digital preservation

County Records Centers and Archives and the need for a Digital Preservation System

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Many County Records Centers and Archives face the challenges of modest budgets and limited staff. Oftentimes, we have to prioritize projects and rely on volunteers for additional help. Planning is a must but frequently in a small office, plans change and staff need to be able to communicate with one another and adapt to changes in plans.

For a number of years, we at the Greene County Records Center and Archives were aware that we would need to acquire a digital preservation system for the growing number of permanent/long-term County digital records. Priorities and a limited budget prolonged tackling this issue. In 2021, we began speaking with and surveying many of the County Offices/Departments regarding the direction they were going with their records. We found that Offices/Departments were either completely going digital for their records or were doing a hybrid approach – paper and electronic. We also learned that the County’s Offices/Departments’ in-house data management systems, were no longer going to be supported by the County’s IT Department. We knew that we needed to act soon for providing an alternative for these Offices/Departments.

We researched the best digital preservation systems and found that Preservica met all of our needs. Below are the following points that sold us on Preservica.

  1. Digital preservation system that preserves long-term/permanent records
  2. Addresses hardware and software obsolescence through migrations
  3. Protects digital records from degradation/corruption of formats by monitoring the fixity of records
  4. Converts records to open formats based on archival standards
  5. Secure/Controlled digital environment – backed up on five different Cloud servers around the world multiple times
    1. 24/7 monitoring
    1. Encryption of all files
  6. Can add metadata to make records searchable
  7. User Security Settings
    1. Public User – public records
    1. Internal User – Public and Confidential records
    1. Internal Administrative User – Public and Confidential records
  8. Cannot accidentally or intentionally delete records without the action being reviewed by County Records Manager. County Records Manager can deny a deletion request if the Office /Department has not signed off on an RC-3 or if the records do not meet the retention schedule.

Purchasing Preservica was just the tip of the iceberg. There were many challenges and lessons learned along our year journey of implementing Preservica. These challenges and lessons learned will be documented in a tip sheet and will be available later this year.

Elise Kelly
Greene County Records Center and Archives

OhioERC-Sponsored Presentation for Electronic Records Day

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The Ohio Electronic Records Committee is partnering with Miami University, Greene County (OH) and Preservica to host a free Electronic Records Day webinar. Please share this with your organizations and others involved in records practices as well as administration, IT.

The event is Monday, October 10th from 12:00-1:00 EST and features Lori Ashley (Preservica) and Robin Heise (Greene County). Click here to register

“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow“

Government information ecosystems are complex and dynamic while recordkeeping obligations are long-standing and robust. Public sector institutions at all levels increasingly rely on electronically stored information created in dozens of applications and managed in hundreds of file formats to deliver services and provide access to government records. But digital information is more fragile than its analog counterparts and subject to ever changing technology environments. This reality can put the authenticity and usability of long-term (10+ year retention) and permanent electronic records at risk.

This presentation sponsored by the Ohio Electronic Records Committee will compare and contrast document management systems and digital preservation systems. The major workflows used to future-proof permanent and long-term electronic records and their essential metadata will be described. A Records and Archives Management case study from Greene County will be shared to bring to light essential differences between document management and preservation systems. We hope to see you join us!

REGISTER HERE for “HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW”

Document Management Systems vs. Digital Preservation Systems

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In order to determine what type of system fits your needs it is important to understand Document Management Systems and Digital Preservation. Though similar there are differences.

A document management system governs the creation, editing and use of active records for the duration of their retention period.  A digital preservation system maintains records after they are no are longer actively used but need to be retained long-term for their historical value. This can also be described as items that are stored.    

Both systems connect the user to records, allow the creation, editing and sharing of records and allow the retention and disposal of records per their retention schedules. 

Ohio ERC has developed an informational tip sheet to provide further guidance on this topic. CLICK HERE to view this new resource.