underway
with them.
The presentation to the Management Board of the final report of the
Working Group on Long-Term Electronic Archiving was postponed, but it is hoped
that it will now take place on 25 April.
3. Progress report October
2001 - March 2002 (A. Hollier)
AH reported that a new student, Marc Reymond, joined the Archive team in November 2001 for a period of one year, working 3 days a week. He will work mainly on the Pauli Archive. The Pauli photo collection is now available on the CERN Document Server (CDS), and includes around 200 pictures of Wolfgang Pauli and others.
There have been around 7,000 new entries
to the Archive database over the last six months. This compares with 1,500 for
the previous six months and 3,000 for the period before that. 5,000 of these (partially uploaded from an
earlier database) related to a special project to identify in more detail the
SPS documents held in the Archive. This
was done to help SL division with a clearout of their library, and allowed gaps
to be filled in the Archive collection, while enabling SL to free space by
destroying duplicates.
Apart from the SPS collection, the main CERN collections treated during
this period include PS, DELPHI, the DD and CN divisions, and CHARM.
Only as small number of new accessions were received over this period:
AH thanked Anne-Marie Bugge who had sent a small collection of records of the
Directors of Research, and Wolfgang Tejessy, who sent some records and also
arranged a visit by AH to assess the ALEPH archive.
Just over 40 enquiries to the Archive were answered over the last six months, compared with 70 for the previous period. In addition, AH prepared an exhibition of archive material to accompany the Signatures of the Invisible exhibition (on display at the Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, until 12 May).
AH regretted that she had not yet arranged individual meetings with all
the DROs in order to discuss record-keeping issues particular to their
area. This was the procedure agreed
after the DRO meeting last year, and will provide an opportunity to address
specific concerns. She asked all the
DROs to contact her to propose dates that would suit them for an initial
meeting.
AH also gave a summary of ISO 15489: Information and documentation - Records management, which became an international standard in October 2001. It is adapted from the Australian national standard, and is the result of long discussion by experts worldwide. The standard applies to the management of records in all formats or media, created or received by any public or private organization in the conduct of its activities. It provides guidance on determining organizations’ responsibilities for records, and on the design and implementation of a records system. It outlines some of the benefits of records management, and speaks of the need for clearly defined policies and responsibilities. The objective is the creation and management of authentic, reliable and useable records for as long as they are required. The policy should be endorsed at the highest level and promulgated throughout the organisation, and it should be derived from an analysis of business activities.
The standard is accompanied by a Technical Report, which gives more
detail about implementation. Both are
available in the Library’s standards collection on CDS, and AH can provide
summaries in French, if required.
4. Record-keeping in the
Divisions and Experiments:
ST Division (L. Symons)
LS explained that it had been necessary to find a suitable way of
keeping control of the mixture of inter-related paper and electronic records
handled by ST Division. This work was
partly linked to compliance with Quality Assurance procedures. It is also important because documents may
be required for litigation purposes, and CERN could suffer considerable
financial loss if the correct records were not available when needed. However, it was considered unnecessary to
centralise the records themselves (a measure which may not have been popular
with the records creators and users).
Instead a comprehensive index was created using FileMaker Pro, so that
records could be identified regardless of where they are kept. For paper documents the location field gives
the number of the office in which they are stored, and for electronic documents
it gives their identifying number in EDMS.
LS gave a demonstration of the FileMaker Pro database, which is
designed to be user-friendly. Fields
used include identifying reference numbers, document type, date, creator and
recipient, and subject keywords. Some
fields are free text, in order to allow users maximum freedom, while others,
such as document type, are limited to authorised lists of terms. TP was concerned that too many terms were
allowed, and it did not conform to the list authorised for EDMS. LS replied that it used the authorised
terms, but there were also some others because the system covered a broader
range of documents than EDMS, and had been designed before it. After some specific questions, the
discussion widened and showed a general feeling that, in principle, it would be
better to have a comprehensive approach for use throughout CERN, and that this
would lessen the need for the development of local solutions to meet the
specific business needs.
5.
Proposed presentation to the Management Board on Long-Term Electronic
Archiving (B. Pollermann)
BP recapped the points to be included in the presentation of the final
report of the working group on long-term electronic archiving (already
described at the Oct. 2001 Archive Committee meeting). They include:
He requested feedback on the best way to present the conclusions to the
Management Board on 25 April. He feared
that the subject might be regarded as too complicated and insufficiently
urgent. He felt it was important to
stress that information was being lost now, and that better management would
reduce waste of resources. The
discussion that followed included a number of suggestions on the presentation,
as well as on certain implementation aspects, such as the various possibilities
for capturing and filtering e-mails. BP
said that many refinements to the suggested e-mail solution were technically
possible, but these would tend to increase its cost and complexity. He felt that it was important to minimise
the effort required from the user.
CP expressed his satisfaction that the electronic archiving project had
made such good progress under BP’s chairmanship, and stressed that the
opportunity must not be lost to implement the recommendations. GV seconded this.
6. AOB
GV said
he had been informed that CERN’s collection of historic objects is under threat
due to inadequate storage conditions.
The collection includes many pieces from the LEP machine and
experiments, wire chambers, and other pieces of historical interest; for full
details see:
http://microcosm.web.cern.ch/Microcosm/objects/home.html
The
items are available for loan, and are borrowed by museums all over Europe where
they help communicate CERN’s work to visitors in the Member States.
However,
the Microcosm has been forced to reduce its storage area, and no suitable
alternative has yet been found. The ETT
division is attempting to provide a temporary solution to shelter the objects,
but meanwhile certain items are at risk from rain damage. A good, longer-term solution would be
preferable, and suggestions would be very welcome. The Archive Committee urges
CERN’s management to make every effort to provide c. 40 m2 of
suitable
storage space in order to ensure the survival of this valuable collection.
7. Next meeting
Friday, October 11 at 2.30pm in Salle B (61/1-009)