Governance and Recordkeeping, April 2021
ISSN 1916-5714
In this issue
Section 1 — General News
Canada
Federal Government
Digital Charter Implementation Act tabled
The Act will modernize the federal private sector privacy regime. It will create a new privacy law for the private sector that will significantly increase protection for personal information by giving Canadians more control and ensuring greater transparency when companies handle their personal information.
Government of British Columbia
New directives facilitate access to information
Five directives have been signed under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. More government records will be available to individuals without a freedom-of-information request being required.
Australia
New information and privacy committee to advise state government on best practices
The committee will advise the state government on how best to deliver information and privacy management practices by providing information, advice, assistance, and training. Collaboration will also occur between government, industry and academia.
Belgium
Social Sciences and Digital Humanities Archive (SODHA) launched (French only)
SODHA is a data archive, or archiving platform, for data sets produced during scientific research. With SODHA, researchers can deposit, find and reuse data of all kinds in the fields of social sciences and digital humanities.
Brazil
Data protection officers appointed in all federal government bodies
All central government organizations will be required to appoint a data protection officer (DPO), who will be responsible for ensuring the appropriate handling of personal data at each institution. In addition, the DPO will verify that all procedures needed to ensure the privacy of citizens and the protection of their personal data are in place.
Europe
Commission sets up a centre for digital preservation of cultural heritage
The European Commission has launched a competence centre, which will preserve and conserve European cultural heritage. A collaborative digital space for cultural heritage conservation has been set up, giving access to repositories of data, metadata, standards and guidelines.
France
New interface for FranceArchives portal now online (French only)
The FranceArchives portal is the national aggregator of archives. It provides federated access to archival metadata and several million referenced archives.
See also: Construire des points d’accès unifiés vers les archives : l’expérience FranceArchives (French only)
Greece
Open data platform unveiled
The government has unveiled an open data platform that will allow citizens and researchers to access information collected by state bodies and an application that provides access to the single state digital portal from smartphones and tablets.
Israel
Israel’s State Archives to use artificial intelligence to release millions of documents
This technology will make it possible to locate classified information and enable archives to examine documents quickly using a computerized artificial intelligence system that “speaks” Hebrew and would read the hundreds of millions of documents preserved in the State Archives.
Japan
Digital agency to be launched in September 2021
This government agency will lead digitalization in the public and private sectors and establish a digital society promotion panel.
See also: Framework of digital agency
Nigeria
National Centre for artificial intelligence opens
This centre is the first of its kind in the country and “…will serve as a leading hub of innovation, research and development, knowledge transfer and training in the areas of artificial intelligence, robotics and other emerging technologies.”
Romania
History of ancient Jewish manuscript revealed using state-of-the-art technology
Romanian researchers are using state-of-the-art camera technology to reveal the history of an ancient Jewish manuscript the naked eye cannot see.
See also: Findings of the discovery
Rwanda
Government announces launch of Centre for Technological Excellence (French only)
This centre will include a digital academy in the fields of digitization and artificial intelligence.
Saudi Arabia
National AI Capability Development Program launched
This program will help governments, businesses and research institutes in Saudi Arabia to find suitable technology partners in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), to enhance their own talent pools and, ultimately, to find new growth strategies through AI applications.
United Kingdom
New strategic digital unit created
The United Kingdom’s Cabinet office has announced the creation of a Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), which will act as a “new strategic centre for digital, data and technology.” The CDDO will “shape strategy and assure delivery for digital, data and technology across government.”
See also: Central government should promote data policy compliance, say civil servants
National Archives releases strategic response to COVID-19
The National Archives has announced that it will focus on delivering changes and products that both contribute to the government response to the COVID-19 crisis and advance the transformation described in Archives for Everyone.
United States
Federal Government
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) releases social media strategy
The social media strategy for fiscal years 2021–2025 has been released. The strategy will focus on creating more engaging digital content, increasing participation by staff in the spectrum of online platforms, and making the agency's records increasingly available and more relevant with online audiences.
