BERTRAM Nickolay does not like doing jigsaws. This is strange because for the past 15 years the German computer engineer has sweated over the most fiendish jigsaw puzzle imaginable, made up of 600 million scraps of paper.

This article is fascinating and has many implications for the re-construction of a documentary history, as well as for organisational evidence and use of digital technologies.
When I first read this article my mind thought of the many stories that records tell us. It amazed me to read that these bags of torn paper have been lying around for decades and that years of work had been put into trying to 'piece together the puzzle'.
Each individual piece of ripped paper tells a story - a story about resources that ensured these papers were kept together for restoration, a story about the dedication of the Stasi in destroying records, a story about technology and how it was not efficient in destroying so many records, a story on resources that effected the disposal of these records and many more.
The digital transformation of these records tells more stories, re-inventing the records as they go. The new, digitally transformed records, where the content 'makes sense' are different records telling different stories.
The ‘original’ record no longer exists, but the digitised and re-constructed version can tell us what its purpose was. The ‘original’ record exists in the stories and the history of this digital version. But is the digital record merely a version? No. It is now a record in its own right - a digital record of the process of reconstructing torn pieces of paper. A record of the resources spent on finding a solution to the re-construction. A record of the skills of programmers and capacity of technology. A record which has content that makes ‘sense’ and communicates information.
And what of the digitised pieces themselves? I can think of how these pieces can be used to tell stories about the records, and their place in time and space, not just of the Stasi’s actions, but of technology and determination to find a solution. I can see this technology being used to provide a tool for interactive storytelling in archives and museums and on the web. And not just to make ‘sense’, but to make nonsense using the pieces – what else can they tell us, how else can they be used? What is the value of the record pieces?
Of course my mind wanders to organisational implications, particularly regarding evidence. Imagine if this technology became cheap enough for everyone to use? Recordkeeping disposal and destruction would have be exceptionally rigorous and effective. Furthermore, the technology that re-constructs shredded paper would be needed as evidence as much the re-constructed record itself in order to prove that the technology reconstructed it ‘the right way’. What types of stories would shredded organisational records tell, other than just their content?