Electronic records management comes with a key challenge that analog records rarely face: what’s the best format for the record for long-term storage? When it comes to something like paper documents, the question doesn’t even really make sense: you just store what you’ve got. With digital files, however, there are myriad different file formats to [...]

As the number of federal records continues to increase, and agencies are required to create and maintain electronic versions of a larger portion of these documents, it’s important to choose “sustainable formats.” In other words, what happens to a record slated for long-term storage if it’s kept in a format that becomes obsolete in coming [...]

A good records management program is worthless if no one uses it as intended. Worse, there’s more at stake to non-compliance than just running into inefficiencies and increased errors. Non-compliance can also run afoul of legal mandates that govern how certain records and certain kinds of data must be handled. Given how many laws affect [...]

Managing government records is a complicated task. Records managers at governmental agencies must design and execute a complicated array of processes to ensure creation, use, storage, and disposition of records follow all applicable laws and regulations. Now, agencies must also shift into electronic records management for virtually all permanent and temporary records, forcing agencies to [...]

Over the years, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has provided the federal government with a wide range of records management services. One of their most important and helpful services is running, in cooperation with other federal agencies, a collection of massive Federal Records Centers (FRCs) across the country. Originally opened in 1950, [...]

All the way back in 2019, OMB/NARA memorandum M-19-21 set an aggressive objective to ensure that virtually all Federal records would be created, retained, and managed in electronic formats with appropriate metadata by December 31, 2022. However, no one could have predicted the Covid-19 pandemic that would shortly sweep the world and delay agency efforts [...]

One upside to electronic records management is the potential to reduce labor and increase accuracy. In fact, one of the core objectives of any organization engaging in a digitization project is reducing administrative burden while enhancing record quality. To that end, electronic records management opens up new avenues for efficiency and effectiveness, and one of [...]

BYOD is a big deal in the modern workplace. Research shows that nearly all (95%) companies permit employee use of personal devices for work purposes, and as many as 87% of organizations actually depend on some level on employees being able to access work-related apps and services from their own devices. Unfortunately, BYOD also introduces [...]

The Section 508 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandates that federal agencies make their technology accessible to people with disabilities. It’s part of a longstanding commitment of the United States government to reducing discrimination against people with disabilities. As more agencies shift to fully electronic records management, it also means records managers need [...]

What is the relationship between records management and compliance with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests? In short, it’s complicated. Obviously, good records management is critical to meeting formal FOIA requests. It’s how staff can even find the information that’s being requested. Unfortunately, according to research published last year from the U.S. National Archives and [...]