From Sumeria to Sunny Hill: are we still cooking the books?
| Pages | 14-24 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09565690410528901 |
| Published date | 01 April 2004 |
| Date | 01 April 2004 |
| Author | Anne Chapman |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
From Sumeria to Sunny
Hill: are we still cooking
the books?
Anne Chapman
Introduction
Anticipating, by almost six millennia, the
modern creative solution VERS ± The Victorian
Electronic Records Strategy (Quantum-Timeless
Records, 2000), which involves attaching ``an
envelope'' of information to a document every
time new material is stored in order to guard
against ``cooking the books'', the ancient
Sumerians protected their cooked clay tablets,
the first extant records, against fraud with an
outer ``crust'', like an envelope, making,
effectively, a carbon copy of the original,
indicating that concerns about a record's
reliability are as old as records themselves.
What, however, is reliability in terms of
record-keeping? Is it, in fact, achievable or even
desirable? This article attempts to go some way
towards answering these questions in both
general terms and in relation to a ``real-life''
example of the pupil records at Bruton School
for Girls, Sunny Hill, Somerset, UK.
Definition of reliability
Records, created and maintained for
informational and evidential purposes, must
fulfil two conditions: authenticity and
reliability, as defined in records management
terms. According to the guidelines of the
InterPARES Project (InterPARES, a, n.d.) an
authentic record is one ``whose genuineness can
be established''. ``An authentic record is one
whose provenance you can believe.''
``Authenticity implies that the record has not
been altered or manipulated in any way'';
``genuineness'' means ``the quality of a record
that is truly what it purports to be''
(InterPARES, a, n.d.). A reliable record,
however, is one ``endowed with
trustworthiness'' (InterPARES, a, n.d.), which
is fulfilled by the degree of completeness of the
records (meaning the integrity of the record has
not been compromised in any way) and of
control of its creation procedure and the
author's reliability. Completeness refers to the
elements of the form of a record required by the
system in which it was created. Creation
procedure is that procedure which governs the
The author
Anne Chapman is Head of Classics at Bruton School for
Girls, Bruton, UK.
Keywords
Reliability management, Records management, Accuracy
Abstract
The accuracy, completeness and authenticity of a record
assure its reliability as an acceptable informational and
evidential document. An evaluative, historical survey of the
possibility and desirability of achieving reliability in records
with special application to the pupil records at Bruton School
for Girls, Sunny Hill, Bruton, Somerset, UK indicates that
such reliability has not been achieved since records
began with the Sumerians, although every generation of
record-keepers has invented methods to aim to ensure it.
Because definitions of accuracy or what makes a true record
have not been universally accepted, although reliability is
desirable for most record keepers, deliberate and accidental
error occurs. Aiming for eradication of error by installing
efficient records management systems will ensure a better
approximation to the truth of a record.
Electronic access
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14
Records Management Journal
Volume 14 .Number 1 .2004 .pp. 14-24
#Emerald Group Publishing Limited .ISSN 0956-5698
DOI 10.1108/09565690410528901
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