Description (en)
The “paperless office” concept has been around for
decades, and many have cited that the electronic office
has instead increased the amount of paper produced.
Case studies have shown that a successful “paperless”
system requires motivation, ease of use, and cost savings
[5]. Paper will co-exist with electronic records for the
foreseeable future; however, what happens when the
official record of an institution becomes “paperless”?
This short paper presents a case study describing the
efforts in the University of Oregon Office of the
President to move to a fully electronic records system,
the trickle-down effect to campus units, and the work of
the Libraries to preserve the institutional record. The
Libraries created a model to solve the immediate needs
of the Office of the President addressing issues of
workflow and preservation before an ideal system and
staffing could be realized. A hands-on approach was
employed, focusing on day-to-day work and ease of use
for office contacts, and standards and migration plans for
archival files using PLATTER [1]. By doing this, a
foundation was created for an electronic records system
that can be adapted across campus for administrative
offices, faculty scholarship, cultural museums, science
labs, and student coursework.