The majority of states report being involved in at least one activity to preserve state government digital information identified as at-risk and a priority for preservation. The results indicate that there are still definitional issues to be resolved; for some respondents at-risk means “it’s actually being lost,” in other cases, it means the information is valuable. Definitional issues aside, the results provide some insight into the where states are, and maybe more importantly, are not, generally investing in strategies to preserve at-risk information. Table 3 combines results from the Library of Congress States Workshops³ and results from this survey. Doing so shows that the top six categories of at-risk information, as identified during the workshops, are receiving inconsistent attention across the states. While a large group of states are involved in activities to preserve at least one of these categories of information, no state is consistently addressing each (or even a number) of the priority categories. Three of the six priority categories, for example, databases/data sets, email, and audio and video, are being addressed by only four states, six states, and three states respectively.

Table 3. Preserving at-risk state government digital information
Category of at-risk digital information in order of priority4	Specific type of at-risk digital information	States that reported involvement in related preservation activities	Number of states involved
Records	Vital, land, and other historical records; legislative and court records	CA, GA, MA, MD, MI, MO, MN, MS, MT, NJ, OK, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WY	18
Databases/data sets	Geographic Information System (GIS) data; geospatial data	CA, CT, KY, ME	4
Digital Publication	Web-based publications; born-digital state publications; state government document; state agency reports	AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, IA, IL, KS, KY, LA, MN, MO, MT, NC, NE, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY	29
Web sites	State government agency Web sites; Governor’s Web site; subset of Web site content regarded as having special importance such as press releases	AL, AZ, DE, KY, MI, MS, NC, PA, SC, SD, UT, VA, WI	13
e-mail	Agency e-mail; official e-mail records including attachments; electronic correspondence of elected officials	ME, NC, NJ, OH, PA, VA	6
Audio and Video	Digital photographs and digital recordings of government proceedings and public meetings	IL, MI, MS	3

One unknown at this point is the approach being used by each state to define “at-risk”, to determine what information is at-risk, and to prioritize from among those information types. There are many indications that states are establishing priorities based on available resources such as staff skills and grant dollars rather than based on a program strategy that might factor in issues such as the value proposition of specific information types.