FROM THE ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES David S. Ferriero National Archives and Records Administration david.ferriero@nara.gov NARA’s Leadership in the Digital Decade T This process allows NARA staff, agency stakeholders, the public, and experts in the t ensuring preservation of digitized assets, archival and preservation fields to weigh in and assist in creating the standard for digital including digital copies and associated NARA first developed and published a metadata through inclusion in the catalog preservation in the federal government. NARA is also ensuring that its process for digitization strategy in 2011 (updated in and storage in ERA 2.0. identifying and mitigating risk in 2014 at archives.gov/digitization/strategy ) in electronic records is as transparent The issuance of this order to provide a comprehensive, system-NARA uploaded as possible. wide approach to its digitizing activities. The new policy follows the September strategy recognized five paths for digitiza-more digital copies By planning carefully, working col-release of NARA’s tion: partnerships, crowdsourcing, agency into the catalog laboratively, and leveraging emerg-transfers, digitization as part of the archival Digital Preservation ing technologies, I am proud to say last year than process, and internal lab projects. The strat-Framework for public that we were able to upload more comment. This frame-egy also references a set of guiding prin-in the previous digital copies into the catalog last work encompasses two ciples for digitization partnership projects. year than in the previous decade decade of the years of work to ensure of the project. We have more than that NARA is ready for With its strategic plan, NARA has commit-project. 100 million digital objects in the the government-wide ted to digitize 500 million pages of records catalog, and we are on track for and make them available online to the public shift from paper to all-reaching our goal of 500 million by 2024. electronic recordkeeping. Our work is guided through the National Archives Catalog by by NARA’s strategic plan and its 2017 2024 ( catalog.archives.gov ). This goal will be In conjunction with digitization and on-Digital Preservation Strategy ( archives.gov accomplished through the paths outlined going stewardship of its born-digital records /preservation/electronic-records/digital holdings, NARA has also focused on the in the strategy, which are supported by our -preservation-strategy ) and informs the digital use and re-use of these records. Our new policy. continuing development of ERA 2.0, the records are available on more than 25 online agency’s cloud-based electronic record pro-After much internal conversation, review, platforms, including DPLA and Wikipedia. and revising, we published our new digitiza-cessing and preservation infrastructure. Our records on partner platforms consis-tion policy in November 2019. Some of the tently garner more than two billion views The framework is a formalized set of docu-highlights of the policy include each year. ments that describes how NARA identifies t recognizing that digitizing is part of the risks to digital files and prioritizes them for This incredible digital access to our holdings archival process, action, and it lays out specific plans for the would not exist without digital copies of t establishing digitization technical stan-preservation of these many file formats. A our records. The policy provides corporate dards and requirements, Risk Matrix documents the preservation guidance for our digitization efforts across risk of digital file formats. The File Format the agency, supports our strategic goals, and t confirming our existing descriptive meta-Preservation Action Plans map to record documents our bold intentions for our digi-data standards, types (e.g., datasets and databases, email, tal future. The digital preservation strategy t clarifying roles and responsibilities, video and audio, textual) and include recom-and framework ensures that both digitized t ensuring that digital copies and metadata mended preservation migration actions, and born-digital records are available to the created are made available through the links to specifications and other resources, American people. The two together are criti-National Archives Catalog for digital use cal to making access happen. and proposed tools for processing and pres-ervation migrations. and reuse, and 12 he National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has recently published its first comprehensive digitization policy. It is bold and aspira-tional as well as grounded in the experience of decades of archival practices that have provided access and preservation. All of the experience, knowledge, and skills of our staff informed the drafting of our policy. t providing guidance for short-and long-term storage of digital files. Benefits of and objectives for this policy include t increased public access to NARA holdings while preserving and protecting analog holdings, and We released the Digital Preservation Framework on GitHub for public comment ( github.com/usnationalarchives/digital -preservation ), and we will update the frame-work in 2020. ARCHIVAL OUTLOOK January/February 2020
Archival Outlook January/February 2020: Page 12
