Resolve
RDF Terms

Record Resource

Recurso documental

Ressource archivistique

Information produced or acquired and retained by an Agent in the course of life or work activity.

Corresponds to RiC-E02 (Record Resource entity)

Record resource is a kind of Thing. Producing a record resource may imply either its initial creation or a reuse of previous existing information by combination, rearrangement, selecting, reformatting, etc. Record set, record, and record part are kinds of record resource. A record resource is evidence of the activity of an agent. More than one agent may be involved in the creation of a record resource. The role of the agent in creating the record resource may take different forms, for example, authoring of an individual record, accumulating a record set, or arranging a record set. Though a record, record set, and record part, under most circumstances, may be easily distinguished from one another, identifying the boundary of each may frequently present particular challenges. Documentary forms provide the rules governing the structure of many types of records, providing criteria for identifying a record's boundary, and identifying its essential parts. Many records, though, do not have well-established documentary forms, particularly in the case of digital records, where it may be difficult to determine whether individual elements represented in separate bitstreams are record parts, records, or record sets. For example, is photographic information represented independently in a bitstream embedded in a text document a record or a record part? Or is the same photographic information attached to an email that maintains its independent representation, a record or a record part? Information grouped for some purpose, for example, ZIP or TAR "file compression" for saving storage space, presents a further challenge. One file comprises multiple bitstreams subjected to techniques that remove bits that can be losslessly recovered when decompressed. Under what circumstances is such a compressed bitstream a record or a record set? Determining when an information object is a record, record set, or record part is based on perspective and judgement exercised in a particular context. In one context, the agent describing an information object may designate it a record, while another agent in a different context may designate it a record part. Both designations are supported by RiC-CM, and the significance of the difference for users of the records is ameliorated by the fact that all of the attributes and relations employed in describing record and record part are shared, as are many of the attributes and relations employed in describing a record set.