Introduction

People concerned with long -term preservation and access to the botanical record are not alone in seeking better methods to identify useful documentation, manage information effectively, improve access to historical records, and promote their use. Archivists, librarians, curators, historical researchers, and specialists in many fields share common concerns about the long-term survival of records that are created in an increasing variety of formats, distributed among many sites and locales, and imperiled because of poor storage environments and the fragile nature of modern media. Traditional methods for identifying potentially valuable records, transferring them to appropriate repositories, and providing access on-site in those repositories are no longer adequate for preserving modern records and making them available to increasingly diverse users. Archivists, recognizing the complexity of modern documentation, have explored new approaches to documenting modern society that strive for a more holistic view human endeavors through planned and collaborative approaches for identifying valuable documentation and for sharing responsibility for its long-term preservation. Documentation strategies are one of the new approaches to planned, cooperative, and proactive efforts to preserve valuable records.

The documentation strategy concept provides a potentially powerfully tool for planning, coordinating, and distributing responsibility for improving the historical record of the botanical sciences. On the surface, at least, a documentation strategy is a fairly straightforward and pragmatic method for improving the historical documentation about a particular subject, event, domain of activity, or geographic area. According to a commonly accepted definition, a documentation strategy is "a plan formulated to assure the documentation of an ongoing issue, activity, or geographic area . . . The strategy is ordinarily designed, promoted, and in part implemented by an ongoing mechanism involving records creators, administrators (including archivists), and users. The documentation strategy is carried out through the mutual efforts of many institutions and individuals influencing both the creation of records and the archival retention of portions of them. The strategy is refined in response to changing conditions and viewpoints." [1] In practice, implementing a documentation strategy has proven more difficult than the simplicity of the concept suggests. The main purpose of this article is to explain the documentation strategy concept to potential organizers and supporters of a documentation strategy for the botanical sciences. I draw on the experience of other groups that have launched documentation strategies and examine the motivations and organizational models that have changed documentation practices. There is sufficient experience with documentation strategies to draw some general conclusions about the potential benefits of this approach as well as to identify some of the common pitfalls. I also explore several changes in the broader information landscape since the documentation strategy concept first appeared that require revisions and adjustments to the approach and its methodologies for implementation.

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Origins and Motivations for Documentation Strategies

Documentation strategies are a pragmatic response to the complexity of modern documentation. The term documentation strategy was coined at the 1984 annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, but the origins of the concept date from at least the mid-1970s when archivists became more consciously aware of problems posed by modern records. For more than a decade before the term "documentation strategy" entered into the common parlance of the archival profession, archivists had expressed dissatisfaction with the ways in which records were identified and selected for long-term preservation. Although the number of archival programs was increasing and the quantity of historical records was growing, some archivists questioned whether archives were selecting and preserving the most significant records or the best documentation of modern society. During the decade from 1975 to 1985, F. Gerald Ham, the Wisconsin State Archivist, wrote three influential essays on the topic of archival collection building where he called for more systematic planned collecting, more cooperation among repositories that traditionally had competed for the best collections, and a devolution of custodial responsibilities from archives to corporations and social and political organizations that were large enough to develop archival programs for their own records. [2] While archivists recognized that an information explosion was rapidly supplanting scarcity of written documentation, they were also concerned about the lack of documentation relating to many "hidden" groups in society. Archival repositories faced increasing pressure to locate materials that documented the common aspects of every day life, as social and cultural history gained acceptance among academic historians and as more public users sought information in archives about genealogy, local history, and other popular topics. While these two pressures may seem contradictory, they are part of a single phenomenon that produced the documentation strategies concept as one means to address both the quantity and quality of documentation.

The complexity of modern documentation reflects the complexity modern organizations and social relationships. Modern society is characterized by increasingly complex interactions between the public and private sectors, among institutions with similar missions, and between individuals and a variety of institutions throughout the course of their lives. Most activities of modern life directly or indirectly involve multiple actors and multiple institutions. Changes in the process of conducting research illustrate this trend. Research projects that once were carried out by a single investigator, perhaps with one or a few assistants, now involve teams of researchers with multiple investigators, graduates students, administrators, systems developers, and assistants. Researchers in universities, government agencies, and corporations may collaborate on a single project. Funding for the project may come from several different government agencies, foundations, private corporations, and the universities hosting the research project. People with expertise in different aspects of a problem and with different disciplinary perspectives populate many contemporary research teams. A faculty member or a senior researcher may affiliate with several different universities or research laboratories during the course of his or her career. [3] As a consequence of these more complex interactions and relationships, the documentation of significant research projects and the papers of important researchers are easily be dispersed among many different organizations.

