National Archives going fully digital by the end of 2022

Newswire: Aug. 24, 2017.

Dateline: Washington.

The National Archives and Records Administration says that by the end of 2022 it will no longer accept non-electronic records submissions from federal agencies.

The Archives set that goal in a strategic plan it put out for public comment on Aug. 24. It is trying to move to a fully electronic archive of the nation’s records.

The notice said the agency will “no longer accept transfers of permanent or temporary records in analog formats and will accept records only in electronic format and with appropriate metadata.”

Holding to that standard isn’t as simple as it sounds, if the transition to managing electronic mail in a fully electronic format is any indication. All federal agencies were required to do so by the end of 2016 under an executive order signed by President Obama in 2012. When the year ended, 81 percent of federal agencies were in compliance; the National Archives expected 92 percent.

NARA also said it will digitize 500 million pages of paper records and make them available through the Archives catalog by the 2020 fiscal year, and by 2021 have 82 percent of agency holdings processed for public access.

The plan does not mean the National Archives are abandoning paper. “We are equally committed to preserving and providing access to the permanently valuable paper and analog records in our care,” William J. Bosanko, NARA’s chief operating officer, told FCW.

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(Front page image via Wikipedia)