See also: Foundations of a Sound Social Media Retention Strategy for Federal Agencies
Notice: Please be advised that, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain conferences may be held online, postponed or cancelled. The following is the most recent information available at date of publication.
Section 2 — Events
Annual Meetings and Conferences
National
May 2021
Archives Association of Ontario Conference 2021 (Virtual)
11–14 May 2021
Congrès de l’Association des archivistes du Québec 2021 (French only)
26–28 May 2021
Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, Canada
Archives Society of Alberta 2021 Biennial Conference (Virtual)
28 May 2021
May / June 2021
InfoCON CAN 2021: ARMA Canada Conference (Virtual)
31 May–2 June 2021
June 2021
49th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science (Virtual)
7–10 June 2021
Association of Canadian Archivists 2021 Virtual Conference
7–11 June 2021
Atlantic Provinces Library Association 2021 Conference (Virtual)
8–11 June 2021
Manitoba Library Association / Saskatchewan Library Association Conference 2021 (Virtual)
14–16 June 2021
WILU 2021: Conference on information literacy and library instruction (Virtual)
21–25 June 2021
International
July 2021
National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA) Summer Online Forum: Legal & Compliance Considerations For Archives & Records Management
30 July 2021
August 2021
Virtual Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists
2–6 August 2021
September 2021
Archives and Records Association UK & Ireland Conference 2021 (Virtual)
1–3 September 2021
14th Annual PASIG (Preservation and Archiving Interest Group) meeting
21–23 September 2021
Madrid, Spain
October 2021
Workshop: Databases for 2080 – Preserving database content for the long term
5–6 October 2021
Stuttgart, Germany
Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia (RIMPA) Live Annual Convention
11–14 October 2021
Canberra, Australia
iPres 2021: 17th International Conference on Digital Preservation
19–22 October 2021
Beijing, China
International Council on Archives Abu Dhabi Conference
19–22 October 2021
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Section 3 — Current Trends and Products
Recordkeeping: Current Developments, Projects and Future Initiatives
Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) and Université Laval—SOURCE project (French only)
SOURCE supports the Quebec public service in the governance of its information in the context of digital transformation and teleworking. Tools will be created for managing the life cycle of digital information and to document organizations and their policies related to information governance and the digital transformation of public administration.
See also: Les archives de demain (French only)
Australia
National Archives—Integrated Archival Management System project roadmap
This project sets the course for business capability uplift beginning with the digital preservation recognized as a critical need. The new system is now in production and integrated with current systems. It has commenced ingesting new transfers and migrating digital records.
Public Record Office Victoria—E-mail appraisal, disposal and preservation project
The purpose of this project is to develop and test solutions to appropriately capture, store, appraise, and dispose of Lotus Notes email accumulations. Stages 1 and 2 of the project have been completed, and planning for Stage 3 is scheduled to begin in 2021.
See also: Stage 2 Summary report (PDF); Findings from Stage 2
Belgium
State Archives—BISHOPS project (Belgian Infrastructure for Social Sciences and Humanities Open Science)
This project was launched as a complement to the Social Sciences Data Archive (SODA) project to create a Belgian data archive. This infrastructure will be adapted via BISHOPS in order to also include data from human sciences and prevent these important research data from being lost.
Europe
inDICEs: Measuring the Impact of Digital Culture
inDICEs will empower policy and decision makers in the cultural and creative industries to fully understand the social and economic impact of digitization in their sectors and to address the need for innovative (re)use of cultural assets.
Finland
National Library—Digital Open Memory project
The aim of the project is to enhance the availability and usability of digital information resources. A report is produced on how to create a library lab involving the users and developers of digital information resources. The specific project actions are then chosen on the basis of results. Pilot users are studied intensively to gain a better understanding of the need for information resources and to get a clearer picture of how information resources are used.
Ireland
Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury
In 2022, the Virtual Record Treasury, an online, open-access, virtual reconstruction of the Record Treasury destroyed in 1922, will be launched. Combining historical research, archival discovery and technical innovation, the Virtual Record Treasury will provide searchable content across manuscript and text records of more than 50 million words documenting seven centuries of Irish history.
