Archives and the Public Good ― Accountability and Records in Modern Society

Cox (library and information science, U. of Pittsburgh) and Wallace (School of Information, U. of Michigan) present fourteen case studies that focus on the intersection between accountability, on the one hand, and record keeping and record access, on the other, especially in the areas of politics and the economy. The papers revolve around the four themes of explanation, secrecy, memory, and trust, and are organized accordingly. Specific topics include the destruction of records on Nazi war criminals in Canada, the politics of documents in the Iran-Contra scandal, the abuse of IRS record keeping, the use of the Internet to expose tobacco giant Brown and Williamson's documents, the destruction of Apartheid-era documents in South Africa, forgery and corruption in recordkeeping systems, and the use of documents to account for the collapse of Jamaica's indigenous commercial banks. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

RICHARD J. COX is Professor in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Information Sciences. He is the author of several books, includingManaging Records as Evidence and Information (Quorum, 2001), Closing an Era: Historical Perspectives on Modern Archives and Records Management (2000), andManaging Institutional Archives (1992). He is also editor of the Records & Information Management Report.

DAVID A. WALLACE is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information, University of Michigan.