Documentation strategies, crafted to address the problems of modern documentation, differ from conventional collection development and archival appraisal in several important respects. Archivists, librarians, and curators using the documentation strategy approach first consider which aspects of a subject, institution, or activity ought to be documented and set broad goals for improving the available documentation. Selection decisions are made in the context of an overall assessment of documentation goals, rather than incrementally with each potential new addition to an institution's collection. Documentation strategies are collaborative projects that involve repositories with significant holdings in the documentation domain and individuals and organizations that create and use the documentation. They are carefully planned to identify the most important or significant documentation in a particular area and to distribute responsibility for collecting and making appropriate materials available. Participants in a documentation strategy may even identify areas where little or no written, published, or other recorded documentation exists and take measures to alter that pattern by conducting oral history interviews and by persuading organizations to improve their record keeping practices. [4]

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Many attempts to develop documentation strategies have followed a basic model for design and implementation formulated by Helen Samuels, Larry Hackman, and Joan Warnow-Blewett. [5] The planning process begins by identifying or defining a subject, ongoing activity, or geographic area as the focus for a documentation strategy. The next step is assembling a working group of stakeholders or interested parties with broad representation of creators of records, custodians, and researchers who use historical records associated with the documentation domain. This group then analyzes existing documentation with the goal of discovering which aspects of the documentation domain are adequately, reasonably, or even over-documented, and where there are significant gaps in existing documentation. This analysis provides the foundation for the next step in the process: drafting a documentation strategy plan. Normally, the documentation plan defines priorities for improving documentation, identifies the partners in implementing the documentation plan, sketches out the methods for implementation, and estimates the type and quantity of resources needed. Once a draft documentation plan is in place, participants begin the process of implementation. Moving from planning to implementation requires a long-term commitment by the participants to improving the quality of available documentation. A successful documentation strategy will change the methods that participants use for identifying valuable records and for sharing long-term preservation responsibilities. The documentation strategy is also a dynamic process rather than a linear series of steps. As participants become more knowledgeable of the documentation domain, the nature and condition of the materials, and the ways that researchers use or would like to use historical documentation, the goals, methods, and even participants in the documentation strategy may change.

A program started at the American Institute for Physics (AIP) to document the history of physics from 1890 to the 1940s is the oldest, longest lasting, and most successful example of documentation program. The goals of the initial project, which began in 1959, were to identify significant individual physicists and the institutions where they worked, to analyze existing source material about them, and to gather additional documentation. Much of the effort during the initial stage of developing a program for documenting the history of modern physics centered on 1,250 physicists and the institutions where they were concentrated prior to 1940. After completing two successful projects with grant funding from the National Science Foundation, the AIP institutionalized the program when it formally made the Center for the History of Physics a division of the Institute in 1965. The AIP never intended to serve as a central repository for records about the history of physics. The program focused instead on setting national documentation goals and priorities, identifying appropriate repositories for collections, serving as a trusted broker between donors and repositories, educating archivists and librarians about complex physics documentation, and promoting the use of available collections. The focus of the documentation effort shifted during the 1970s to documentation of sub-fields of physics, including nuclear physics, astrophysics, solid state physics, and laser science. [6] When the AIP staff shifted emphasis from the prewar to the post World War II period they encountered new types of documentation and new problems that required detailed research and analysis. Studies of the Department of Energy's (DOE) national laboratories and of high-energy physics, space science and geophysics, helped staff at the Center understands the dynamics of "big science" and its documentation.

The results of the planned effort to systematically collect documentation on physics spawned interest in the approach taken by the AIP and eventually produced the more general methodology called documentation strategies. Therefore, it is worth considering the specific factors that fostered an interest in historical documentation among physicists, produced tangible results, and led to the institutionalization of this approach. First, prominent physicists, some of whom were doing significant historical research, and who believed that a historical perspective was important for understanding and teaching modern physics, launched the initial program. Timing may have contributed to interest on the part of historians and physicists in locating the papers of important physicists and in finding appropriate repositories for the papers of individuals who were retiring. The initial project was initiated shortly after the deaths of several major figures in modern physics and at a time when many of their students were reaching the ends of their careers. Institutional placement was also an important factor. The AIP was able to establish an Advisory Committee of notable physicists and, as an umbrella organization for several scholarly societies in the physical sciences, it had legitimacy and respect in the field. The close institutional links between the AIP, as a major publisher of scholarly literature in the field, and its documentation program may also have forged links between analysis and use of the published literature with the analysis and appraisal of primary source materials. Finally, the program was able to adapt to changes in ways that documentation is produced, organized, and maintained that accompanied a transition from individual investigator projects to large, multi-institutional collaborations.

Documentation strategies have been a popular topic for discussion among archivists during the past fifteen years. Enthusiasm among archivists for a planned approach to documentation is apparent from the large number of conference sessions, special conferences, and articles devoted to documentation issues. Conference sessions have discussed topics or domains for documentation strategies ranging from the built environment to visual artists' works, and special conferences have been held on documenting American business, the "digital age," environmentalism, and evangelical religion to name only a few examples. Documentation projects have also been carried out in geographic areas with place as an organizing theme. Philip Alexander and Helen Samuels developed a "hypothetical" documentation strategy that proposed how the significant records of the high tech industries located around Boston's Route 128 could be managed and preserved. [7] Documentation planning projects were completed for Western New York and the City of Milwaukee, and an entire issue of the American Archivist was devoted the theme of documenting various aspects of life in New England. [8] Taken as a whole, proposals for documentation strategies have produced a variety of results ranging from one time discussions of the potential for improving documentation in a particular domain with no follow on activity, to detailed plans and proposals, to full-scale programs. The cumulative experience with documentation strategies suggests that the basic model has to be tailored to the history, documentary traditions, and needs of particular communities and that numerous pitfalls can doom a documentation strategy between initial discussion of the concept and implementation of an ongoing program. Discussions and proposals for strategies far exceed the number of formal documentation plans, and plans do not always lead to programs that are implemented. As the title of this article suggests, a documentation strategy is a potentially powerful tool for preserving the record of the botanical sciences, but success is by no means guaranteed.

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Documentation Strategies: An Assessment

The accumulated experience with documentation strategies offers useful lessons for anyone embarking on such a project at the turn of the twenty-first century. One critical factor is the motivation for starting a documentation strategy. It is useful to think of documentation strategies as demand-driven or supply-driven. Demand-driven documentation strategies originate in the communities that are the focus of the documentation strategy; either among records creators who are concerned about the long-term fate of their records or among users who readily identify significant gaps in available documentation. The AIP documentation programs are examples of demand-driven documentation strategies where the initial inspiration came from within physics. Another example of a demand-driven documentation strategy is recent work of the Ecological Society of America's Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data (FLED). Although the Committee does not use the term "documentation strategy," the report recommends planning, setting priorities, and sharing responsibility for the curation of ecological data set with long-term value. This strategy is driven by ecologists' needs for data that could reveal changes in ecological indicators and conditions over long periods of time, rather than an explicit interest the history of ecology. [9] Documentation strategies initiated by archivists, librarians and curators to improve cooperative collecting in particular areas might be considered "supply-driven" where the primary incentive for participating in a project or program is to improve the quality of documentation available in the participating institutions and to rationalize collecting policies. Supply-driven projects have not been as successful as projects that originate in the communities being documented and that offer tangible benefits to those communities. Although many of the archivist-initiated projects have resulted in better planned appraisal and selection and some cooperative agreements, many have not achieved the goal of engaging records creators and users in an ongoing documentation strategy process.

Involving the right mix of stakeholders in planning for and carrying out a documentation strategy is critical for ongoing success. Appropriate and broad representation is an important consideration when organizing a group to develop and oversee implementation of the documentation strategy. The participation of records creators is essential because they have detailed knowledge of recordkeeping practices, understand the terminology and technical aspects of complex modern records, and may have insights into important information that is conveyed orally and not represented in the written or published records. Archivists, librarians, and curators bring detailed knowledge of existing collections to the process and provide expertise to the group on selection, organization, description, and access to materials. Users provide insights into whether and how particular types of documentation could be used, and they can help the group identify areas that are not adequately documented.

Careful definition of the domain, theme, topic, or area for the focus of the documentation strategy is necessary for success. During the last fifteen years or so, several different approaches have been used as the framework for documentation strategies. Academic disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, and computing, appear to have been the most successful frameworks for documentation planning. Documentation strategies built around geographic areas have rarely yielded ongoing programs. Timothy Ericson, the director of a documentation planning project for Milwaukee metropolitan area concluded that a city or region is too complex with too many cross-cutting themes and relationships to form the basis for a documentation strategy. [10] Some successful documentation programs, however, have used geography as one of the parameters for the documentation domain. The AIP, for example, decided to focus on physicists in the United States rather than taking on an international program. Theme-based documentation strategies have also suffered from lack of definition by taking on a documentation area that was too broad or too artificial, or both. One can imagine countless potential themes for documentation strategies and plans, but identifying the focus and parameters of a documentation strategy is, in practice, a significant challenge.

Another impediment to implementing a documentation strategy is moving from the initial idea or discussion to the steps required to begin implementation. Documentation planning projects have stalled during the stage of analyzing existing documentation. Attempts to develop an exhaustive and detailed evaluations of existing documentation often detract energy and attention from the more important objectives of setting goals for the documentation area and developing plans for how to implement them. An ill-defined documentation domain contributes to the problem if too many repositories and too many individuals are subject to the review or if the documentation goals cannot be articulated clearly enough to use as benchmarks for assessing data about existing collections. Given the dynamic nature of the documentation strategy process, a general overview of the strengths and gaps in available documentation should be sufficient for setting initial documentation goals that can be amplified and modified as the documentation strategy process proceeds. Finally, a documentation plan can take a great deal of effort to develop, but it will be of little value if it is not implemented. Putting the documentation plan into practice may require compromises and changes in the collecting policies of established institutions, exerting pressure on major organizations to start records management and/or archival programs, and educating records creators about the importance of creating and keeping adequate documentation.

Designing and implementing a documentation strategy in the year 2000 is significantly different from doing so even fifteen years ago because of dramatic changes in communications technologies and recordkeeping practices. If the documentation strategy focuses on recent or contemporary records, the documentation team will have to contend with new forms of documentation, such as e-mail and web pages, and with different methods of organizing and distributing records. Documentation strategies have two distinct advantages over traditional methods for identifying significant materials that suit digital information. First, they are based on the assumption that significant documentation is distributed among a variety of institutions and individuals. Most documentation projects have illustrated the dispersal of records in traditional formats, and there is ample evidence that digital information is even more widely distributed. Second, a planned and proactive approach to identification and management of documentation is even more critical for digital information than it has been for traditional formats of materials. Fragile media and technology obsolescence threaten digital materials within a few years of their creation. Unless the creators of records organize their materials and care for them when they are in active use, librarians and archivists have little chance of preserving digital information into the long-term future. Easy access to the Internet and the World Wide Web to post, publish, and distribute information is also blurring the lines between published materials and primary sources. A CD-ROM distributed at the 16th International Botanical Congress included, among other resources, a directory with links to 264 electronic sites of leading botany, plant biology and science journals. [11] Research libraries and national libraries that have served traditionally as repositories for published scholarly communications are uncertain about their role in preserving electronic journals and other digital publications. As a consequence, it is unclear whether these journals will endure for the long-term and who will be responsible for preserving them. [12] Although documentation strategies have been applied almost exclusively to records in traditional formats, in the future the ability to preserve digital information will require more active planning and shared responsibility for publications as well as primary sources.