See also: Transkribus in the Beyond 2022-project and videos: Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury; Safeguarding Ireland's archival legacy
South Korea
National Archives—Managing Dataset Records project
Each year, selected systems are analyzed in order to identify related business transactions and appraise the value of the dataset records created. During the analysis, stakeholders of each system are also identified, such as those responsible for the transactions, system managers and records managers. The analysis results in a primitive governance structure for each system.
United Kingdom
National Health Service (NHS)—NHSmail migration to the cloud project
NHS Digital’s associate director and head of collaboration services, Chris Parsons, shares how the organization has managed to migrate more than 2.1 million NHSmail accounts to the cloud during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the largest enterprise email migration ever.
United States
Ithaka S+R—Exploring the Effectiveness and Durability of Digital Preservation and Curation Services project
This project will examine and assess how digital preservation and curation systems (DPCSs) are developed, deployed, and sustained. In addition, the business approaches of community-based DPCSs will be examined and compared with the strategies followed by commercial entities offering similar products.
See also: Update (October 23, 2020)
Products and Tools from Around the World
Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)—Guide de gestion des archives des établissements d'enseignement collégial du Québec (version 1.2) (French only)
The guide (PDF) is a reference tool for the preparation of retention schedules for college institutions in Quebec. This version is an update of the guide published in 2011.
OpenText—Cloud Edition (CE) 20.4
This information management platform provides updates across the five OpenText clouds and makes it faster, easier, and more cost-effective for organizations to adopt new capabilities, reinvent business processes and seize emerging opportunities.
See also: OpenText, une nouvelle Cloud Edition avec beaucoup de changements (French only); Cloud Edition (CE) 21.1
Australia
National Archives—Building trust in the public record: managing information and data for government and community policy
This policy identifies key requirements and outlines actions to further improve how the Australian Government manages its records, information and data. Its aim is to help agencies improve how they create, collect and manage information and how they use information assets.
Public Record Office Victoria—Recordkeeping Assessment Tool (RKAT)
The RKAT is an online self-assessment platform designed to help organizations measure the maturity of their recordkeeping practices against the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) standards.
France
Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication—Open Data Roadmap (French only)
France’s department of culture and communications has released its open data roadmap. The open data roadmap includes six components that make up the digital strategy for the dissemination and reuse of digital public data in the cultural sector.
India
RMS 3.0 service pack 1 (enhanced records management system version)
RMS 3.0 enables end-to-end management of physical and electronic documents and records while retaining their integrity and authenticity. This software will help organizations simplify the process of managing business-critical records while maintaining security and ensuring regulatory compliance. As a result, employees no longer have to touch paper-based documents.
Japan
Business Efficiency Solution by Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI
Allganize’s artificial technology (AI) can extract structured knowledge from millions of documents and other content sources. Hitachi’s Katsubun Intellectual Information Mining provides a set of tools and techniques to identify ways to improve business operations.
New Zealand
National Archives—Information Management (IM) Maturity Assessment
This assessment helps New Zealand public offices and local authorities to self-assess the maturity of their current IM practices and to support the Public Records Act 2005 audit program.
Philippines
Archive One, Activity Factory, and Go Paperless!
Archive One is a document management software program that serves as an auditing tool. It classifies, stores, secures, and retrieves essential documents. Activity Factory is a workflow software program that eliminates paper forms and the manual conduct of routing and approvals. Go Paperless! enables the digital storage of business records and addresses the challenge of storing and retrieving paper-based documents
United Kingdom
National Archives—Novice to Know-How
This online digital preservation training resource provides learners with the skills and confidence to preserve born-digital records held by their organization. “The training breaks down and thoroughly demystifies a range of topics, allowing archives of all types to make real progress with digital preservation.”
See also: Introducing Novice 2.0; Quantifying digital preservation risks using statistics
United States
Proofpoint—Content Capture for Microsoft Teams
Content Capture enables organizations to capture, manage, and monitor a diverse set of the most popular digital communications channels.
