Digital continuity - a hidden aspect of e-goverment

Featured. Posting written by Russell Craig over 3 years ago.
Last comment over 2 years ago, 3 Comments.

The latest gem I've discovered via the NZ State Services Commission's excellent "In Development" blog is this piece called NZ Government Information R/evolution  which highlights the recent work of Archives NZ in developing a "Digital Continuity Strategy"  which is currently in consultation draft form.
 
This strategy deals head on with an issue that all governments face in the digital age.  However none, to my knowledge, have so far articulated that challenge as clearly as this or worked their way through to spelling out a comprehensive set of actions that are most likely to address the challenge effectively.
 
There are two aspects of this strategy that seem especially clever to me.   First, it is being led by not by the e-government agency (SSC), but by the archival agency that ultimately has the long run concern for preserving the public record.  The archival agency in government is often disregarded by all others and just treated as the dumping ground for old data and records.  Long-term concern for the public record is given barley a moments thought in many cases.  However, from personal experience I know that Archives NZ has a clear cradle to grave understanding of government information management that other agencies do not, and the right legal mandate, role in government and performance incentives to develop a strategy that addresses the public interest most sensibly.  The SSC is clearly backing Archives NZ and will play a big role in implementing the strategy.
 
Second, digital continuity is being used very cleverly here to advance the argument in favour of shared computing services in government - especially in regard to data storage.  I will not be surprised to see that, within 5 years, a significant percentage of NZ government data is stored for the entirety of its life in a consolidated date centre that is 1) architected along cloud computing lines and 2) is very likely to be operated by, or on behalf of, Archives NZ.
 
Nice work NZ (I'll admit to a certain amount of national pride here).  While it is taking a leading role in adopting all the sexy new web 2.0 tools, it is also paying serious attention to the integrity of government information. I think it's essential to cover all the bases, and this is a good example of what that involves.  I'll be really interested to hear of what other countries may be thinking or doing in this area.

Comments

Headshot_medium njacknis

Maybe I'm missing the significance of the work in NZ, but there are plans and discussions of this kind in the US as well -- and in other countries, I would assume. 
 
In order to assure the "cradle to grave" handling of information/material, some governments have even placed the Archives within the department for ICT -- for example, the one I used to be CIO for ;-)  Then responsibility is centralized for material that is "born digital" (often the source of foreboding by traditional archivists), "scanned to digital" (the kind that annoys traditional IT folks), and still on paper.  There is as well much training here on how to deal with these issues.
 
Also, US state and local government agencies that handle essential documents for continuity of social institutions -- especially property records and birth/death records -- are quite aware of their responsibilities to maintain the existence of those records and, with varying degrees of competence, do protect those records.  Many also use distant third party services, such as Iron Mountain, as a form of backup of these critical records.  We could call that cloud service, except it has been around before the term "cloud computing" was coined.

posted over 3 years ago

Russ_medium Russell Craig

There was a certain amount of national pride in my comments because I think Archives NZ has done a brilliant piece of work so far - especially given that they are focused on an issue (records management) that most Ministers and agencies could care less about and generally regard simply as a cost - they really can't adequately build benefits of preserving the long-term public record into their IM/IT business cases.
 
Aside from what I see as the very clever use of this strategy as a stalking horse for the consolidated data storage agenda,  what is especially interesting here  (at least, for a kiwi government IM geek) is that Archives NZ is exercising new powers that it only just gained after waiting over 30 years for its legislation to be overhauled, which just shows how little politicians understand or care about this stuff which offers so little in terms of voter interest.

posted over 3 years ago

Purcellfrontcropped_medium Carolyn

I used to talk a lot about this - I got people's attention by saying that as we rely increasingly on electronic documents for source and archives, we were in danger of creating a "hole in history" if we didn't figure out how to manage those electronic archives across eons - and keeping the people's history is the sacred duty of government.  New Orleans and Katrina are a case in point that really sharpened focus on the issue in the US.  They lost a lot of historical and contemporary data (like jail, law enforcement, criminal - they didn't even know who they had released to get away from the storm.

posted over 3 years ago