Luciana Duranti
This article discusses the problems and issues that have arisen with the widespread use of digital technology in the modern office, in particular those related to the trustworthiness of electronic records and to their permanent preservation. It defines the concepts of record reliability, authenticity and authentication; it outlines the principles that should guide the creation and management of reliable electronic records and the maintenance and preservation of authentic records; and it describes methods for the management of trustworthy electronic records in the context of two research projects undertaken by the archival scholars of the University of British Columbia, the first of which, known as the UBC-MAS project, was completed in collaboration with the US Department of Defense in 1994-97, and the second of which, known as InterPARES, is a multinational multidisciplinary collaboration begun in 1999 and nearing the completion of its first phase.