Future Proof – Protecting our digital future

After two wonderful weeks of digital awareness raising, we began the third week of DAM2012 with an update on State Records’ Digital Archive. Cassie Findlay, the Project Manager for the digital archives project, talked about the progress that the team has made so far as well as some of the pilot migration projects currently underway.

Following on from this update about State Records’ own digital archiving project, the third newsletter for DAM2012 looked at some of the digital preservation strategies being tested and implemented by other organisations around the world. To find out what State Records employees were reading about during DAM2012, read on! Read the rest of this entry »

Chief Executives newsletter

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Each year State Records issues a newsletter, Future Proof, to all Chief Executives across the NSW public sector.

This year the newsletter is focussed on communicating the idea that recordkeeping is not red tape, it is actually a business enabler.

The newsletter says that digital information is a business asset that needs to be built to last, and it tries to show how records and information management can be a key enabler of this. The newsletter also introduces all the great work being done to build State Records’ Digital Archive.

All previous editions of Future Proof are available on the Information for NSW Public Sector Chief Executives section of the State Records website. A downloadable PDF version is also available at the bottom of this post.

The content of the newsletter is reproduced below. Have a read of what we had to say and then feel free to tell us what you think!

  Read the rest of this entry »

Week 2 of DAM2012 started with a challenging and inspiring presentation by Kate Cumming on the issues that are threatening our ability to maintain an archival record of contemporary society. In this presentation, first delivered at the ICA Congress in Brisbane, Kate described some of the threats to archives in current recordkeeping environments. After making her audience feel somewhat depressed about the current situation, Kate concluded on a positive note by suggesting some strategies for ensuring an ongoing archival record of society.

The following Monday saw the publication of the second newsletter for DAM2012. This newsletter looked at appraisal in a digital environment and the application of digital forensics methods to archival processes. To find out what State Records employees were reading about during DAM2012, read on! Read the rest of this entry »

Last year we blogged about our Digital Awareness Month initiative. Digital Awareness Month (aka DAM) is an internal professional development program aimed at raising State Records employees’ awareness, knowledge and skills in the area of digital recordkeeping. Each year during DAM we promote various issues and exciting new developments in this area through a series of presentations and newsletters.

This year, DAM2012 occurred in November. On 1 November we kicked things off with a panel discussion by those State Records employees who had attended the recent ICA Congress in Brisbane. This lively and thought-provoking discussion ranged across some of the issues and new developments and projects that had been discussed at ICA which had most interested, resonated with or inspired the State Records crew.

The following Monday saw the publication of the first newsletter for DAM2012. This newsletter looked at digital disposal, cloud computing and digital audio-visual records. To find out what State Records employees were reading about during DAM2012, read on!

And if you were inspired by last year’s post about DAM to start a similar initiative in your own organisation, please let us know by leaving a comment below. Read the rest of this entry »

Information

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Here are some possible information risks that could be affecting your organisation and some ideas on why they might be occurring.

Give us your feedback on whether these risks are impacting you, what is causing them and any solutions you have put in place for their mitigation.

If after reading this post you recognise any of these risks as occurring in your organisation, take the opportunity to work with your ICT staff and put in place some strategies to fix them. Let us know how you go!

Read the rest of this entry »

From the nature of our enquiries this month, it seems that the NSW Government’s ICT Strategy is really encouraging people to consider their information management requirements.

In particular, it seems to be getting people to consider the management of their social media systems and the information that is produced within them. It is excellent that people are really engaging with curly information management issues and that they are really concerned with effectively utilising and managing the data obtained through social media engagement.

Key questions that public offices asked State Records this month were:

• How long to I need to keep my CEO’s blog for?
• Can I keep my inactive, high value records in my active business system? IT says they can be stored there indefinitely, backed up and will never be deleted.
• Is Facebook a government business system? My IT section says that it is not.
• What tools can I use to make records of my social media communications?
• Do we still need to create paper records?
• Can we keep records in the cloud?
• My records are stored on the network and the backup system. Is this OK?
• Can I destroy paper records after I scan them?
• My records are protected against disaster. Are there other risks I should protect them against?
• What record formats does State Records say I should use for my archival value records? Read the rest of this entry »

Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal

Over the next few weeks Future Proof will be exploring social media use in government. We will be issuing a series of posts that look at how NSW government is using social media and the types of business that are being conducted on social media channels.

In particular we will be examining strategies for using recordkeeping as a support and an enabler for the key government business operations that are moving to social media channels. We want these posts to be as practical and useful as possible, so please do give us your feedback.

Our first post is a case study from the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT).

We would like to thank the staff of the CTTT for sharing their social media strategy and its outcomes so far with us.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mythbusting: Records management

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As a profession we urgently need to start mythbusting. I think we need to start countering the negative myths and stereotypes that are surrounding our role because persistent myths and stereotypes about records management are starting to threaten business information.

These stereotypes are also threatening records and information management as a profession. In some environments, the myths are winning. We are being defined out of a job because people cannot see our direct business relevance. Critically, this debasing and devaluing of core RM and IM skills means that these skills are not being applied and as a consequence, immediate and long term business information is under threat.

Here are some thoughts on myths I would like to bust. Personally I think we need to start urgently busting them now, but I would love to hear your views.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a quick overview of the key digital recordkeeping issues that State Records staff have dealt with in September.

If you have any comments on the advice we have provided,  please do get in contact and tell us! We love to get your feedback. Read the rest of this entry »

The fragility of digital history

A little while ago in our post on professional collaboration, we promoted research done by Hany SalahEldeen and Michael Nelson at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia which showed that one year after the Egyptian Revolution, 11% of the social media content documenting this momentous event has disappeared.

In our post we warned that information in the social media space is inherently fragile, but noted that increasingly, key business processes including policy development,  community engagement, business collaboration and project management are all moving to social media channels.

It is great to see that in recent days SalahEldeen and Nelson’s research has been discussed on Gigaom and Technology Review. Both these articles have made interesting points about the possible long term effects of this information loss and the need to be careful with our history.

I have been interested though in the range of comments that both these articles have generated. There is a real spilt in the nature of the comments, between those who are concerned about the impacts of these possible losses and those who are relatively unconcerned. Read the rest of this entry »