See also: ZL Technologies adds governance and compliance policies for Microsoft Teams; Teams, Zoom... 7 applis collaboratives au banc d'essai (France) (French only)
Purdue University—Modernizing optical digital storage technology
Purdue University innovators have created technology aimed at replacing Morse code with colored “digital characters” to modernize optical storage. This advancement allows for more data to be stored and for those data to be read at a quicker rate.
Studies and Surveys
Europe
Study: Open Data Maturity Report 2020: Last update: December 15, 2020
This study has been prepared by Capgemini Invent as part of the European Data Portal
This study (PDF) assesses the level of open data maturity in countries across Europe. The assessment measures maturity against four dimensions of open data: policy, impact, portal, and quality. The report presents the progress achieved by European countries in the promotion of open data publication and reuse, and the priorities they have set in order to enable this.
United States
Survey: Digital Government Rising: How AI is Providing New Opportunities to Deliver Value (PDF)
Published by NASCIO, The Center for Digital Government and IBM, 2020
This is a follow-up to a 2019 survey by NASCIO, The Center for Digital Government and IBM, exploring the views of state chief information officers (CIOs) and other state technologists on artificial intelligence (AI). It includes new interviews with state CIOs in the wake of COVID-19 and looks into the increased use of chatbots and other AI to respond to the pandemic. New pilot projects are detailed, and cases for AI outside of COVID-19 are used.
In September 2020, 21 CIOs and chief technology officers were interviewed about their use of AI as well as the associated technologies of machine learning and robotic process engineering. They reported that this use had evolved over the previous year and provided predictions for the future.
Global
Survey: Balancing Records Management and Information Governance: AUTOMATION Is the Key Ingredient
Published by: Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), 2020
Eighty percent of the survey (PDF) participants were not associated with AIIM prior to taking the survey. All potential survey participants were asked this qualifying question: “In this survey, we are particularly interested in the perspectives of those in end-user organizations familiar with information and data governance technologies like Records Management, Information Security, Privacy and Data Protection, eDiscovery, and Digital Preservation. Are you generally familiar with these technologies?” A total of 229 individuals met this initial screening criterion.
The benefits of an automated records management system are outlined in the survey, which found that organizations with high levels of automation have more rigorous governance practices, better lifecycle management procedures, and a superior foundation for digital transformation.
Section 4 — Selected Readings and Recordings
Articles, White Papers, Presentations, Reports, Videos and Podcasts
Canada and Germany
Video: Conversations Between the German National Library and Library and Archives Canada: Exploring Digitization Practices and Priorities, inaugural conversation, October 15, 2020.
With Frank Scholze, Director General of the German National Library, and Leslie Weir, Librarian and Archivist of Canada.
The German National Library and Library and Archives Canada present a four-part series of conversations exploring the effects of digitization on their national documentary-heritage institutions and reviewing their current priorities.
Canada
Article: Gouvernance de l’information et des données, pour la performance et la conformité de l’entreprise (French only)
Written by: Chantal Ménard, speaker, Information Management Advisor, Hydro-Québec
Featured in Convergence, the Association des archivistes du Québec blog, September 21, 2020.
Close collaboration is needed among information governance stakeholders to achieve the desired level of governance maturity. Their responsibilities and dependencies are clearly defined in ARMA International's Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) so that each component (role) can manage information efficiently and effectively. The author discusses the roles and responsibilities of legal officers, information security, information management and information technology.
Australia
Interview: Bridging the gap: Exploring Digital Preservation at Scale with the CIO of the National Archives of Australia, September 21, 2020.
Yaso Arumugam, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the National Archives of Australia, explores the challenges of digitally preserving a collection with over 40 million items, and how collaborating with Preservica will create a preservation platform equipped to bridge the digital “capability gap.”
See also: National Archives to receive digital preservation system
Europe
WARCnet papers on special collections related to COVID-19
A series of papers of interviews with European web archivists who have been involved in special collections related to COVID-19 are featured.
