Here is one that I have been meaning to document for a while now. Back in July New Zealand’s ComputerWorld carried an announcement from National Archives Australia about a set of standards for electronic record keeping.
Working under the auspices of the International Council on Archives, the Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments were launched this week at the International Congress on Archives in Malaysia.
Director-general of the NAA, Ross Gibbs, says the completion of the project is a milestone for the archives industry.
“Over the past decade some countries have issued their own requirements for software to manage electronic records. Now the world’s archival institutions have agreed on a single set of standards.”
In a press release from National Archives Australia Ross Gibbs also said;
‘Ultimately, this initiative is all about helping governments and other organisations to better manage their information assets in an era of rapidly evolving information and communications technology.’
That statement gets to the heart of why this is important for governments in the region.
Almost all governments have strong processes in place today to manage records and information assets generated on paper, but very few have mechanisms to capture the massive amount of information that is transacted electronically.
Decades from now we risk the existence of gaps in national history, details in decision making processes and other missing digital assets that define our cultural heritage.
The principles themselves can be found in a document on the International Council of Archives website, it is linked from here.
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