Our Principles, by Barbara Dunbar
USMS History and Archives Committee The objectives of the USMS History and Archives Committee are to preserve and maintain USMS archives at an internet site and a secure physical location. Our archives reside at SwimGold.org where they were placed when Dorothy Donnelly and Carl House began working in 1995 to create a site where important USMS archive files would be safeguarded and available for viewing. The secure physical location is the Henning Library at the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF), where the paper originals and duplicate backups of electronic media and microfiche will be conserved and stored. The biggest challenge facing the History and Archives Committee is to create a thoughtful, sound strategy for preserving, safeguarding, managing, and developing the archives based upon the following principles: The archives currently consist of 6,441 webpages with 166,000 links connecting them. All databases are internally consistent and up to date (with the exception of records). The database is managed under program control, not human labor (although research and some data preparation is still labor intensive). All of the systems development work was done with volunteer labor and donated professional services. USMS has never had to pay for an internet server or for programming related to our archives. It is our job now to move forward with thoughtful and orderly planning and development so that this work is integrated into USMS in an institutional way and so that nothing is lost. The goals of the History and Archive Committee by convention next year (2002) are to have our databases all in conventional formats, the most important APL programs isolated as "com" objects (subroutines available to any conventional language), and all human interface by "conventional methods."
Whenever a page in our plan changes, it will be so noted on the What's New page.
1) Materials important to the USMS Archives should be sent to and integrated with the Archives. Materials of value to USMS must be sent to the USMS archives where they will be retained permanently, preserved, safeguarded, and made available. Archive documents include results from Masters National Championship Meets and Long Distance Events; National Top Tens; biographies, photographs, stories, and oral histories; Annual All Americans and All Star lists; Individual and Relay National Record Lists; Individual and Relay World Record lists; USMS Rule Books; and many other important materials. Submitted materials need to be promptly and carefully integrated with the Archives (including indexing and cross-referencing). The USMS Archives are not intended to be a repository for absolutely everything associated with masters swimming since the physical archives would be overwhelmed by the paper copies and the task of conserving and cataloging them. Local and regional items such as club, LMSC, or zone meet results, records, top tens, newsletters, or similar papers should be stored locally or at an LMSC or zone level.
2) Rules, standards, and procedures including redundant backups must be implemented and followed so that archives will never be lost and data will be readily available and accessible for use in many technologies and formats. Implementation of and adherence to archiving rules, standards, procedures, and backups will guarantee that the USMS Archives will never be lost. Archived materials will be stored in original paper and/or microfiche form and in multiple electronic forms at the primary secure location, the Henning Library at ISHOF. Paper materials and documents will be museum conserved using the most up-to-date preservation techniques. Archive documents will be stored above ground, away from flooding and pests, and in a temperature and humidity controlled, fungal-free environment. Archives will be protected from internet threat, vandals, thieves, fire, and smoke. A disaster prevention and preparedness plan will include contingency plans to evacuate the records to a safer location if necessary. Redundant storage of copies of secure archive backups will be done at several secondary sites. Secure copies will be delivered by non-internet methods for storage by the History and Archives Committee Chairman (Carl House, east coast), the USMS Executive Secretary (Tracy Grilli), and a History and Archives Committee west coast member (Barbara Dunbar). Electronic records will be saved in an easily accessible format as well as other secondary formats to preserve the record, to save storage space, and to increase accessibility and retrievability of information. Microfiche backups will ensure continued visual access to all records over time and avoid any potential problems with changing electronic data technology and formats or corruption. The archived data will be safeguarded through regularly scheduled backup procedures. Routinely scheduled backups and special unscheduled backups following each addition of a large volume of data into the archives will guarantee that all electronic data, documents, and images can be restored if lost due to natural disaster, internet vandalism, and server, system, or operator error. Additional backups in multiple formats will ensure long-term access to stored information in the event of format changes. Security precautions must be employed which assure that the electronic archives located on the Archive web site have not been breached by any "back door" or "cached" intrusion and should include algorithms for verifying data. An accurate and complete index of archived files must be updated on a regular basis. System efficiency can continue to be improved on all levels through routine assessment of existing operations. Procedures for the approved use of secure archive copies should be established for research purposes, for evaluation and security purposes, and other uses deemed appropriate by USMS. Many new uses for the accurately archived data will emerge increasing the importance of ensuring that archived data is readily available and accessible for use in many technologies and formats. Florida Gold Coast LMSC, Connecticut LMSC, and Southern Pacific Masters Association LMSC along with the Dixie Zone have created new databases of LMSC or Zone records during the past year. Archive data can be utilized to create an initial database from which LMSC or Zone records can be built. Archive data from the National Top Ten lists can subsequently be used to locate and update newly established LMSC or Zone records. Julie Paque Heather is developing an Access program which could create an initial database of LMSC or Zone top times derived from archive files. We anticipate that Julie's product will be user friendly, will allow exportation of data for specialized data analysis in Excel for those lacking Access programming skills, and will be able to evolve to meet the needs of LMSCs. While Excel is a great tool for those skilled in its use, Access is viewed as a more versatile and useful program for "building and maintaining institutional assets" and for ease of transferring maintenance responsibilities to other individuals.