France
Article: Quelles sont les tendances de l’archivage électronique en 2021?
Featured in Archimag, Updated February 7, 2021.
In the electronic archiving market, two major trends for 2021 are the preservation of signed documents and the creation of a dedicated or shared operating mode for electronic archiving systems.
South Africa
Article: Constrained economic conditions require bottom-up digitalisation approach
Written by: Jonathon Osbourne, Executive Head, Intelligent Services Workspace at Altron Document Solutions. Featured in itWeb, December 8, 2020.
Social distancing and lockdown measures have accelerated the digital transformation agenda as organisations shift to work-from-home and remote-working models. The author view is that the foundation for a bottom-up digitalization plan begins with Intelligent Workplace Services.
United Kingdom
Article: The future of our digital past: how do we stop our precious files from being lost forever?
Written by James O’Malley. Featured in Which?, October 2, 2020.
There is a large volume of precious data lying dormant in outdated formats. John Sheridan, digital director at The National Archives, speaks about the challenges faced by the institution on how to archive important files digitally.
See also: From the Original to the Digital: The National Archives
United States
OCLC Research Report: Transitioning to the Next Generation of Metadata
Written by: Karen Smith-Yoshimura, Senior Program Officer, September 2020.
The report synthesizes six years (2015–2020) of OCLC Research Library Partners Metadata Managers Focus Group discussions to trace how metadata services are transitioning into the “next generation of metadata” and the impact on future metadata services and staffing requirements.
New Cognitive Technologies White Paper: Records Management Implications for Internet of Things, Robotic Process Automation, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence
Published by: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), October 2020.
This white paper provides a basic description of each of these technologies, examples of their various applications, and enabling factors supporting the technologies. The white paper also contains an analysis of cognitive technologies’ potential impact on records and data management; policies and standards; and records creation, appraisal, scheduling, and transfer.
Books
Selected Readings
Edited by Isabelle Alfandary, Dialoguer l’archive, 2020. (French only)
Dialoguer l’archive wonders about the place of archives in contemporary society. The originality of this book, which covers various topics, lies in its structure: each chapter is co-written by an archivist and a human science researcher. This book lays the groundwork for an unprecedented dialogue between those who preserve individual memory and those who preserve the collective memory of our time.
Edited by Paul Gooding and Melissa Terras, Electronic Legal Deposit: Shaping the library collections of the future, 2020.
This book brings together international authorities who are well-placed to explore the social, institutional and user impacts of e-legal deposit. Drawing on evidence gathered from real-world case studies produced in collaboration with leading libraries, researchers and practitioners, this book provides a thorough overview of this global issue at an important juncture in the history of library collections, when the information landscape is underdoing great change.
Ilag, Balu Nivrutti, Understanding Microsoft Teams Administration: Configure, Customize, and Manage the Teams Experience, 2020.
The author starts with an overview of Microsoft Teams. It further dives into deployment and management of teams, clients, guests and external access, and live events. Network assessment and bandwidth planning for Teams are also discussed. Microsoft Teams administration and policy management are covered as well, along with the migration process of Skype for Business on the premises to Microsoft Teams.
Joffrion, Elizabeth and Michèle V. Cloonan, Advancing Preservation for Archives and Manuscripts (Archival Fundamentals Series III, volume 5), 2020.
Divided into three parts, this book covers preservation frameworks, implementing and managing a preservation program, and the ethical and moral implications of preservation practices. The authors highlight the similarities and differences in preservation practices among libraries, archives and museums.
Edited by Tom Nesmith, Greg Bak, and Joan M. Schwartz, "All Shook Up": The Archival Legacy of Terry Cook, 2020.
Like his favorite rock star, Elvis Presley, Terry Cook had a knack for shaking things up. For the first time, thirteen of Cook’s groundbreaking articles are brought together in a single volume. They are paired with commentaries by leading archival thinkers from several countries, who reflect on his influence as a scholar, colleague, educator, and mentor.