Few people have considered the ramification of recording oral history interviews on videotape. By 1970 development of videotape, field cameras, and video recorders had made video recording available as a tool to historians. A video recording of an interview can help scholars observe and understand the environment and the nonverbal elements of the interview, including the interviewee's appearance and body language. Unfortunately, because of confusion and competition in the video industry, archivists and scholars must choose among many video formats of varying quality and applicability.

Confronted with the sheer mass of records created by modern bureaucracies, archivists have employed sampling, both as a tool to determine the research potential of records and as an appraisal device. The term sampling as used in archival literature usually means either to cull from a large records series the most significant files or documents (subjective sampling) or to select statistically a small portion from a large universe that will accurately reflect all important aspects of the larger universe (statistical sampling). The former method has been employed for a generation and has been applied in those records series in which only the exceptional case is worthy of preservation. Statistical sampling, on the other hand, has been used to capture the typical cases in a series. The effectiveness of either method, and indeed the decision to sample itself, must always be rooted in the professional judgment of those archivists most familiar with the historical value of the materials they administer.

The founders of the Society of American Archivists faced tremendous challenges as they attempted to standardize archival practices through educational programs. They grappled with problems that still plague us. When the National Archives was founded, standardized training was seriously discussed. Samuel Flagg Bemis was appointed to chair the first SAA Committee on Education and Training. Beginning in 1939, American University offered courses in archival administration, but no attention was paid to the needs of manuscript curators. During the 1950s some archivists questioned their professional status and identity and proposed certification and rigorous SAA membership requirements. Their proposals were not implemented. Since a considerable number of archivists are trained historians, it is surprising that we have neglected to examine our own history before embarking on solutions to the lack of standardized education for archivists.

The amassing of a national collection of books and related materials has been a continuing objective ever since the enactment of the first legal deposit law, the Ordonnance de Montpellier of 1537. There are various degrees of comprehensiveness, from deposit only in connection with copyright, to deposit of all printed information (and, by analogy, information in any other medium). The information revolution of the twentieth century is closely associated with the media revolution, and by 1984 permanent preservation of all information in national repositories has become a utopian goal. Modern reprography and new media have changed the materials of archives and libraries and complicated the distinction between them. Reprography has created problems of definition for Scandinavian national libraries, whose collections are based on deposit from printers. Much of the grey, or non-conventional, literature that is presently being discussed by information scientists can be identified as documents that were formerly reserved for the archives. It is suggested that archivists and librarians cooperate in defining their fields of collection and in revising their methodologies in the light of new technology, in order to cope with the massive amounts of material.

Archivists traditionally use provenance-based means for intellectual control of collections, while many researchers have requested subject-based means of access. The former approach involves records management, and the latter involves information management. Automation makes it possible for a repository to employ both approaches in one integrated system. Reasons why this has not yet occurred involve theoretical, practical, and financial considerations. The author reviews an automation "wish list" and suggests how the computer, which can arrange, remember, count, and communicate data, may be used in relation to archival functions, which involve appraisal, accession, preservation and conservation, records processing and management, description, and information retrieval and reference. The essay concludes with important questions to be answered when considering automation and some suggestions as to ways archivists might employ innovations in the making of a modern archives.