The International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES Project) is a "major international research initiative in which archival scholars, computer engineering scholars, national archival institutions and private industry representatives are collaborating to develop the theoretical and methodological knowledge required for the permanent preservation of authentic records created in electronic systems." As a global consortia that works to develop preservation strategies, the project focuses on "developing the knowledge essential to the long-term preservation of authentic records created and/or maintained in digital form and providing the basis for standards, policies, strategies and plans of action capable of ensuring the longevity of such material and the ability of its users to trust its authenticity."
The InterPARES Project was initiated in 1999 by Professor Luciana Duranti at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (since 2020, School of Information), at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Employing an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach, the project has relied on the principles of “interdisciplinarity, transferability, open inquiry, and multimethod design” and has utilized a variety of methodologies, including case studies, surveys, prototyping, diplomatic and archival analysis, text analysis, statistical analysis, digital forensics, and visual analysis.Luciana Duranti, “InterPARES,” in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 4th ed., ed. John D. McDonald and Michael Levine-Clark (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2017), p. 1.
The Project developed in four phases, each focusing on key issues regarding the authenticity, reliability, and accuracy of records.Jeremy Myntti and Jessalyn Zoom, eds., Digital Preservation in Libraries: Preparing for a Sustainable Future (Chicago: ALA Editions, 2019), p. 9. Phase 1 (1999-2001) centered on the long-term preservation of records created and maintained in databases and document management systems. Phase 2 (2002-2007) focused on records produced in dynamic and interactive systems in the course of scientific, artistic, and governmental activities. Phase 3 (2007-2012) concentrated on the application of findings from the first two phases in small to medium-sized archival institutions. Phase 4 (2013-2018) focused on digital records entrusted to the Internet.Guanyan Fan, “Making Better Out of Technologies: Responses of Interpares to Digital Records Management Challenges," in Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2018) - Volume 1: KDIR, Seville, Spain, September 18–20, 2018 (SciTePress, 2018), pp. 387-388.
Origin
In June 1998, a preliminary planning meeting was sponsored by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and held in Washington D.C. At the meeting, a research plan was drafted and the project name was selected. The project name “InterPARES” is an acronym for “International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems,” but it is also Latin for “amongst peers,” a fitting name reflecting the collaborative nature of the project. After another planning meeting in October 1998 in Cagliari, Italy, the project was officially launched on January 1, 1999.
The InterPARES Project was initiated at the University of British Columbia and was based on the findings of an earlier research project conducted there, titled “The Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records” (known as “The UBC Project”), which was also funded by SSHRC. The UBC Project principal investigators, Dr. Luciana Duranti and Dr. Terry Eastwood, worked closely with the United States Department of Defense to develop requirements for creating trusted electronic records and for maintaining their authenticity throughout the entire record life cycle from the perspective of the records creator. This collaborative effort resulted in the development of the DOD 5015.2 standard, which is used by the United States Defense Information Systems Agency to certify Records Management Application (RMA) vendors and has served as the foundation for several other standards, such as the European Moreq.
Major funding contributions to the InterPARES Project have been provided by Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the American National Historical Publications and Records Commission (HPRC), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States, UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program, and the Italian National Research Council. In fact, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has become one of the principal supports of the InterPARES Project.Kenneth Thibodeau, “Preserving Digital Memory at the National Archives and Records Administration of the U.S,” presented at Workshop on Conservation of Digital Memories, Second National Conference on Archives, Bologna, Italy,20 November 2009; see also Kenneth Thibodeau, "The Perfect Archival Storm: The Transfer of Electronic Records from the G.W. Bush White House to the National Archives of the United States," UNESCO's Memory of the World Program, The Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation, 2012, http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/mow/VC_Thibodeau_storm_27_A_1610.pdf Universities and archival institutions from around the world have participated in the project, including institutions in Canada, the United States, Italy, Croatia, Brazil, Mexico, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Australia, Malaysia, and China. Individual researchers from other countries, such as Russia, Chile, and Peru, have also contributed.