Even if a documentation strategy focuses on older records, new information technology and tools that were not available fifteen years ago can support the planning process and help users locate documentation once it is identified and described. Libraries, archives and museums are developing on-line catalogs, indexes, and finding aids that provide useful data for analysis of existing collections. Web pages and other on-line resources of institutions, organizations, and individuals engaged in the documentation domain are useful sources of information about potentially valuable documentation. On-line discussion lists can be used to publicize the project and gather information from creators and users of records in the documentation domain. New technologies also offer the potential to bring collections together virtually through common access points without the need to build centralized repositories or compile descriptions in a guide or database. Perhaps the documentation strategy concept was ahead of its time. When this concept was first introduced it offered an improvement or enhancement to current practice, but it was simply another option, or another tool for identifying documentation with long-term value. Planned and collaborative documentation strategies may become the preferred means for building coherent collections for records that are born digital, exist only in electronic form, and that are widely distributed in complex networks.

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Documentation Strategy and the Botanical Record

As an outsider to botany, who has examined documentation in many other fields, it appears that the botanical sciences have some distinct advantages over other topics that have been proposed as documentation domains. Botany is a recognized discipline with a rich history, well-developed nomenclature, and common set of methodologies. Unlike many scientific fields where current information tends to make older documentation obsolete, botanists are engaged in an effort to accumulate and expand knowledge of plant life. Information about plants, regardless of its age, remains useful for building, verifying and amplifying the botanical record. This provides a foundation on which to build, but it is not the totality of a documentation strategy. The value of this basic record can be further enhanced by relating it to documentation about the broader scientific, economic, historical and cultural contexts for botanical work. Documentation about the botanists, naturalists, and others who collected, analyzed and classified botanical specimens is one piece of this larger context. Documentation about who they were, where they worked, how they worked, and with whom they worked would both enhance the value of basic scientific documentation and contribute important contextual information about the history of the botanical sciences. Documentation that elucidates the practical applications of botany for a wide range of human endeavors from agriculture, to medicine, and industry would allow botanists, historians, and others to explore how botanical knowledge is formed, appropriated, used, and misused. Finally, botany has important popular and aesthetic aspects that should be documented in a holistic record of the field.

Botany may benefit from what appears to be a solid framework and strong disciplinary identity, but defining the documentation domain precisely still will pose challenges. Documenting even a single discipline, like the botanical sciences, can become unmanageable if the scope of the documentation strategy is too broad and ambitious. I suggest four issues that botanists should consider in the process of setting parameters around the documentation domain. First, botany is inherently global in scope. A documentation strategy should strive for a record that is as globally diverse as the life forms that define the discipline. Achieving a global perspective on botanical documentation will be challenging because it expands the scope of the documentation domain, rather than helping to focus it. Moreover, documentation strategies have been discussed and tried almost exclusively in North America. Archivists, librarians, and curators outside North America are likely to find the concept novel and foreign. Nevertheless, careful analysis of existing botanical documentation probably would reveal large disparities in the adequacy of botanical record in and about different parts of the world and filling that gaps should be a primary goal of the documentation strategy.

A second consideration is a temporal focus for the documentation strategy. Given the cumulative nature of botanical knowledge, there may be distinct advantages to designing a strategy that begins with modern botany and works toward the present, but there are also strong arguments against taking on a sweeping time frame. The long temporal scope of such a program could impede progress and make it difficult to show any tangible results. More importantly, goals for the documentation strategy may vary for different time periods. Changes in recordkeeping practices, methodologies, institutional support, technologies, and schools of thought about botany can introduce new and different types of documentation that require strategies tailored to their particular characteristics. A documentation strategy for the so-called golden age of exploration would involve different participants and use different techniques from a documentation strategy that aims to identify the most significant documentation of the late twentieth century.

A third consideration is an intellectual or thematic focus for the documentation strategy at least during its initial stage of formation. A scientific or academic focus would emphasize research and teaching. An institutional focus might concentrate on the infrastructure of universities, botanical gardens and herbaria, funding agencies, relevant corporations, and professional organizations. Documentation strategies can also place priority on documentation that has a functional role in the conduct of botany with a special emphasis on the types of records that people need most to support their work, whether they are working as botanists, environmentalists, hortoculturalists, ecologists, or pharmacologists. A documentation strategy could focus on the popular and aesthetic dimensions of botany with particular weight given to records that document public awareness and popular representations of plants. I offer these suggestions only as illustrations of the types of questions that any group planning a documentation strategy should ask to prevent the scope of the problem from becoming too unwieldy and to help identify a small group of participants committed to its launch. Our experience with documentation strategies suggests that projects which start with a narrow focus and expand incrementally are more likely to succeed than projects that carve out too large of a documentation domain.

