At 10:34 AM 23/10/2003 -0400, Gervais, John wrote:
>I know I mentioned this previously, but I didn't receive to many nibbles.
>
>I researched our retention authorities and it appears that web pages aren't
>categorized for retention.  I know that the "content" of the pages is
>captured in the R&D schedules/authorities, but would we not want to capture
>a "snapshot" of the web page?  What if someone were to say they made a
>business decision based on information we provided on our website and all
>went wrong and subsequently took legal action?  Wouldn't it be nice to go
>back and look at the page to ensure that we did indeed provide correct
>information? or What if there were electronic snafu's and we lost
>information, wouldn't it be nice to be able to go back and obtain the
>original information from the page and recreate it?
>
>I would appreciate your insight and feedback on this issue and if  "you"
>actually have retention periods for the actual web page itself.  If we are
>respecting our IM Policy, which is all about managing the life cycle of
>information, would we not want to include the capturing of "web pages".
Web page retention has been addressed in Australia by National Archives and
information can be found at the following URL:
http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/er/web_records/intro.html

The NSW State Records Authority also addresses the issue in various
documents on the web site at www.records.nsw.gov.au. State Records also
cover this in their General Disposal Authority for Administrative Records.
Specifically under agency publications. An Internet site is a primary
publication of an agency and as such is a State archive. This means there
is a need to capture the static pages. Dynamic web pages would be treated
according to the type of business transaction.

There are software packages that can deal with on-line business
transactions. One such package is produced by Tower Technology as opposed
to Tower Software (TRIM). Tower Technology is also an Australian company,
and information about their WebCapture product can be found at the
following URL: http://www.towerwebcapture.com/

I was told a few months ago that there was another product which had been
developed in Western Australian that captured dynamic web pages. I have no
details of the product.

On a final note legal action has already occurred in Australia regarding
the Internet. I am relying on my memory here, but I can recall Tony Poynton
who use to work at Cannon presenting a paper at the 2000 RMAA Conference in
Sydney and he identified at least two cases where litigation had occurred.
One of them involved the failed business man Laurie Connell. On another
occasion a person from a government agency (who I will not name) identified
legal action had been taken in regards to pages which had been on the Internet.

Jenny Evans

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance