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Library of Congress Collaboration for Preservation of State Government Digital Information

Summary

Publications & Results

Press Releases & News Stories

Partners

Funding Sources

Scope of Work

Related Web Sites

Contact Information

Summary
State and local governments are creating vast amounts of information solely in digital form, including land data, school records, official publications and court records. Much of this material is of permanent legal, legislative, or cultural value, yet is at risk because of a number of technological as well as policy and management issues. Technological issues include fragile media, technological obsolescence, or other technical hazards. Policy and management issues include organizational inertia, a lack of executive and legislative leadership, and the absence of appropriate decision-making frameworks and operational guidelines. State libraries, archives, and other state and local institutions face complex barriers in developing an effective strategy to meet this challenge.

The purpose of this project is to assist the Library of Congress (LC) in working with U.S. states and territories to develop strategies for the preservation of significant government information in digital form and to build the collaborative arrangements necessary to implement these strategies.
Publications & Results
Practical Guides (1)
Digital Preservation Partnerships book cover
Building State Government Digital Preservation Partnerships: A Capability Assessment and Planning Toolkit, Version 1.0
Mon, 01 Aug 2005 >Download PDF
Decisions to invest in digital preservation projects must be grounded in a full understanding of the ability of those involved to identify and fill the gaps between current and required capability. This toolkit is designed for library, archives, records management, and information technology professionals to assess where capability for digital preservation exists and where it must be developed in order to achieve the goal of preserving significant at-risk government information.

Reports and Working Papers (2)
Digital Preservation Partnerships book cover
Preserving State Government Digital Information: A Baseline Report
Wed, 26 Jul 2006 >Download PDF
This report provides a baseline for state government digital information preservation capabilities and activities. It includes an analysis of the results across states and territories and presents several observations on the current digital preservation environment based on CTG’s 2006 State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey.

State Government Digital Preservation Profiles
Wed, 26 Jul 2006
This Web-based resource provides profiles of state government digital information preservation efforts within the United States based on the information collected from the 2006 State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey. The profiles are organized by state or territory and the library, archives, and records management units that were represented in the survey response.

Journal Articles and Conference Papers (1)
DGO Proceedings Cover
Building a state government digital preservation community: Lessons on interorganizational collaboration.
Thu, 25 May 2006 >Download PDF
Based on the findings of 2005 Library of Congress workshops and previous efforts on digital preservation, this paper discusses the challenges and opportunities regarding interorganizational collaboration and community building for digital preservation of state government information.

Results

Digital Archiving: From Fragmentation to Collaboration

Report and press release from the June 2006 National Association of Secretaries of State and National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council (eC3) symposium on state government archiving of digital information. CTG staff organized and facilitated the day and a half symposium session with secretaries of state, state archivists, state librarians, IT solutions vendors and others interested in the issue of digital archiving. Also, CTG wrote the symposium report, which CTG presented at the December 2006 annual eC3 conference in Sacramento, California.
> Download Report
> Download Press Release

Partnering for Preservation

Can governments come up with plans to preserve digital information for future generations? Yes, but CIOs must be on board to make it happen. > Download Article
By Theresa A. Pardo and Brian Burke
Public CIO Magazine
April-May 2006 Issue

Preservation of State Government Digital Information: Issues and Opportunities

Report of the Library of Congress Convening Workshops with States
2005 > Download PDF
The Library of Congress convened three workshops with representatives from all 50 states during 2005 to listen and learn about how states are coping with the digital preservation challenge. CTG staff played a key role in planning, facilitating, and analyzing the results of the workshops. Findings from the workshops are outlined in this report.

Regulatory Impacts on E-Records Management Decisions

Prepared by the NECCC Records Management Workgroup
2005 > Download PDF
As part of CTG’s project with the Library of Congress, CTG staff participated in the NECCC Records Management Workgroup and contributed to this paper. This NECCC workgroup paper seeks to describe and discuss the impact on state and local public agencies of the unintended results created by new regulations and changes in regulatory assignments by the federal government. Several case studies are highlighted to show what jurisdictions are doing to solve this issue.
Press Releases & News Stories
Press Releases

UAlbany’s Center for Technology in Government Releases Survey Results For State Government Digital Information Preservation
Mon, 24 Jul 2006

UAlbany Center Receives $800,000 from NSF for Work on Library of Congress Project to Explore National Collaborative Approach to Preserve State and Local Government Digital Information
Fri, 25 Feb 2005

Digital Preservation Program Collaborating with U.S. States, Territories
Library of Congress helping to explore preservation needs for State government digital information.
Joint UAlbany and Library of Congress project will explore state and local government digital information preservation
March 14, 2005

News Stories

Born Digital: A handful of states are beginning to focus on the need to preserve digital documents.
Governing
June 2006

Archivist of the United States appoints CTG Director to Advisory Committee for Electronic Records Archives
The National Archives (Archives.gov)
September 8, 2005

News from the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
NDIIPP Holds Three Workshops for States, Territories
July 2005

Grant to fund digital information preservation project
The Business Review (Albany)
March 15, 2005

U.S. Library of Congress Launches an Ambitious Project to Revolutionize the Way States Save Documents & Data
The National Science Foundation's Digital Government Research Program
March 2005