Finally, planning for a documentation strategy should analyze the relationships between documentation of the botanical sciences, or some aspect of them, and other proposed or ongoing documentation plans or programs. Some archivists have proposed the environmental movement or environmentalism as a documentation area, although no documentation plans have been drafted or implemented. [13] Like botany, the environment is a global phenomenon, but gaining a global perspective on environmental documentation has been difficult. Botany and the environment both have scientific, industrial, social, and aesthetic dimensions, and in both fields documentation is distributed among a wide variety of institutions, organizations, and individuals. Botany is also an integral part of the study of ecology and botanists should benefit from work that is already underway to address the priorities for preserving long-term ecological data. The Sea's Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data has already examined the needs for long-term data sets in ecology, established criteria for rescue, conversion, preservation, and access to data sets, and proposed mechanisms for data exchange, management and curation. The planning underway in ecology may offer a useful model to botanists, not only because of the relationships between the two field, but also because this particular initiative originated in the field of ecology to address researchers' needs for long-term data. [14]

A team developing a documentation strategy for the botanical sciences can take advantage of new on-line resources such as shared databases, on-line catalogs, and finding aids to assess the available documentation and avoid becoming bogged down in collection analysis. The Research Libraries Group, for example, has recently developed a service called Archival Resources which provides on-line access to 6,000 archival finding aids with links to RLG's bibliographic database, the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN). Chadwyck-Healy offers an on-line service and CD-ROM product called Archives USA that includes a directory of manuscript repositories, collection level-records from the US National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), as well as title and subject access to collections guides that are published separately on microfilm as the National Inventory of Documentary Sources. A growing number of universities, archives, and special libraries offer remote access to their on-line public access catalogs. The team planning a documentation strategy can use these resources to gain a quick first impression of the strengths and gaps in botanical documentation. For this article, I tested RLG's Archival Resources and Chadwyck-Healy's Archives USA. A search on the term "botany" of the 6,000 archival collection guides currently available in RLG's Archival Resources produced 121 on-line finding aids that provide summary information about creating organizations and individuals, overviews of the collections, and detailed inventories of their content. A parallel search in RLIN returned 676 collection-level records related to botany. [15] Some collection guides contain only one or a few entries for botany, but the search also turned up major collections such as the records of the Gray Herbarium and the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University. A similar search in Archives USA returned 495 entries using the term botany, including significant holdings of the US National Arboretum Library, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Smithsonian Institution. [16] These on-line resources do not provide all of the information necessary for collection analysis and they have some weaknesses. The databases tend to favor larger institutions and processed collections in those institutions. Repositories in the United States are best represented, although RLG is working with repositories in more than 25 countries to add bibliographic records and finding aids to its databases. The effectiveness of searches also depends on the descriptive terms used by archivists and librarians when they organized and cataloged the collections. If records related to botany are not a significant part of a collection or if the cataloger used different terms to describe botany, then a search will not identify relevant documentation. Despite these limitations, on-line tools like Archival Resources and Archives USA, are indispensable for documentation planning and analysis.

I used these tools to develop a very cursory assessment of strengths and gaps in botanical documentation. My quick review of the results of searches in RLIN, Archival Resources, Archives USA, and the National Library of Agriculture's on-line system AGRICOLA, left the impression that the major strengths in the documentation available today are papers of individual botanists, records that document research and teaching of botany in universities, institutional and administrative records of some botanical gardens and herbaria, and some related records in the areas of environmental advocacy and activism. The vast majority of collections cover the period from 1850 to 1950. My impression from this cursory analysis is that there are significant gaps in the documentation as well. Field notes, for example, are scattered throughout collections, but they difficult to locate for particular places, time periods, or types of explorations. Recent and contemporary botany is not well documented. The documentation I discovered through these searches was concentrated in Anglo-American institutions, although searches of databases in other languages might reveal more material. More focused searches, surveys of repositories not represented in the on-line resources, and contact with individuals and organizations that may hold significant documentation would confirm, challenge, or amplify this picture of botanical documentation.

