"The present work originated in a conference in London in June 1993 sponsored by the British Academy and the International Association for History and Computing. This brought together archivists, historians, librarians, museum curators, and record managers to discuss matters of mutual interest with respect to the management, storage, and dissemin- ation of electronic records. Such an interdisciplinary approach was one which had previously been absent from the debates in this field. The proceedings of the conference were published in a limited print run ( Ross and Higgs 1994), and the interest shown in that volume encour- aged the editor to prepare this more polished work for wider circula- tion. The contributions to the original meeting which addressed wider issues have been published here in as revised and updated form as possible, and several newly commissioned chapters on related subjects have also been included..."