Nearly everyone
knows documents are increasingly "born digital" — and often are never
even used in paper form. But not everyone realizes that digital documents constitute
public records.
Some of those
records are only trivial in value, while others may be needed for a few years.
But a very small portion is of enduring value, important to the "life of
the Republic." Judgments about which records are trivial and which are
substantive are critical.
Serious human
rights and public accountability issues are at stake for the government and the
public. Indeed, Eduard Mark, an Air Force historian, wrote in an April 24
online discussion with other historians that the system to maintain federal
records has "collapsed utterly."
"It will be
impossible," he continued, "to write the history of recent diplomatic
and military history as we have written about World War II. Too many records
are gone, and with [them] public accountability of government and rational
public administration."
The National
Archives and Records Administration and other federal agencies face growing
difficulties keeping up with the escalating creation of electronic records —
word-processed documents, presentation slides, e-mail messaging, Web sites and
other newer forms of electronic records — because traditional processes,
technologies and skills for maintaining paper records are inadequate.
A recent survey
revealed that records managers believe that agency heads, legislators,
journalists, auditors, lawyers and historians need and use records. Yet those
same managers do little to publicly foster support for sound recordkeeping
practices.
The implications
are far-reaching. If implemented, the practices could change how and when
records are captured and transferred to
The example of
record transfer illustrates the potential impact of the new plan. For decades,
agencies have transferred archival records to
Under
Where agency
recordkeeping is found lacking,
The shift also
represents a turnaround for some NARA professionals, who in the past have been
less than enthusiastic about taking early physical custody of agency records
because that would entail handling Freedom of Information Act requests. This is
a logical point. The relationships between recordkeeping, security downgrading
and FOIA management need to be revisited.
At least at the
top,
Barry is a
principal of Barry Associates in
The National
Archives and Records Administration has taken strides
to deal with electronic archives, an effort I discussed in a column last week.
An important part of this redesign effort is the Electronic Records Archives
program, which
The ERA program
has significant technological implications and challenges. In terms of
complexity and cost, it is undoubtedly the largest system
The system will
capture, preserve and maintain control of and ready access to records deemed to
be of continuing value and interest to "the life of the Republic."
This will be done in a way that will retain the records' integrity and protect
them from natural and man-made disasters, such as what happened to the
Beyond
the technical issues,
All of those
disciplines will be needed in addition to the traditional archival, records
management, conservation and preservation personnel who are
What priorities
will
NARA might well
consider employing the services of former senior systems acquisition and
project managers from the Pentagon, or even outsourcing this function to the
Defense Department, which has considerable in-house experience and a long
history of working on projects of this scale. Then again,
The system also
faces major technological hurdles. Today some of the most important
decision-support documents are in the form of multimedia computer slide
presentations and spreadsheets, which have assumptions embedded within the
electronic version that are not easily amenable for printing out. The problems
related to saving such important types of records are typically not addressed,
and so the records are lost.
Other relatively
new technologies that are already producing enormous amounts of uncaptured
records are e-mail, videoconferences, Web sites, and call centers and other "customer-facing"
audio systems, while Web log, instant messaging and geographic information
system technologies are emerging as potentially large producers of records.
Documents produced using such tools must be maintained in an integrated fashion
retaining their mutual context.
The Office of
Management and Budget called for the implementation of e-government,
citizen-centric solutions and the massive enterprise resource planning systems
used to integrate disorganized, duplicative, stovepipe financial and human
resource systems. These record-making systems are not recordkeeping systems.
One solution for
at least some types of records, though not without its own problems, is the
migration approach employed in the persistent archives project that
Barry is a
principal of Barry Associates in