Monday, September 12, 2005

NARA and electronic archives

Someone from Tessella e-mailed me to point out that they were part of a big contract to create electronic records archive system for the National Archives and Records Administration. I had seen the announcement and didn't mention it (prior to this) for one reason: this work isn't going to have an immediate impact on us. The initial system will be rolled out in 2007 and it should be fully operational by 2011. Now if knowledge, protocols, software, etc., "falls" out of this effort for the rest of us to pick up on, I'll be thrilled. (Hopefully the government will see the wisdom in sharing what it is doing or at least what is being learned.)

Now Harris Corp. competed with Lockheed for this project, so perhaps it might be Harris that will use what it learned to help organizations that don't have millions to spend. Who knows. As the saying goes, I'm not holding my breath.

BTW the news article states that "NARA estimates that [government] agencies use more than 4,800 different types of formats." Wow! That is both a nightmare and a opportunity for those managing the information.

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