Governance and Recordkeeping, September 2021
ISSN 1916-5714
In this issue
Section 1 — General News
Canada
Federal Government—Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Digital Operations Strategic Plan for 2021–2024 released
The plan fulfills the responsibility of the Chief Information Officer of Canada, set out in the Treasury Board Policy on Service and Digital, for “approving an annual, forward looking 3 year enterprise wide plan that establishes the strategic direction for the integrated management of service, information, data, information technology (IT) and cybersecurity.”
See also: Digital Government Strategy released
Government of Quebec
An Act to amend the law on governance and management of the information resources of public bodies and government enterprises adopted
Amendments include ensuring adequate protection of information held by public bodies, and establishing a new framework for managing digital government data.
See also: Projet de loi no 95 : un pas en avant pour faciliter l’accès aux données gouvernementales (French only)
Australia
Encrypted messages are “grey area” in recordkeeping requirements
The National Archives of Australia is asking for legal advice on the “pressing issue” of public servants using encrypted messaging platforms to conduct official business and is in an “active discussion” regarding amendments to the Archives Act.
Bangladesh
“Every record has to be archived”
The Bangladesh National Archive Bill, 2021, which has been submitted to Parliament, contains provisions that no record can be destroyed, and every record has to be archived. The provision for destroying any records was removed from the proposed law.
Brazil
National artificial intelligence strategy launched
The strategy consists of six objectives and nine pillars or axes, including a commitment to implement artificial intelligence in at least 12 of Brazil’s federal public services by 2022. The strategy balances the ethical use of the technology while increasing research and innovation in the sector.
Estonia
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the implementation of cloud solutions
The Estonian government and Microsoft Estonia are enabling public sector organizations to continue to realize the benefits of cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The MoU will support Estonian public services in accelerating the transition to digital government, improving co-operation and communication among government employees, and innovating services to citizens.
France
Prime Minister: Government bodies must facilitate public data access
The French Prime Minister is asking government bodies to do more to facilitate access to their data, algorithms and codes “in open formats that can be used by third parties.” Each ministry has appointed a “ministerial data administrator” to oversee its digital strategy.
See also: Le Premier ministre veut la nomination accélérée de stratèges des données dans les ministères (French only)
India
President of India advocates government innovation
The President of India is advocating the exploration of innovative solutions to make government offices run in paperless and contactless mode. The process to put different datasets and data resources in the public domain has begun, and the government is promoting its National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy.
Kenya
National virtual library launched
Launched in 2021, the virtual library, with a capacity of 15 million publications, is an online expansion of the Kenya National Library. It offers the public access to a wide variety of information housed in the national library.
See also: First crypto library built (United Arab Emirates)
Scotland
Government releases Digital Scotland Service Standard
Replacing the Digital First Service Standard, this new standard places people at the heart of public service delivery. The standard moves in the direction of “services not websites,” as it encourages organizations to think differently about the way they approach products and services for members of the public.
See also: Digital strategy launched; “Ambitious reform” of government services
Ukraine
Ukraine government services to go "paperless" as of August 24, 2021
The President of Ukraine stated: "On August 24, Ukraine will enter the 'paperless' mode, as we promised. No papers for public authorities, no one will demand from a citizen of Ukraine any papers or certificates for the provision of public services."
See also: 90% of civil services to be available online (Ireland); 90% of government services to be digitized by the end of 2021 (Bangladesh)
United Kingdom
Government data quality framework released
This framework draws on international and industry best practices; it sets out a series of principles, practices and tools aimed at achieving fit-for-purpose data. The framework includes two parts and a set of case studies.
See also: What is data quality?; Government to set up digital, data and technology sub-board
United States
Federal Government
Artificial intelligence to improve “unsophisticated search” and create “self-describing records”
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) wants to automate its records management processes to limit manual metadata tagging while improving the search function. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are being integrated into two ongoing projects: personalizing the catalogue search function and automating metadata tagging.