Phases
Phase 1 The first phase of the InterPARES Project, titled “The Long-Term Preservation of Authentic Electronic Records,” started in 1999 and was completed in 2001. Phase 1 examined the record lifecycle from the perspective of the record preserver and worked to “establish the means against the digital technological background for assessing and maintaining the authenticity of electronic records once they become inactive and are selected for permanent preservation.”Guanyan Fan, “Making Better Out of Technologies: Responses of Interpares to Digital Records Management Challenges," in Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2018) - Volume 1: KDIR, Seville, Spain, September 18–20, 2018 (SciTePress, 2018), p. 389. More specifically, Phase 1 "used contemporary archival diplomatics and theoretical-deductive methods to derive models of reliable and authentic electronic records in administrative and archival contexts respectively, drawing on the general principles of diplomatics relating to the essential attributes of records."Anne Gilliland and Sue McKemmish, "Building an Infrastructure for Archival Research," Archival Science 4(2004): 166. In order to test the validity of those models, four task forces were established that conducted studies on authenticity, appraisal, preservation, and preservation strategy.
The Authenticity Task Force was tasked with developing "conceptual requirements for assessing and maintaining the authenticity of electronic records."Authenticity Task Force Report, "The Long-term Preservation of Authentic Electronic Records: Findings of the InterPARES Project," InterPARES Project, available online at https://www.interpares.org/book/interpares_book_d_part1.pdf; Heather MacNeil, "Providing Grounds for Trust II: The Findings of the Authenticity Task Force of InterPARES," Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 24-58. The Authenticity Task Force produced a report that proposed two sets of requirements to support authenticity: the benchmark requirements to support the presumption of authenticity of archives, and the baseline requirements to support the certification of copies of records, by an archival institution.Authenticity Task Force Report, "The Long-term Preservation of Authentic Electronic Records: Findings of the InterPARES Project," InterPARES Project, available online at https://www.interpares.org/book/interpares_book_d_part1.pdf; Heather MacNeil, "Providing Grounds for Trust II: The Findings of the Authenticity Task Force of InterPARES," Archivaria 54 (Fall 2002): 24-58; Seamus Ross, Digital Preservation, Archival Science and Methodological Foundations for Digital Libraries, Keynote Address at the 11th European Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL), Budapest (17 September 2007). These authenticity requirements have been adopted by many organizations and have already been adopted by China as law.
Phase 1 also resulted in the creation of methodologies of appraisal and preservation from the perspective of the preserver, a number of analytical tools for studying new types of digital records, and a conceptual framework for the development of strategies, standards, and policies pertaining to the creation, maintenance, and preservation of digital records which can be shown to be authentic over time.
During Phase 1, researchers found that the classic concept of records hindered their ability to fully understand and engage with electronic systems and that a complementary inductive framework was needed. As a result, a new research project was developed and executed as Phase 2 of the InterPARES Project.
Phase 2 Phase 2 of the InterPARES Project, titled “Experiential, Interactive, Dynamic Records,” was initiated in 2002 and completed in 2006. While Phase 1 dealt with textual records created and maintained in static documentary systems, Phase 2 focused on multimedia records created and maintained in dynamic, experiential, and interactive systems.Guanyan Fan, “Making Better Out of Technologies: Responses of Interpares to Digital Records Management Challenges,” in Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2018) - Volume 1: KDIR, Seville, Spain, September 18–20, 2018 (SciTePress, 2018), p. 390.
The primary objective of Phase 2 was “to ensure that the portion of society’s recorded memory digitally produced in dynamic, experiential, and interactive systems in the course of artistic, scientific, and e-government activities can be created in accurate and reliable form, and maintained and preserved in authentic form, both in the short and long term, for the use of those who created it and of society at large, regardless of digital technology obsolescence and media fragility.” By achieving a better understanding of these records, their process of creation, and their potential use, InterPARES 2 built upon the findings of InterPARES 1 “to address the challenge of the permanent preservation of reliable, accurate, and authentic digital records created and maintained in interactive and dynamic systems in the course of all kinds of human activities.”