Executive Order (E.O.) 12958, signed by President William Clinton in April 1995, dramatically changed the declassification procedure for executive branch records.¹ It created for the first time a process to open quickly huge numbers of records dating to World War II. The program has enjoyed mixed success. Many records locked away in vaults for years are finally being reviewed, and, overall, a fairly large percentage of them are actually being declassified. Many high-level documents, however, have been exempted from the process, and major problems hamper public access to the records actually declassified.

Archivists should use their power—in determining what records will be preserved for future generations and in interpreting this documentation for researchers—for the benefit of all members of society. By adopting a social conscience for the profession, they can commit themselves to active engagement in the public arena. Archivists can use the power of archives to promote accountability, open government, diversity, and social justice. In doing so, it is essential to distinguish objectivity from neutrality. Advocacy and activism can address social issues without abandoning professional standards of fairness, honesty, detachment, and transparency.

This article analyzes the design and provides a preliminary evaluation of an experimental finding aid incorporating social interaction created by the Finding Aids Next Generation Research Group at the University of Michigan. It discusses the development of the Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections, an online access tool employing Web 2.0 technologies and evaluation of the first six months of its deployment (January-June 2006). Using Web analytics, an online survey, semistructured interviews, and content analysis of comments, the researchers explore visitors' initial reactions, and their uses of and interactions with this new type of finding aid. The study also offers insights from other disciplines and considers how social navigation features might enhance accessibility to archival materials. Initial findings suggest that enabling direct and indirect interaction among visitors and archivists, collaborative filtering, and other Web 2.0 features might make archival materials more accessible and enrich the traditional finding aid.

The meaning or meanings of record, and the relationship of records to other concepts such as evidence and information, are continuing subjects of debate. This paper examines statements about the nature of the record made by writers and practitioners within the archives and records management community, and it identifies some of the ways in which understandings and emphases vary. After reviewing different attitudes to definition and the perception of meaning, it discusses the challenges of defining records in terms of evidence or information, and suggests that archivists and records managers may prefer to consider evidence and information as two of the many affordances that records provide to their users. It concludes by exploring the concept of representation and proposing an alternative characterization of records as persistent representations of activities.

For nearly a decade, student organizations have used the Internet to promote events, record activities, issue statements, and maintain officer rosters. Student websites are potentially an important resource for scholarship on twenty-first-century student experience, providing both evidence about the activities of the organizations and information about the student body. Based on findings from a multicomponent case study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this article analyzes the documentary value of student organization websites and discusses ways in which archivists can use offline browser technology to capture extracurricular activity more fully.

In 1881, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) opened to scholarly research the Vatican Archives, a repository of documents recording papal history from the Middle Ages. Two years later, his letter Saepenumero considerantes, confirmed the opening and his motu proprio of May 1884 gave further instructions.¹ The opening was entwined with both the broader world of Italian politics and the smaller political sphere of the archives itself. The "macropolitical" context was the ecclesiastical controversy about the papacy's role in Italian history, which informed Leo XIII's decision to expand access to the archives. The micropolitical context concerns the management of the archives and the politics of access inside the Vatican. In his memoirs published posthumously in 1947, Protestant scholar Theodor Sickel² shows how bureaucratic power struggles and disagreements on extending access affected a scholar interested in historical research for its own sake. Despite Leo XIII's appreciation for Sickel's work, some of the pope's subordinates tried to hinder access to the documents, a disjunction between papal policy and its implementation. In part, these obstructions reflected the difficulty of translating a general policy into concrete terms; but they also revealed a clash within the Curia. This conflict informs both Leo XIII's letter and Sickel's memoirs. Leo XIII's letter equates truth with apologetics, or the defense of the Catholic Church:³ for Leo XIII, the archives embodied the Church's memory and therefore its identity. Sickel's memoirs, on the other hand, illustrate the politics of archives management.

Archivists today are caught between an expanding volume of records and a growing public expectation that every page in every document is online and indexed. With so many records and so few resources to provide on-demand access to them, the problem seems intractable. More money alone is not the answer; larger appropriations or donations cannot solve this problem. Instead, archivists must fundamentally shift the way they think about their roles and develop alternative means and methods for doing archival work.

This paper introduces the concept of commons-based peer-production as a means of turning collections inside out. It encourages archival institutions to reinvent themselves, and, in collaboration with other archives and with other types of organizations, to organize archival work in concert with a curious and interested public.