See also: L'intelligence artificielle pour gouverner les archives nationales américaines (French only)
Library of Congress launches digital collections strategy project
A project has been launched to develop a digital collections strategy for the next five fiscal years, with the goal to have it approved and ready for implementation by October 2021. The strategy covers the entire life cycle of born-digital content, from acquisition through processing, preservation and access.
Wales
National strategy to identify records at risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic
A records-at-risk officer will be the lead on the development of a national strategy to identify records at risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The officer will survey the current recordkeeping landscape in Wales, to ensure that records at risk are identified, and to develop the framework for a longer-term national records-at-risk strategy for Wales.
Section 2 — Events
Notice: Please be advised that certain conferences may be held online, postponed or cancelled. The following is the most recent information available at date of publication.
Annual Meetings and Conferences
National
October 2021
2021 Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) Virtual Conference
13–15 October 2021 (Thematic sessions)
20–21 October 2021 (Business sessions)
Libraries, Archives, Museums Nova Scotia (LAMNS) Conference 2021 (Virtual)
21–23 October 2021
Archives Association of British Columbia and Yukon Council of Archives 2021 Joint Conference (Virtual)
27 October 2021
November 2021
FWD50 2021 (In person and virtual)
2–5 November 2021
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
February 2022
Ontario Library Association (OLA) Super Conference 2022 (Virtual)
1–5 February 2022
April 2022
2022 British Columbia Library Conference
20–22 April 2022
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
May 2022
Congrès de l’Association des archivistes du Québec 2022 (French only)
25–27 May 2022
Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada
International
October 2021
DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) Virtual 2021
4–15 October 2021
National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA) 2021 Fall Online Forum: Government Archives in the Age of Information (Virtual)
29 October 2021
November 2021
National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Digital Preservation 2021: Embracing Digitality (Virtual)
4 November 2021
December 2021
23rd International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries (ICADL 2021) (Virtual)
1–3 December 2021
February 2022
VALA2022 Conference
8–10 February 2022
Melbourne, Australia
March 2022
UKSG Annual Conference 2022
28–30 March 2022
Glasgow, Scotland
April 2022
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) The Web Conference 2022
25–29 April 2022
Lyon, France
Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) Conference 2022
27–29 April 2022
Denver, Colorado, United States
Section 3 — Current Trends and Products
Recordkeeping: Current Developments, Projects and Future Initiatives
Canada
Quebec university library partnership—Union catalogue project
Quebec university libraries have moved catalogues of 18 libraries to OCLC’s WorldShare Management Services library services platform. They are able to manage, share and search their collections through a single union catalogue built on the library services platform.
See also: Sofia (search tool; includes video)
Australia
Public Record Office Victoria (PROV)—Digital Archive program
The overall aim of the Digital Archive program is to increase the value and use of Victoria’s digital and digitized records. PROV is currently updating and improving their entire digital archiving environment. The program, made up of many separate projects, is outlined.
See also: Update
Azerbaijan
National data centre "government cloud" (G-cloud) project
The project's implementation will ensure the operation of state information systems, the formation and deployment of a centralized infrastructure for state institutions, the formation of standards, and the creation and provision of digital services. The costs of creating and storing information systems in public administration will be reduced.
Belgium
Royal Library—DATA-KBR-BE project
The aim of the project is to facilitate data-level access to the Royal Library’s (KBR) collections for Open Science. The project will optimize KBR’s existing information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure to stimulate sustainable data-level access to its digitized collections for digital humanities research.
Europe
OligoArchive project
Working on proof of concept for data storage on synthetic DNA, the project investigates the problem of integrating DNA in the enterprise storage hierarchy. The goal is to build a DNA disk: a fully functional end-to-end prototype demonstrating that DNA could one day replace current archival storage technologies on magnetic tape.
See also: À l’avenir, les données devraient être stockées dans de l’ADN (French only)
Finland
Opening up and using public data project
The goal of the project, which runs until 2022, is to significantly increase the amount of public data that is available for use. The project has four priority areas: strategic objectives for opening up and using public data; promoting access to information; ensuring the quality of data; and advancing the technical and semantic interoperability of data.
