A professor in the School of Library, Archival and Information Sciences, Duranti knew the key lay in the field of diplomatics. This 17th-century science of authenticating records had been developed by Benedictine scholars to defend against the monk's question,which challenged the order's right to its wealth and property. The search for a way of producing and maintaining reliable and authentic electronic records led to Duranti, the only academic in North America doing theoretical research on the topic. Suddenly, she was working with experts in artificial intelligence, computer science and knowledge engineering. But the solution is not so much a technological one as it is one of policy, procedure and method.
Records play a crucial role in most human endeavors.
They are essential to government, business and social interactions and are the basis of our legal system. But we have rushed into the computer age without considering the implications, says Duranti. Storing paper is one thing, but no standards exist for electronic records. The greatest threat we face is the nonchalance with which people treat electronic records. We've already lost the last five generations of electronic records.