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State Records in an Era of Change: A National Challenge A Report on State Archives and Records Management Programs 1996 |
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This is the executive summary of a report prepared for the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators and supported with Commission funds. The full report, appendices, and individual state profiles are available in hard copy from the State Coordinators and from our web site as PDF files.
Government Records Are Essential
Accurate, complete, and accessible government records are essential tools of democracy. Citizens depend on federal, state, and local governments to maintain documentation about many key details of their personal and business lives as well as the conduct of their governments. We prove our citizenship with birth certificates, establish ownership with deeds and land surveys, certify professional competence through education transcripts and licensing requirements, qualify for benefits with work and military service records, and hold our officials accountable by reviewing documentation of their actions. Records and archives also deepen our understanding of institutions and our history.
Government Records Are Changing
Electronic technology has reached into every aspect of our lives today, and government recordkeeping is no exception. Many of the day-to-day operations of state governments are now conducted electronically, especially with the widespread use of electronic mail and electronic data interchange for procurement. Even that most fundamental government records on which every citizen depends, the birth certificate, is being converted from paper to electronic form. As recordkeeping moves from paper to electronic systems, it is essential that policy makers, managers, and the public ensure that the new media create and maintain records that are comprehensive, authentic, and tamperproof. In addition, we must also make sure that records created today will be readable on tomorrow's technology.
The Role of State Archives and Records Management Programs In its report, the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators (COSHRC) has identified a wide range of issues that demand attention from state and territorial archivists. They must
- ensure that sound recordkeeping practices continue as the media and forms of records change;
- harness the power of technology to improve and broaden access to records; and
- incorporate archival and records management perspectives into state information resources management and information policies.
COSHRC recommends that its members, collectively through national organizations and individually within each state, and in partnership with other concerned organizations and individuals pursue the steps outlined below in order to meet these challenges.
Recommendations from the 1996 COSHRC Report
To address the concerns and challenges raised by this report, there are a number of areas in which state archivists and records administrators should undertake specific activities or enhance ongoing activities, both individually within each state and collectively through the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators and other cooperative enterprises.
Administrators and staff of state archives and records programs need ongoing professional development and training.
The rapid changes in recordkeeping technologies and the preservation challenges presented by diverse media require constant upgrading of knowledge and skills among state archives and records management personnel.
- Continue the annual institutes on electronic records issues at the University of Pittsburgh for state archives and records management staff.
- Provide practical staff training locally and nationally on new technologies, preservation requirements for specific media (paper, magnetic, film), and other areas in which response to constant and rapid change is essential.
State archives and records programs must provide records creators in state and local agencies with sufficient guidance and training on long-term requirements for records management in all media.
State archivists and records managers, along with other colleagues in the public and private sectors, are developing functional requirements for electronic information systems to ensure that these systems create and maintain adequate records. These and other standards of good practice can secure government records doer the long-term benefit of policy makers and citizens alike. In order to understand the significance of these standards and implement them properly, state government employees must have easy-to-understand guidelines and thorough training led by state archives and records management personnel.
- Develop training modules and written guidelines for electronic recordkeeping functional requirements.
- Identify and disseminate information about other national standards of good recordkeeping practices in all media, providing additional guidance and training as necessary.
- Work with National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE), the Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA), and other professional organizations to promulgate this information to their members.
Users must be informed about what records are available and how to access them.
There is great unrealized potential in the use of state archives holdings for administrative, scholarly. And personal endeavors. Electronic access tools will enable much broader access to state archival holdings, initially through catalog descriptions and indexes, and eventually through electronic delivery of documents themselves.
- Investigate the potential benefits from and encourage the development of Government Information Locator Services (GILS) in the states.
- Examine techniques for providing remote access to information about holdings and to actual records (e.g., bibliographic networks and WWW home pages) to encourage development of appropriate and useful tools.
Archivists and records managers must promote the identification and adoption of best practices among all government archives and records programs.
State archivists and records administrators have come to realize the value of sharing information about their programs with peers in other states. The annual statistics NAGARA has collected since 1989, along with the more detailed data and anecdotal evidence collected by COSHRC, provide a basis for establishing common programmatic and policy benchmarks.
- Continue to collect and disseminate statistical information that is useful in the development of annual budgets, staffing plans, fee schedules, facilities design, and other administrative activities and request the submission of specific types of program documents (e.g., access policies, legislation, job descriptions).
- Encourage each state to mount policy documents and other information about their archives and records management programs on their WWW home pages and develop a central Internet-based directory pointing to each of these sites for ready access and comparison.
- Provide support for innovative projects that could serve as models for other governmental records programs and ensure that information about the outcomes of such projects is made known.
Archivists and records managers at all levels of government must foster effective strategic partnerships and cooperative projects to achieve common goals.
The establishment and maintenance of sound recordkeeping practices require the cooperation and commitment of all those responsible for the creation, preservation, and use of records. State archivists and records managers must continue working together on their shared concerns and must actively reach out to other organizations and institutions whose interests are also involved.
- Continue collaboration among the state and territorial archives, and with the National Archives, to develop benchmarks for and share best practices among government records programs at all levels.
- Advocate recognition of long-term recordkeeping requirements by each state's information resources management and information policy bodies.
- Pursue active collaborations among archives, records, and information management associations (COSHRC, NAGARA, the Society of American Archivists, ARMA, NASIRE, etc.)
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