The botanical community has an opportunity to use the documentation strategy concept in innovative new ways. To date, documentation strategies have focused on coordinated selection and distribution of physical collections to appropriate repositories, but they can enhance other aspects of managing primary source materials. A documentation strategy can help set goals for building on-line digital collections. Collections that share a common provenance or theme, but are divided among several repositories, can be brought together in a virtual collection, but this is not likely to happen without coordination among repositories holding similar or related materials. Except for very large, multi-institutional digitization projects, most efforts to build on-line collections are based on local decisions that reflect the priorities of single repositories. The documentation strategy concept could be applied to building digital collections in planned and more coordinated fashion that would produce more useful digital resources. Another application is in standardizing or harmonizing the terminology used to describe primary sources in the botanical sciences. Archivists and librarians working in repositories that concentrate on sources in the botanical sciences undoubtedly have a good command of the field's nomenclature and specialized descriptive practices, but it is important to keep in mind that much important documentation resides in other types of repositories, such as university archives, museums, manuscript libraries, and government archives. The archivists, librarians, and curators in these institutions may be unfamiliar with the special documentation and descriptive requirements for botanical records. Guidance to those communities in description, cataloging, and terminology will make their collections discoverable by researchers interested in botanical science.

Finally, the documentation strategy concept could be applied to the growing quantity of records that are born in digital form. Judith Reed's article suggests many reasons why digital surrogates are not acceptable replacements for hard copy original documents and Malcolm Beasley raises a series of concerns about long-term preservation of digital resources. [17] Nevertheless, many botanists today are communicating with e-mail, building databases, taking field notes on laptop computers, and capturing images with digital cameras. These digital documents are the originals, and for many of them, hard copy surrogates do not capture all of the information or functionality of the digital original. Although there are many unresolved problems with long-term preservation of digital documentation, there is a general agreement that part of the solution involves working with the people and organizations that are creating digital materials when the documents are being generated to plan for their long-term preservation. There is no way to predict which ten-year-old Internet user may become the Carl Linnaeus of the twenty-first century, but it is feasible to identify botanists who are using digital communications today and creating digital documentation that should survive into the future. A documentation strategy could help set priorities for these efforts in these areas while others continue to work on problems with long-term preservation of digital information.

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Conclusion

To conclude, I will suggest a few critical success factors for developing and sustaining a documentation strategy based on the successes and failures of the last fifteen years and significant changes in the nature of documentation. First, documentation programs are more likely to succeed if they serve multiple purposes and appeal to multiple audiences. A documentation strategy that focuses too narrowly on the needs of historians of science and botany, for example, may not generate enough interest or support to sustain the program after an initial flurry of activity. Where possible, a slight redirection of the focus can improve documentation for historians, but also provide direct benefits botanists, students, researchers in related fields, and the general public. At the same time, the documentation strategy should provide tangible benefits to botanists by identifying historical materials that facilitate their work and improve its quality. Third, the documentation strategy should focus as much on improving access to existing collections as it does on locating and selecting new materials for long-term preservation. As my analysis of existing collections suggests, important documentation on the botanical sciences may be hidden in existing collections because it was not cataloged or described with an eye towards it relevance to botany. Finally, documentation strategies have to develop means to distribute the responsibility for managing, preserving, and providing access to botanical documentation among many different libraries, archives, museums, organizations, and institutions. There is simply too much documentation and too many complex issues to consider developing one or a few centralized repositories for botanical materials. Distributing responsibility for botanical documentation is not simply a matter of carving up the domain among established libraries and archives. A documentation strategy must also engage records creators in the process of improving botanical documentation and encourage institutions with botanical programs to take more responsibility for the documentation they create. Documentation strategies offer a better way to manage documentation in traditional formats, but they are essential for managing and preserving digital documentation now and into the future.

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References

1 Helen Samuels, "Who Controls the Past," American Archivist 46 (Spring 1986): 115.

2 Ham's first essay, "The Archival Edge," American Archivist 38 (January 1975): 5-13 was based on his Presidential address to the Society of American Archivists. He pursued this theme further in "Archival Strategies for the Post-Custodial Era," American Archivist 44 (Summer 1981): 207-16 and "Archival Choices: Managing the Historical Record in an Age of Abundance," American Archivist 47 (Winter 1984): 11-22.