National Library of Israel, National Library of Australia and Australian Jewish Historical Society
Newspaper digitization project
The project will digitize and open free digital access to 180 years of Australian Jewish newspapers, including over 200,000 pages from Jewish communities across the continent. The digital collection will be accessible and fully searchable through Trove, Australia’s free online research portal, and the Historical Jewish Press Project (JPress), the world's leading digital collection of Jewish newspapers and journals.
See also: 200,000 pages going back 180 years are digitized
Slovenia
National Archives—E-ARK3 project
For this project, 20 partners are supporting the development of the CEF eArchiving building block as a solution for long-term information assurance. It will provide the specifications, reference software, training and service desk support for digital archiving.
United Kingdom
National Archives—Project Alpha renamed Project Etna (“Explore the nation’s archives”)
The National Archives catalogue and website are being redeveloped, with the goal of reimagining the way the public accesses archives online. The technology powering Project Etna will enable content from their catalogue and website to be brought together to greatly enrich their users’ experience of using the archive online. A private beta is scheduled to be delivered in 2021.
United States
Library of Congress—Humans in the Loop experiment: Accelerating access and discovery for digital collections project
Building on the foundation of the Library of Congress’s success with crowdsourcing, the project explores ways to responsibly combine crowdsourcing experiences and machine learning workflows. A framework will be developed to incorporate human feedback into training data and the results they drive through crowdsourcing.
See also: Machine Learning + Libraries: A Report on the State of the Field
Products and Tools from Around the World
Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)—Recueil des règles de conservation des documents des établissements de santé et de services sociaux du Québec (version 4) (PDF) (French only)
This collection, made up of a classification plan and retention rules, presents a model that managers of health and social services establishments can use to develop, and keep up to date, their own management tools.
Concordia University—Digital preservation capsules
The capsules illustrate how the university’s digital preservation strategy is put into action. They provide a link between the efficacy of the strategy and three real-world examples of digital preservation projects that began prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and have continued almost seamlessly.
Australia
Public Record Office Victoria—Standards Framework home page
The standards have been established for the efficient management of public records and apply to records held in all formats and organizational systems. Some have specifications that give technical requirements which public offices must comply with.
Public Record Office Victoria—Microsoft 365: Recordkeeping within a Microsoft 365 Environment
Topics include: Common Microsoft 365 services and records; What is needed for effective records management?; How can records management controls be applied?
See also: Microsoft 365 Guide (Archives New Zealand)
China
Smart Modular Data Center 5.0
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to build next-level data centre intelligence, this solution constructs an intelligent green data centre based on SmartLi, a large screen visualizing the digital twin, and the AI-Robot Intelligent Operations and Maintenance.
See also: Huawei lance Smart Modular Data Center 5.0 (French only)
France
Interactive device for automating mail management (French only)
With the lockdowns linked to the health crisis, many organizations have had to review their paper-mail management processes. The interactive device helps people to discover the advantages of automating mail management, as well as ways to take full advantage of it on a daily basis.
Japan
DigDoc
This self-developed digital data tool organizes and uncovers digital data stored on computers processing large amounts of data at high speed. The tool also enables searching and viewing of existing data without the need for a special web or database server.
Malaysia
Digital Document Management System (DDMS 2.0)
This electronic records management system will help government agencies to transform manual record processes to a more web-based approach supporting the entire cycle of public records management: creation, maintenance, dissemination and disposition of electronic records.
Scotland
National Library—JSTOR platform
Gill Hamilton, digital access manager at the National Library of Scotland, states: “We’re always interested in extending the reach of our collections because people don't necessarily come to the National Library of Scotland to find things. But by putting our content on a major platform like JSTOR, which is used by many researchers and academics, will really help make our collection more visible.”
United Kingdom
Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)—Rapid Assessment Model version 2
The assessment model is a digital-preservation maturity-modelling tool that has been designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability.
