Libraries and archives have violated their public trust, argues Nicholson Baker in his controversial book DEGREESIDouble Fold DEGREESR, by destroying traditional books, newspapers, and other paper-based collections. Baker's powerful and persuasive book is wrong and misleading, and Cox critiques it point by point, questioning his research, his assumptions, and his arguments about why and how newspapers, books, and other collections are selected and maintained.

DEGREESIDouble Fold DEGREESR, which reads like a history of libraries and archives, is not a history at all, but a journalistic account that is often based on fanciful and far-flung assertions and weak data. The present book provides an opportunity to understand how libraries and archives view their societal mandate, the nature of their preservation and documentary functions, and the complex choices and decisions that librarians and archivists face. Libraries and archives are not simple warehouses for the storage of objects to be occasionally called upon by a scholar, but they play vital roles in determining and shaping a society's knowledge and documentation.

This volume is intended to aid both those organizations considering the establishment of an institutional archives and those practicing archivists needing materials to assist them in evaluating their programs and planning for their development. The author's theme is that archival programs found in corporate, educational, cultural, and religious institutions are necessary both to the organizations themselves and their efficient functioning and to society's concern for preserving its documentary heritage. Managing Institutional Archives covers all aspects of managing an archival program. There are chapters on appraisal and acquisition; preservation and security; arrangement, description, and reference; internal and external support, fund-raising and grantsmanship; and cooperation. The impact of new information technology on organizations and the implications for their archives are discussed. A detailed examination of three case studies of archives is provided. The final chapter is a description of sources for additional assistance in managing institutional archives. Managing Institutional Archives will be useful to archival specialists, administrators, educators, and others needing guidance about the elements of managing archives. Its contents is based on a wide-reading of archival theory and practice and nearly two decades of archival experience by the author.

The importance of records in modern society is explored by re-examining some of the historical antecedents for critical functions in the modern records professions. The motivation for writing this book comes from a conviction of the importance of records and records professionals in organizations and society, as well as the need to possess a stronger sense of the events, trends, people, debates, and controversies producing the modern records professions.

Archivists and records managers have tended to discount the importance of their historical antecedents, ignoring the fact that many of the current debates and issues before the profession are not new but embedded in the historical evolution of the records professions. Re-examining some of the historical origins helps records professionals to re-examine their mission to manage records for the benefit of organizations and of all of society. Such re-evaluation also helps to remind records professionals and others that the concerns generated by new electronic recordkeeping technologies are not new at all but built deep within the fabric of traditional records creation and administration.

This volume widens the perspective of the roles that records play in society. As opposed to most writings in the discipline of archives and records management which view records from cultural, historical, and economical efficiency dimensions, this volume highlights that one of the most salient features of records is the role they play as sources of accountability--a component that often brings them into daily headlines and into courtrooms. Struggles over control, access, preservation, destruction, authenticity, accuracy, and other issues demonstrate time and again that records are not mute observers and recordings of activity. Rather, they are frequently struggled over as objects of memory formation and erasure.

The 14 powerful case studies focus around four closely related themes--explanation, secrecy, memory, and trust. They demonstrate how records compel, shape, distort, and recover social interactions across space and time. The diverse range of case studies includes the ownership of the Martin Luther King, Jr. papers, the destruction of records on Nazi war criminals in Canada, the politics of documents in the Iran-Contra affair, the failure of records management in the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the publication of tobacco company documents on the World Wide Web, access to records associated with the U.S. government's infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, the role of the U.S. National Archives in identifying assets looted by the Nazis in the wake of the Holocaust, the destruction of public records by the South African government during apartheid's final years, the construction of foreign relations of the U.S. documentary histories, the forgery corrupting recordkeeping systems, and the collapse of foreign indigenous commercial banks.

"This is not a book I ever intended to write. It emerged as I worked to understand the events of September 11, 2001. It is my effort to make sense of my life and my profession during a difficult time. My aim is to suggest that understanding information technology requires an understanding of society and its people and organizations, especially as we look out over the wreckage of the high-tech industry and the contradictory aims of government to protect and control us."-Richard Cox In this series of four essays, Richard J. Cox explores the social and professional ramifications of 9/11 on our information landscape. "Musing," written on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, looks back at a year of change and commemoration. "Reacting" examines the impact of 9/11 on a department of information sciences. "Preparing" is a cogent argument for the need to rethink current disaster and contingency planning practices. "Teaching" focuses on the author's experiences developing and teaching a doctoral seminar on the role of the information professional in a post 9/11 world. Miss Manners assures us that a floral arrangement is always appropriate, no matter how much time has passed since the event. Neither a cautionary tale nor practical advice, Flowers After the Funeral is one such bouquet, its simplicity and thoughtfulness are certain to provide both comfort and inspiration to its recipients.

The public increase of interest in the past has not necessarily brought with it a greater understanding about how archives are formed. To this end, Richard Cox takes a serious look at archival repositories and collections. Cox suggests that archives do not just happen, but are consciously shaped (and sometimes distorted) by archivists, the creators of records, and other individuals and institutions. In this series of essays, Cox offers archivists rare insight into the fundamentals of appraisal, and historians and other users of archives the opportunity to appreciate the collections they all too often take for granted.

