GAO says NARA needs a backup plan

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has a new report out this week regarding NARA plan, or lack thereof, for accepting Presidential electronic records in January 2009. NARA’s Electronic Records Archive (ERA) has been under development for a number of years and its launch seems far off.  In response, an Executive Office of the President (EOP) system has been developed to accept Presidential records. The EOP seems to be behind schedule as well.  The GAO is calling for NARA to develop an alternative plan in case the EOP cannot accept records on January 20, 2009. The National Coalition for History has more here.

This is certainly an important issue, but it seems a larger issue to the potential incompatibility between the EOP and ERA.  The systems are being built using different architectures by different entities. Will the requirements, backups, and protections used for Presidential records be the same for federal records?  Are the injest and outjest processes different?  Will the differences between the two systems affect the end users? It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Read Full Post »

Archives training for politicians (and maybe ethics too?)

Following the theme of the last post, it seems the level of knowledge government employees have over public and official records is varied. For those of you from the Michigan you’ll be familiar with the soon to be ex-mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick and his ridiculous lack of knowledge of public records. See the latest Detroit news article “Kilpatrick Takes the Fifth in Public Records Case.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Jordan over at Archives Issues posted a few days ago about Sarah Palin’s administrations use of private email accounts for state business. This is a prime example of how people in power can escape accountability for their actions by deliberately not creating official records.

How can archivists hold people running for federal office accountable for their record keeping practices? I don’t think there is an easy answer here. Especially with the press’ lack of access to Palin for interviewing and questioning.

Read Full Post »

NYT: Loss of Federal Electronic Records

The New York Times article, In Digital Age, Federal Files Blip Into Oblivion, published on Thursday has a great summary of some of the problems in preserving electronic records throughout the Federal government. Excluding the problems and issues archivists face developing electronic record keeping systems, the larger problem is the lack of knowledge by agency employees regarding what is a federal record, what records need to be saved, and how to go about preserving and creating access for records professionals and archivists.

This is a serious public outreach and education problem facing archivists. Librarians often talk about information literacy and its importance in society. What about archival literacy? How can archivists share our knowledge about records creation, context, use, and preservation with records creators? There is growing literature expressing the need for archival involvement earlier in the records life cycle. It seems that in a time where people are desperate for help in dealing with their electronic records archivists and records managers can take this opportunity to create more effective training programs and support for federal employees. Otherwise, as Richard Pearce-Moses was quoted in the article: “…[T]he risks are so great that we may lose significant portions of our history.”

Read Full Post »