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Archives and the Public Good : Accountability and Records in Modern SocietyAuthor:  Cox, Richard J.; Wallace, David A.Publication:  Westport, Conn. Praeger, 2002.ISBN:  1567204694Subject:  Archives--Social aspects.Archives--Administration--Case studies.Records--Management--Case studies.Common good.Public interest.Responsibility.CONTENTSIntroductionRichard J. Cox and David A. Wallace 1Excerpt:The fourteen contributions to this volume revolve around four closely related themes tying the importance of records for accountability in society—explanation (making laypeople understand what records mean), secrecy, memory, and trust. Explanation   19Archives on Trial: The Strange Case of the Martin Luther King, Jr., PapersJames M. O’Toole 21“A Monumental Blunder”: The Destruction of Records on Nazi War Criminals in CanadaTerry Cook   37From the Conclusion:Critical to accountability in any sphere of human activity is the existence of reliable records as evidence of human and organizational activity. And for the records to be credible, the records management and archival processes themselves must be based on sound theoretical concepts of “value,” on logical strategies and methodologies to locate such values, and on consistent practice, verifiable implementation, and transparent documentation. Archivists and records managers must likewise themselves be transparent and accountable for their decisions. Significant improvements in all these areas at the National Archives of Canada were a direct result of the impact of the Deschênes Commission investigations or the criticisms of David Matas.Odd but true, the conclusion seems inescapable that Nazi war criminals entering Canada illegally in the late 1940s led indirectly, by the end of the 1980s, to better ways of determining how archival records should be selected to form society’s collective memory. This perhaps atones a little for past apathies. Information for Accountability Workshops: Their Role in Promoting Access to InformationKimberly Barata, Piers Cain, Dawn Routledge, and Justus Wamukoya67Secrecy   89Implausible Deniability: The Politics of Documents in the Iran-Contra Affair and Its InvestigationsDavid A. Wallace    91The Failure of Federal Records Management: The IRS versus a Democratic SocietyShelley Davis  115Lighting Up the Internet: The Brown and Williamson CollectionRobin L. Chandler and Susan Storch    135Memory   163The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the Politics of MemoryTywanna Whorley   165Turning History into Justice: The National Archives and Records Administration and Holocaust-Era Assets, 1996—2001Greg Bradsher  177“They Should Have Destroyed More”: The Destruction of Public Records by the South African State in the Final Years of Apartheid, 1990—1994Verne Harris   205Trying to Write “Comprehensive and Accurate’’ History of the Foreign Relations of the United States: An Archival PerspectiveAnne Van Camp    229Trust   245What You Get Is Not What You See: Forgery and the Corruption of Recordkeeping SystemsDavid B. Gracy II    247The Jamaican Financial Crisis: Accounting for the Collapse of Jamaica’s Indigenous Commercial BanksVictoria L. Lemieux    265The Anchors of Community Trust and Academic Liberty: The Fabrikant AffairBarbara L. Craig    283Records and the Public Interest: The “Heiner Affair” in Queensland, AustraliaChris Hurley    293Index   319About the Editors and Contributors    335