See also: Digital Curation Decision Guide (National Digital Stewardship Alliance [NDSA])
United States
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)—Use cases for electronic records management
The use cases were created as part of the Federal Electronic Records Modernization Initiative (FERMI) and are written from a high-level perspective. They are designed to cover all types of electronic records. NARA intends for agencies to employ the use cases to demonstrate how vendors and service providers meet the requirements for managing electronic records.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission—The bucketing strategy as a precautionary solution
Bucketing means maintaining several types of records together, using the retention period from the element that has the longest retention period, and applying that retention period to all of the elements in that grouping of records. Topics include examples of record types that are useful to bucket, and questions to plan the next right move for your records management team.
Studies and Surveys
New Zealand
Findings report: Survey of public sector information management 2019/20
Published by Archives New Zealand.
The survey was sent to 270 public sector agencies between July 20 and August 7, 2020; there were 214 respondents. The purpose of this findings report is to present analysis of the full dataset for the 2019/20 survey. Several recommendations are made for improving recordkeeping in government. Challenges that respondents noted included the scale and pace of technological change, the number of digital storage environments, and a lack of resourcing and capability to partake in effective information management. A key area for improvement is building information management requirements into new business information systems.
See also: The Chief Archivist’s Annual Report on the State of Government Recordkeeping 2019/20, published February 18, 2021
Switzerland
Survey: Nouvelle donnes pour les CIO romands (Partie 1 : Stratégie et numérisation) (French only)
Conducted by ICTjournal. Published 2021.
For the past year, the pandemic has disrupted the business and operations of companies in Switzerland and around the world. From teleworking to the transfer of customer interactions to digital channels, information technology (IT) has been in great demand, and IT departments have found themselves at the forefront of keeping business going despite distancing measures. A survey of 38 chief information officers in French-speaking Switzerland was conducted to understand the impact of the health crisis on their priorities in 2021.
See also: (Partie 2 : Cybersécurité et automatisation) (French only)
Global
Survey: Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report
Published by Flexera.
The survey (PDF) was conducted in October and November 2020 and explores the thinking of 750 global-cloud decision makers and users about the public, private and multi-cloud market. It shares their current and future cloud strategies, often showing year-over-year changes to help identify trends and offering perspective on how some trends have changed over the years.
COVID-19 had a significant impact on cloud adoption in 2020. The survey captures insights into how organizations are progressing in their journeys to the cloud. This information includes their mix of public and private clouds, the volume of workloads and data in the cloud, top challenges and initiatives, cost management concerns, and the technologies and tools that cloud providers are using.
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: Digital Access and Participation, second discussion, March 16, 2021.
With Kathrin Jockel and Anke Meyer-Hess of the German National Library, and Mathieu Sabourin and Alexandra Haggert of Library and Archives 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:
Re-Envisioning the Retention Schedule: How to Build a Software-Ready Retention Schedule
Written by Bruce Miller, Master’s of Business Administration, Information Governance Professional, President of RIMtech Consulting. Featured in Sagesse Winter 2021.
Modern electronic recordkeeping software provides new capabilities and techniques for managing digital records that were not previously possible with physical records. Many of these new capabilities are possible due to the presence of metadata fields assigned to digital records. A retention schedule that fully leverages these new capabilities is referred to as a software-ready retention schedule.
Australia
Article: An Integrated Approach to Information Governance
Written by Sonya Sherman, founder and principal at Zen Information. Featured in idm: information & data manager, January 22, 2021.
This article covers strategies to improve information security and information sharing. Subjects considered include mechanisms to support people handling sensitive information, leveraging existing systems and frameworks to enhance interoperability, and encouraging knowledge sharing between information governance professionals across different domains.
Europe
Article:
Machine learning and big data are unlocking Europe's archives
Written by Fintan Burke. Featured in Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine, December 10, 2020.
The READ project created the Transkribus platform to develop new technology to better recognize and automatically transcribe handwritten documents. Researchers should be able to conduct better searches for words or phrases among the billions of pages stored across Europe’s archives.
