With thanks to David Ryan PRO for drawing this to the attention of the list.
Members of the list will be interested in the recent report of the US General Accounting Office(GAO), the investigative arm of Congress,
entitled "Information Management: Challenges in Managing and Preserving Electronic Records"
see http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02586.pdf
In this report, the GAO considered the efforts of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) towards digital preservation, particularly those focused on the Electronic Records Archive (ERA) initiative. A summary of the key findings from the report is given below.
NARA has taken action to respond to the challenges associated with
managing and preserving electronic records. In 2001, NARA completed an
assessment of the current federal recordkeeping environment; this study
concluded that although agencies are creating and maintaining records
appropriately, most electronic records (including databases of major
federal information systems) remain unscheduled, and records of historical
value are not being identified and provided to NARA for preservation in
archives. As a result, valuable electronic records may be at risk of loss. Part
of the problem is that records management guidance is inadequate in the
current technological environment of decentralized systems producing
large volumes of complex records. Another factor is the low priority often
given to records management programs and the lack of technology tools to
manage electronic records. Finally, NARA does not perform systematic
inspections of agency records and records management programs, and so it
does not have comprehensive information allowing it to identify records
management implementation issues and areas where its guidance needs to
be strengthened. NARA plans to improve its guidance and to address
technology issues. However, NARA’s plans do not address the low priority
generally given to records management programs nor the issue of
systematic inspections.
Recognizing the limitations of its technical strategies to support
preservation, management, and sustained access to electronic records,
NARA is planning to design, acquire, and manage an advanced electronic
records archive (ERA); however, this project faces substantial risks. NARA
is behind schedule for the ERA system, largely because of flaws in how the
schedule was developed. Further, to acquire a major system like ERA,
NARA needs to improve its information technology (IT) management
capabilities, and although it has made progress in doing so, its efforts are
not yet complete.
Regarding alternative archiving technologies for electronic records, we
found that archival organizations now rely on a mixture of evolving
approaches that generally fall short of solving the long-term preservation
problem. Appendix II provides a detailed discussion of these approaches.
In light of the continuing challenge of managing federal records, both
electronic and otherwise, we are recommending that the Archivist of the
United States develop a strategy for raising awareness of the importance of
federal records management programs and for performing systematic
inspections. In addition, to mitigate the risks associated with developing
the new archival system, we are recommending that the Archivist reassess
the schedule for this effort.
In commenting on a draft of this report, the Archivist stated that more must
be done to address the enormous challenges in managing and preserving
electronic records and agreed with the report’s recommendations. He also
offered clarifications concerning records management priority,
inspections, and the ERA schedule that we have incorporated as
appropriate.
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Neil Beagrie JISC Digital Preservation Focus
Programme Director Secretary, Digital Preservation Coalition
JISC London Office, Tel/Fax/Voicemail :+44 (0)709 2048179
King's College London email: [log in to unmask]
Strand Bridge House url: www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/
138 - 142, The Strand, www.dpconline.org
London WC2R 1HH email list: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation.html
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