Now in paperback! Documenting Localities is the first effort to summarize the past decade of renewed discussion about archival appraisal theory and methodology and to provide a practical guide for the documentation of localities. This book discusses the continuing importance of the locality in American historical research and archival practice, traditional methods archivists have used to document localities, and case studies in documenting localities. These chapters draw on a wide range of writings from archivists, historians, material culture specialists, historic preservationists, librarians, and other professionals in considering why we need to continue to stress the systematic documentation of geographic regions. The heart of the book is the presentation of a practical series of steps and tools archivists and manuscript curators can use in documenting localities. The final part of the book considers the need for the better education of archivists and manuscript curators in appraisal theory and methodology, with a description of the primary writings on new macroappraisal approaches forming the crux of how archivists need to consider documenting localities and regions. Useful to all archivists and manuscript curators grappling with how to contend with the increasing quantity and complexity of local records, recordkeeping systems, and other documentary forms.

For the past three decades, policies regarding a variety of information issues have emanated from federal agencies, legislative chambers, and corporate boardrooms. Despite the focus on information policy, it is still a relatively new concept and one only now beginning to be studied. The subject area is wider than believed--archives and records policies, information resources management, information technology, telecommunications, international communications, privacy and confidentiality, computer regulation and crime, intellectual property, and information systems and dissemination. This is not a compendium of policies to be used, but rather an exploration in a more detailed fashion of the fundamental principles supporting the setting of records policies.

Records policies are critically important for records professionals to develop and use as a means of strategically managing the information and evidence found in the millions of records created daily, provided that the policies are based on comprehensible principles. This is a series of discourses on the fundamentals of archives and records management needing to be understood before any organization attempts to define and set any policy affecting records and information. The chapters concern defining records, how information technology plays into policy compiling, the fundamental tasks of identifying and maintaining records as critical to records and information policy, public outreach and advocacy as a key objective for such policy, and the role of educating records professionals in supporting sensible records policies.

Richard J. Cox's fifteenth book on archival studies related topics, this collection of essays responds to anxieties affecting the archival profession as societal changes highlight the importance of archives and records-keeping and begin to push archival work in new directions. The initial part of the book consists of three essays exploring the notion of archival calling, including a lesson about a lost opportunity for advocating the critical importance of the archival mission and a very personal reflection on the author's own calling into the archival field. The second part of the book concerns one of the pre-eminent challenges of our time, government secrecy, and how, if left unchallenged, it can undermine the societal role of the archival profession. The third part of the book considers one of the most important issues facing archivists, indeed, all information professionals, the possession of a practical ethical perspective. The fourth and final part of the book concerns the matter of teaching the next generation of archivists in the midst of all the change, debates, and controversies about archives and archivists. In a brief concluding reflection, the author offers some final advice to the archival community in charting its future.

In Personal Archives and a New Archival Calling: Readings, Reflections and Ruminations, Richard J. Cox argues that personal archives might be assuming a new importance in society. As the technical means for creating, maintaining, and using documents are improving and becoming more cost-effective, individuals and families are seeking to preserve their old documents, especially traditional paper forms, as a connection to a past that may seem to be in risk of being of being swallowed up in the immense digital gadgetry in our Internet Age. There is a reversal to other technologies as well, such as leather bound journals and fountain pens, by some individuals resisting or protesting the increasingly digital world they reside in. Behind these very different approaches are similar impulses, and, these divergent paths raise identical questions about the role and purpose of traditional archives dating back two centuries and more. Personal recordkeeping raises a remarkable array of issues and concerns about records and their preservation, public or collective memory, the mission of professional records managers and archivists, the nature of the role of the institutional archives, and the function of the individual citizen as their own archivist. Archivists need to develop a new partnership with the public, and the public needs to learn from the archivists the essentials of preserving documentary materials. We are on the cusp of seeing a new kind of archival future, and whether this is good or bad depends on how well archivists equip citizen archivists.

In today's information world, the importance and need for archival collections and professionals to care for them cannot be understated. Noted professor and author Richard J. Cox provides an insightful guide to the new roles, responsibilities, and considerations for archival management. Cox examines the role of archival collections in public scholarship, distance learning, and the digital era. He explores the need for modern organizations that collect historical materials. Chapters guide readers through the creation of job descriptions and the hiring an archivists and consultants. Cox delineates the role of the archivist in the knowledge age; the profession's changing credentials and specialties; and the growing base of knowledge found in the field's scholarly works. Informative and timely, this guide contains vital new information for archivists, records managers, students, and all information workers who are interested in understanding the important roles archivists play in modern institutions and the information profession.

In The Demise of the Library School, Richard J. Cox places the present and future of professional education for librarianship in the debate on the modern corporate university. The book is a series of meditations on critical themes relating to the education of librarians, archivists, and other information professionals, playing off of other commentators analyzing the nature of higher education and its problems and promises.