France
Article:
Archivage électronique : il faut voir au-delà de la simple conservation (French only)
Written by Serge Zuppetti. Featured in Archives Factory, December 15, 2020.
Electronic archiving is much more than a simple process of storing and sharing information. It guarantees confidence in documents and aims to maintain their legal admissibility during this retention.
Netherlands
Information and Records Management Society podcast: Managing the Email of the Netherlands Government, January 25, 2021.
Vincent Hoolt, recordkeeping advisor at the Netherlands National Archives, describes the new guidelines of the government of the Netherlands in managing its own email. He is interviewed by James Lappin.
United Kingdom
Article:
Cloud archiving: A perfect use case, but beware costs and egress issues
Written by Maxwell Cooter, freelance journalist. Featured in ComputerWeekly.com, April 14, 2021.
The advantages of cloud archiving are ease of use and being well-suited to potential latency issues. However, information technology teams need to be aware of costs and issues around moving data from and between clouds.
United States
OCLC Research Report:
Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: A CONTENTdm Pilot Project
Written by Greta Bahnemann, Michael Carroll, Paul Clough, Mario Einaudi, Chatham Ewing, Jeff Mixter, Jason Roy, Holly Tomren, Bruce Washburn and Elliot Williams, January 2021.
In this pilot project, OCLC partnered with five institutions that manage their digital collections with OCLC’s CONTENTdm service, to investigate methods for, and the feasibility of, transforming metadata into linked data to improve the discoverability and management of digitized cultural materials and their descriptions.
See also: CONTENTdm Linked Data Pilot Project
Article: Top trends in big data for 2021 and beyond
Written by Ronald Schmelzer, principal analyst, Cognilytica. Featured in TechTarget, April 30, 2021.
Four major trends in big data are helping organizations to meet challenges. These include dealing with large volumes of stored and disparate information that is created and changed at a rapid rate, and that is of varying levels of quality, which results in challenges in managing, querying, processing and analyzing.
See also: How South African companies need to prepare for the digital future
Books
Selected Readings
Mizruchi, Susan L., editor, Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age, 2020.
The role of archives and libraries in our digital age is one of the most pressing concerns of humanists, scholars and citizens worldwide. This collection brings together specialists from academia, public libraries, governmental agencies and non-profit archives to pursue common questions about value across the institutional boundaries that typically separate us.
See also: How have Libraries and Archives changed in the Digital Age?
Ott, Florence, La gestion documentaire au cœur des processus d’affaires : Valider, protéger, exploiter et pérenniser l’information dans l’environnement numérique, 2021.
This book focuses on activity documents and presents document management standards in detail; in particular, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 15489 and 30300. Different schools of thought on the value assessment of digital documents (a key aspect of the archival profession) are studied. The importance of metadata in identifying, classifying and storing information is also included.
Reddick, Christopher G., Rodríquez Bolívar, Manuel Pedro and Hans Jochen Scholl, editors, Blockchain and the Public Sector: Theories, Reforms, and Case Studies, 2021.
Blockchain technology and its potential applications in digital government and the public sector are discussed. Challenges, benefits, regulations, frameworks, taxonomies and applications of blockchain technology in the public domain are presented. Up-to-date information on important developments regarding blockchain in government around the world is provided.
Saffady, William, Records and Information Management: Fundamentals of Professional Practice (fourth edition), 2021.
This book presents principles and practices for systematic management of recorded information. It is organized into seven chapters that reflect the scope and responsibilities of records and information management programs in companies, government agencies, universities, cultural and philanthropic institutions, professional services firms, and other organizations.
Toelle, Erica, Microsoft 365 Compliance: A Practical Guide to Managing Risk, 2021.
The information presented in this book can be used to implement an end-to-end compliance program in your organization using Microsoft 365 tools. The reader will learn about the solutions available in the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center, including best practices and common pitfalls. Compliance managers will understand how to implement their requirements in Microsoft 365.