Center creates archiving model
Federal Computer Week
March 30, 2005
Partners
Government Partners

Advisory Committee

Participants

State and Territorial Agencies

Federal Agencies and Professional Associations and Organizations

Funding Sources
This project is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Original Scope of Work

State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey

From the Library of Congress States Workshops, LC and CTG learned that state librarians, archivists, records managers, and other partners related to digital preservation, overwhelmingly supported LC efforts to:
  1. Assemble information to develop digital preservation profiles for each state and territory, and
  2. Explore opportunities to establish collaborative partnerships with the states.
CTG’s work in the next phase of this project involved managing a systematic survey of the states and territories to: For both tasks, CTG worked with the leadership of relevant professional organizations serving state librarians, archivists, and others with an interest in the long-term management of state government digital information.

CTG launched the State Government Digital Information Preservation Survey in January 2006. The Web-based survey was e-mailed to state librarians, archivists, and records managers in all 50 states, 4 territories, and the District of Columbia.

During the final phase of the project, CTG analyzed the results of the survey and produced the following two resources to support current and future state and national digital preservation efforts. Please click on the below links to view both the baseline report and state profiles: CTG notified via e-mail all survey participants, attendees of the Library of Congress States Workshops, and others who expressed an interest in the survey results that the survey products were available on CTG’s Web site.

CTG will stay engaged with the Library of Congress and other members of the digital preservation community to explore ways to continue the state profiles beyond 2006 and maintain an updated and useful resource.

Finally, CTG always encourages feedback on its publications and other resources in support of producing practical and useful resources for government professionals and those academic and private sector professionals that support them. Therefore, do not hesitate to contact us.

Library of Congress States Workshops and Digital Preservation Capability Assessment and Planning Toolkit

In the spring of 2005, CTG assisted the Library of Congress (LC) in orchestrating a unique national forum for states and territories to discuss digital preservation needs. The aim of this forum was to guide investments to preserve at-risk state government digital information by hearing from state government practitioners about the issues they are facing in planning and managing digital preservation projects. This activity was part of the Library’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) and the forum was a continuation of LC’s effort to serve as a change agent for digital preservation through partnerships with stakeholders. It allowed LC to collect experiences, concerns, perspectives, and recommendations to inform the development of next steps for LC in ensuring the preservation of state government digital information. This collection of input will be used by LC to leverage existing partnerships and build new ones that will result in new preservation strategies and successes.

The national forum included three one-day workshops conducted by the Library of Congress and CTG in the Washington, DC area. Workshop participants included state-level librarians, archivists, records managers, representatives from state offices of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), and other professionals.

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories sent teams, the majority of which were comprised of three members, to one of three workshops. Across the workshops, 67 librarians, 53 archivists, 13 records managers, and 20 IT professionals were in attendance. Each workshop had a geographically diverse mix of between 14 to 19 states and at least one territory represented. CTG facilitated a series of large and small group discussions and exercises to obtain information from states in the following areas:
  1. Top concern related to the preservation of state government digital information.
  2. Major state government information digital preservation success story.
  3. The topic about which each state would most like to network with others states.
  4. The state government digital information considered to be most at-risk.
  5. How can states extend or build partnership networks?
  6. Preservation-related roles the states and the Library should fill and not fill
Also, in conjunction with planning the workshops, CTG developed a capability assessment and planning toolkit to assist state government practitioners in planning and implementing digital preservation projects. Copies of this toolkit were provided to all of the workshop participants during the three workshops.

For results of the workshops please see the Library of Congress report at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/states.html
Related Web Sites

The National Association of Legislative Information Technology (NALIT)

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/nalit/handouts.htm
NALIT's 2005 Professional Development Seminar in Rapid City, South Dakota in October featured a session that included discussions about Building State Government Digital Preservation Partnerships: A Capability Assessment and Planning Toolkit, Version 1. The session covered the preservation of digital records and publications and tools available to states to include CTG's toolkit. NALIT provides legislative information technology managers and staff, webmasters, and others interested in technology and computer services with opportunities for training, professional growth and information sharing.

The Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/
The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with nearly 128 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves.

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/
The Library of Congress Digital Preservation Program will seek to provide a national focus on important policy, standards and technical components necessary to preserve digital content. Investments in modeling and testing various options and technical solutions will take place over several years, resulting in recommendations to the U.S. Congress about the most viable and sustainable options for long-term preservation.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services

http://www.imls.gov/
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is an independent federal grant-making agency dedicated to creating and sustaining a nation of learners by helping libraries and museums serve their communities.

Cornell University Library’s Digital Preservation Management Workshop Series

http://www.library.cornell.edu/iris/dpworkshop/
Cornell University Library’s Digital Preservation Management workshop series is intended for those who are contemplating or implementing digital preservation programs in libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions. The goals of this initiative are to foster critical thinking in a technological realm and to provide the means for exercising practical and responsible stewardship of digital assets.
Contact Information
Center for Technology in Government
University at Albany, SUNY
187 Wolf Road, Suite 301
Albany, NY 12205
(518) 442-3892 (phone)
(518) 442-3886 (fax)
Brian Burke
Project Manager
(518) 442-3895