3) A major task in managing the archives is the administration of permanent swimmer identification (ID) tags which are essential to archive operations and data integrity. Permanent, unique swimmer IDs will continue to be assigned until USMS develops a different official swimmer ID, at which time the archive ID will be converted to the official ID. The USMS archives are managed with an efficient and a functional approach which depends upon unique and permanent swimmer alphanumeric identifications (IDs). No two swimmers would ever have the same alphanumeric combination to avoid identity confusion and allow for error-free linkage of data. Permanent and unique swimmer IDs allow for the accurate crediting of times, placements, achievements, and awards to a particular swimmer regardless of whether the swimmer changes his or her name or uses a first or middle name variant or has a name similar to or identical to other swimmer. The swimmer's unique ID would remain the same and never be used by any other masters swimmer in the past, present, or future. Administration of the permanent swimmer ID is done with software that can run on the server currently in use by SwimGold (NT Server). If the archives are moved to the USMS site and server (Unix), then the software would need to be adapted potentially requiring additional time and work effort. In order to continue to maintain the current archive location and due to concern by some over "ownership," the existing SwimGold.org web site could become owned by USMS, to preserve all of the data located there and avoid needless duplication or loss of valuable data or excessive time to convert or transfer data. The unique archive IDs will continue to be used until USMS develops a different official swimmer ID. The next major change in the administration of the Archives should occur when different official USMS swimmer IDs are created. At that time, the archive IDs will be converted to the official IDs, and the administration of the Archives must adapt. Until then, current procedures and software should evolve with a "sharp eye to conventional methods."
4) USMS.org should have greater integration with (more links to) our archives. Greater integration of the archives located at SwimGold with the USMS site at USMS.org can be readily achieved in several ways without moving SwimGold from the server where it currently resides. Better access from USMS.org to the current archives at SwimGold could be provided. Currently, most pages on the archives website contains at least two links to the USMS.org site, an estimated total of 20,000 links from SwimGold.org to USMS.org, whereas, relatively few links (roughly a dozen) exist from USMS.org to the archive site. The left sidebar shortcut menu list at USMS.org should include "archives," "top ten listing," and "top ten archives" as well as other links to the archives. The archive pages could be made more similar in appearance to USMS.org pages if this is a concern.
5) USMS should acquire the name SwimGold for use as a major name for its archives. This would not impede any desired integration with USMS.org. The current internet location for the archive files, SwimGold, is both efficient and usable by the History and Archives Committee for maintaining USMS archive files and access to those files. Since 1996, archived USMS files have resided at SwimGold.org. Moving the archives to USMS.org could require a great deal of additional work and might invalidate a substantial number of the third party search engine entries and other datalinks and logged address locations. One solution would be to include SwimGold.org within USMS.org in order to solve any potential "ownership" problems and to allow the files to remain at their current location, SwimGold.org. The archive files and the SwimGold name would be controlled by USMS forever. If USMS chooses to acquire SwimGold.org as the permanent location for the USMS archive files, any integration with USMS.org would not be impeded. Since the archives require special handling different from the other USMS assets, a special name for the archives makes sense. "SwimGold" is a good name for the USMS archives.
6) URLs (uniform resource locators, a web site's address) and web page names should remain constant so that search engines, links, and "favorite places" continue to work. There are tens of thousands of entries in major third party search engines whereby anyone in the world can type in one of our names and find information in our archives. These entries are based upon existing URLs (web site addresses) or web page names. Google, AltaVista, HotBot, Lycos, and Yahoo do an excellent job of indexing our archives. The following search engines also index us, although not as deeply: FastSearch, GoTo, MSN, LookSmart, and NorthernLight. If current USMS archive files were eliminated from SwimGold, then all of these search engine links, as well as "favorite places" links, would fail with loss of value and accessibility that has been created for our swimmers and for our organization via major search engines. In the event that the archives were eventually moved to the Unix server where USMS.org currently resides or to another server, the name "SwimGold.org" could be included within USMS.org allowing a back up set of archives to be maintained at SwimGold.org and solving the problem of invalid links. For example, with proper engineering and USMS ownership of both domain names, "www.USMS.org/SwimGold/GailRoper.htm" and "www.SwimGold.org/GailRoper.htm" would both deliver you to the exact same "Gail Roper" page.
7) Additions or updates must be made promptly so that they can be verified in a timely manner. Additions or updates to the Archives must be made carefully, correctly, and promptly by the archive manager so that they can be verified by the requester or reviewer in a timely manner. The procedures and tools developed to maintain and update the archives should be capable of being easily transferred to anyone taking over the job of updating the archives. Since 1996, archive files have been maintained and promptly updated when new information or files are available. The current systems and procedures are functioning quite well, and files should remain located where they can be easily accessed and quickly updated. One of the ongoing History and Archives Committee projects is to fully identify and accurately attribute archived data such as top ten listings, All American status, awards, records, etc. to the correct person (or persons in the case of relay data). This has become a very efficient process due to the quick updating of information located on the Archives site and the ability to promptly verify the accuracy of the update. The timely postings reduce duplicative work and research by the individuals involved in the identification process. Similarly, drafts of the National Top Ten listings are posted on the Archive web site for review, correction, and clarification by the LMSC Top Ten Recorders or other reviewers. Following input from the reviewers, a final, corrected version of the National Top Tens is posted on the Archive site and sent out in published form.
