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SAA Responds to NARA Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking



With apologies for cross posting:

On January 4, 2002 the SAA Council endorsed a statement prepared by the
Society's Electronic Records Section and Government Records Section in
response to NARA's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the
management and preservation of electronic records (see
http://www.archivists.org/ to view the document in PDF format). The document
summary states:

Retaining the content, structure and context of records is a necessary
component of responsible recordkeeping. When transferring records from one
technical environment to another, one can potentially lose essential
components of that content, context and structure. Appropriate management,
retention and disposition of electronic records requires government agencies
-- with guidance and legal authority from the National Archives and Records
Administration -- to address the necessary elements and properties of the
particular forms and formats of those records. We believe that Public
Citizen's call for the retention of "the entire content, structure and
context of the electronic original" is neither realistic nor helpful is a
goal of good recordkeeping. Instead, agency policies, procedures and
documentation -- including NARA-approved retention schedules, published
disposition manuals, special transfer requirements, transfer forms, and
other documentation -- should indicate the specific qualities of digital
objects that must be retained in order to ensure their ongoing value as
records. While we support most of the requirements that NARA provides in 36
CFR 1234.22, we believe that they should be applied to all records produced
or received with electronic information systems. We do not see "text
documents" as a useful category for purposes of this regulation, since we do
not believe that it is possible to identify any particular set of elements
or properties that must be retained for all records that fall within its
definition.

We also emphasize that retaining records in electronic formats will often
strongly support the business needs of government, including provisions for
public access. As Public Citizen argues, retention of records in electronic
formats will often greatly promote both the convenience and quality of
public access to those records. Recent case law provides a number of
examples in which parties have been required to provide the electronic
version of records as part of the evidence discovery process. While this
does not imply that all records must be retained in electronic formats for
their entire life, it does provide compelling support for the view that
electronic source records can often contain important elements of evidence
that may be lost in printed copies.

NARA's mission is ensuring "ready access to essential evidence." This is a
primary objective of the archival profession as a whole. It is also a
mission in which the federal government, citizens, and other potential
researchers all have an interest. EFOIA represents an important set of
business needs related to such access. Recent legislation such as the
Government paperwork Elimination Act and Electronic Signatures in Global and
National Commerce Act has also introduced a number of  requirements to
manage and provide access to government records in electronic formats. Of
course, agencies must continually strike a balance among numerous business
needs. This balance is recognized in the FOIA legislation, which states that
each "agency shall make reasonable efforts to maintain its records in forms
and formats" that can be both searched and reproduced electronically. We
encourage NARA to continue expanding its efforts to promote the management
and preservation of electronic records within the federal government.





Susan E. Fox, CAE
Executive Director
Society of American Archivists
527 S. Wells St., 5th Floor
Chicago, IL  60607
312-922-0140
fax:  312-347-1452
sfox@archivists.org
www.archivists.org

The mission of the Society of American Archivists is to serve the
educational and informational needs of our members and to provide leadership
to ensure the identification, preservation, and use of the nation's historic
record.

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