Archives: Electronic Record Keeping Weak

Government agencies are uncertain how to handle electronic records and, in many cases, are doing an uneven job at it, according to a Dec. 10 report completed by SRA International Inc., Fairfax, Va., for the National Archives and Records Administration.

"The Report on Current Record Keeping Practices within the Federal Government" assesses the state of record keeping and archiving in the federal government.

Although the study focused largely on paper record keeping, it had also found that, in the electronic realm, "government employees do not know how to solve the problem of electronic records, whether the electronic information they create constitutes records and, if so, what to do with the records."

E-mails, databases, spreadsheets and text documents aren't being kept as records at all in many agencies, and only haphazardly in others, according to the report.

Moreover, many agencies don't have tools to retain and index appropriate documents. In most agencies studied, electronic documents are printed out to serve as records.

The report singled out e-mail as especially problematic, as there is widespread uncertainly as to what constitutes a "substantive" e-mail that should be saved as a record vs. an informal one which should not, according to National Archive guidelines.

SRA interviewed people and focus groups and conducted Internet surveys to understand how agency officials and staff viewed records management. Participants from more than 40 agencies contributed.

In addition, National Archives teams examined selected business processes in federal agencies to determine how records are actually being created and managed.

The report is available on the NARA Web site at www.nara.gov/records/rmi.html.