Digital recordkeeping systems are forcing a reevaluation of traditional approaches to documentation. It is becoming clear that we must look for new theoretical and practical approaches to recordkeeping. Traditional concepts for the intellectual organization of documentation are inadequate to capture the complex relationships which pertain in networked organizations. In archival appraisal, the concept of provenance was used to contextualize records. Provenance places records in context by identifying the creator of records and providing information about the circumstances surrounding records creation.
Provenance assumes that organizations and records are essentially static.
Networked organizations and advanced information technologies engender flexibility as a defining characteristic. The concept of provenance does not accommodate this flexibility. Provenance must be reengineered to emphasize systems level metadata. Metadata conveys relational information by providing clues to underlying network architectures. Metadata can also serve to map the life cycle of records within organizations.