3 For a discussion of a large collaborative project in high-energy physics, see Joan Warnow-Blewett, "Organization Trends: Commentary," American Archivist 57:1 (Winter 1994): 70-74; and Joan Warnow-Blewett, et. Al., AIP Study of Multi-Institutional Collaboration, Phase 1: High-Energy Physics, New York: American Institute of Physics, 1992.

4 There is a large literature on documentation strategies. For general discussions of the concept and methodology see Richard J. Cox, "Archivists Confront A Changing World: Documentation Strategies, the Reformulation of Archival Appraisal, and the Possibilities of Multi-Disciplinary Cooperation," Chapter 13 in American Archival Analysis, Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990, 291-303; Larry Hackman, and Joan Warnow-Blewett, "The Documentation Strategy Process: A Model and Case Study," American Archivist 50:1 (Winter 1987): 12-47; Helen W. Samuels, "Improving Our Disposition: Documentation Strategy," Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 125-40; and Richard Cox and Helen W. Samuels, "The Archivists First Responsibility: A Research Agenda to Improve the Identification and Retention of Records of Enduring Value," American Archivist 51 (Winter/Spring 1998): 28-42.

5 Hackman and Warnow-Blewett, "The Documentation Strategy Process," 12-47.

6 Hackman and Warnow-Blewett, "The Documentation Strategy Process," 29-44.

7 Philip N. Alexander ad Helen W. Samuels, "The Roots of 128: A Hypothetical Documentation Strategy," American Archivist 50:4 (Fall 1987): 518-31.

8 Timothy L. Ericson, "To Approximate June Pasture": The Documentation Strategy in the Real World," Archival Issues 22:1 (1997): 5-20. The American Archivist 50:4 (Fall 1987) was devoted to documentation strategies for various aspects of life in New England. In addition to the Alexander and Samuels article, see Nancy Carlson Schrock, "Images of New England: Documenting the Built Environment," 474-98; James M. O'Toole, "Things of the Spirit: Documenting Religion in New England," 500-17; Samuel A. McReynolds, "Rural Life in New England," 532-48; and T.D. Seymour Bassett, "Documenting Recreation and Tourism in New England," 550-69.

9 Ecological Society of America, ad hoc Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data (FLED), Report, available http://esa.sdsc.edu/FLED/FLED.html

10 Ericson, "To Approximate June Pasture," 14. In his book, Documenting Localities, Richard Cox argues persuasively about the benefits of documentation strategies for local and regional archives and historical programs, but there is little evidence that local organizations have heeded his advice. See Richard J. Cox, Documenting Localities, A Practical Manual for Archivists and Manuscript Curators. Lanham, Md.: Society of American Archivists and Scarecrow Press, 1996.

11 XVI Botanical Congress, Botany online: The Internet Hpertextbook, coordinated and produced by Alice Bergfeld, Rolf Bergmann, and Peter von Sengbusch, XVI Botanical Congress, St. Louis, Mo., August 1-7, 1999.

12 "Preserving Digital Information. Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. Commissioned by the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group, Inc., Washington, D.C.: Commission on Preservation and Access, May 1, 1996.

13 Candace Loewen, "From Human Neglect to Planetary Survival: New Approaches to the Appraisal of Environmental Records," Archivaria 33 (Winter 1991-92): 87-103.

14 Ecological Society of America, ad hoc Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data (FLED), Report, available http://esa.sdsc.edu/FLED/

15 Information about Archival Resources and RLIN is available from the Research Libraries Group at http://www.rlg.org.

16 Information about Archives USA is available at http://archives.chadwyck.com/

17 Reed, Judith. "Preserving Original Sources: Why Should We Maintain Original Source Material; What Are the Alternatives?"; Beasley, Malcolm. "The Electronic Botanical Library: The Way to Preserve Our Heritage of Botanical Research?" -- Two papers delivered at a symposium at the XVI International Botanical Congress, St. Louis, Missouri, August 7, 1999.

The CBHL Symposium presented at the XVI International Botanical Congress

CBHL's Resources Assessment for Preservation and Access Committee (RAPAC)

Core Literature Project: Historical Monographs in Botanical Sciences

Glossary in preservation

Links to professional organizations and associations

Links for plant libraries and archives resources