Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration
Recommendations for a Long-Term Strategy
Robert F. Sproull and Jon Eisenberg, Editors
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
www.nap.edu
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the National Archives and Records Administration under Contract No. NAMA-02-C-0012. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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COMMITTEE ON DIGITAL ARCHIVING AND THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
ROBERT F. SPROULL,
Sun Microsystems,
Chair
HOWARD BESSER,
University of California, Los Angeles
JAMIE CALLAN,
Carnegie Mellon University
CHARLES DOLLAR,
Dollar Consulting
STUART HABER,
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
MARGARET HEDSTROM,
University of Michigan
MARK KORNBLUH,
Michigan State University
RAYMOND LORIE,
IBM Almaden Research Center
CLIFFORD LYNCH,
Coalition for Networked Information
JEROME H. SALTZER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MARGO SELTZER,
Harvard University
ROBERT WILENSKY,
University of California, Berkeley
Staff
JON EISENBERG, Study Director and Senior Program Officer
STEVEN WOO, Program Officer (through August 2004)
DAVID PADGHAM, Research Associate
JENNIFER M. BISHOP, Senior Project Assistant
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
JEANNETTE M. WING,
Carnegie Mellon University,
Chair
ERIC BENHAMOU,
Benhamou Global Ventures, LLC
DAVID D. CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
CSTB Chair Emeritus
WILLIAM DALLY,
Stanford University
MARK E. DEAN,
IBM Almaden Research Center
DEBORAH ESTRIN,
University of California, Los Angeles
JOAN FEIGENBAUM,
Yale University
HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA,
Stanford University
KEVIN KAHN,
Intel Corporation
JAMES KAJIYA,
Microsoft Corporation
MICHAEL KATZ,
University of California, Berkeley
RANDY H. KATZ,
University of California, Berkeley
WENDY A. KELLOGG,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
SARA KIESLER,
Carnegie Mellon University
BUTLER W. LAMPSON,
Microsoft Corporation,
CSTB Member Emeritus
TERESA H. MENG,
Stanford University
TOM M. MITCHELL,
Carnegie Mellon University
DANIEL PIKE,
GCI Cable and Entertainment
ERIC SCHMIDT,
Google, Inc.
FRED B. SCHNEIDER,
Cornell University
WILLIAM STEAD,
Vanderbilt University
ANDREW J. VITERBI,
Viterbi Group, LLC
CHARLES BROWNSTEIN, Director
KRISTEN BATCH, Research Associate
JENNIFER M. BISHOP, Program Associate
JANET BRISCOE, Manager, Program Operations
JON EISENBERG, Senior Program Officer
RENEE HAWKINS, Financial Associate
MARGARET MARSH HUYNH, Senior Program Assistant
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Scientist
LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Senior Program Officer
JANICE SABUDA, Senior Program Assistant
GLORIA A. WESTBROOK, Senior Program Assistant
BRANDYE WILLIAMS, Staff Assistant
For more information on CSTB, see its Web site at http://www.cstb.org; write to CSTB, National Research Council, 500 Fifth Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20001; call at (202) 334-2605; or e-mail the CSTB at cstb@nas.edu.
Preface
Just as its constituent agencies and other organizations do, the federal government generates and increasingly saves a large and growing fraction of its records in electronic form. Recognizing the ever-greater importance of these electronic records for its mission of preserving “essential evidence,” the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched a major new initiative, the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) initiative, in 1998. NARA subsequently requested that the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board conduct a two-phase study to provide NARA with advice as it develops the ERA program.
Phase one of the study resulted in the preparation of two reports by the Committee on Digital Archiving and the National Archives and Records Administration. The committee’s first report, Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration: Recommendations for Initial Development,1 focused on design and engineering issues related to NARA’s Electronic Records Archives program. Also, the committee issued a letter report2 in October 2003 that elaborated on issues discussed in its first report, tying these issues specifically to NARA’s draft request for proposals for the ERA. Although some of the conclusions in these two reports relate to specific development initiatives and early design ideas, most of the
1 |
National Research Council. 2003. Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration: Recommendations for Initial Development, Robert F. Sproull and Jon Eisenberg (eds.). The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. The “Summary and Recommendations” chapter of the 2003 study is reprinted in Appendix B of the present report. |
2 |
National Research Council. 2003. “Letter Report on Building an Electronic Records Archive at the National Archives and Records Administration.” The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., October 16. The letter report is reprinted in Appendix C of this report. |
observations about archive system design are not tied to these specifics and are intended to remain useful to NARA as it develops, refines, and iterates the ERA program.
This final report is the result of phase two of the study. Prepared by the same committee (see Appendix D for biographical information), it examines longer-term, more strategic issues related to electronic records archiving at NARA. These issues include technology and other trends that shape the context in which the ERA exists, the archival processes of the ERA itself, and the future evolution of the ERA system. This final report also discusses record integrity, which the committee’s first report did not address in detail.
The committee thanks the many people who made this report possible, although of course responsibility for the final result is its own. The support and assistance of the ERA program staff, especially Kenneth Thibodeau, Robert Chadduck, and Richard Steinbacher, are greatly appreciated. A number of individuals from NARA, other federal agencies, and the private sector, listed in Appendix A, provided valuable input to the committee during the course of its work. Jennifer M. Bishop, CSTB program associate, facilitated our work throughout the course of this project. David Padgham conducted background research and made a number of contributions to the committee’s reports.
Robert F. Sproull, Chair
Committee on Digital Archiving and the National Archives and Records Administration
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
William Y. Arms, Cornell University,
Paul Conway, Duke University,
W. Bruce Croft, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Hector Garcia-Molina, Stanford University,
James Gray, Microsoft Bay Area Research Center,
Michael E. Lesk, Rutgers University,
Charles McClure, Florida State University,
Mark Seiden, MSB Associates, and
J. Timothy Sprehe, Sprehe Information Management Associates.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Robert
J. Spinrad, Xerox Corporation (retired). Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.