ISSN 1916-5714
Download a printable version of September 2018, vol. 5, no. 12 (PDF 571 KB)
In this issue
Section 1—General News
Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
BAnQ receives funding to preserve Quebec's documentary heritage (French only)
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) has received nearly three million dollars from the provincial government to be spent on collecting, preserving and disseminating Quebec's documentary heritage.
See also: Quebec government releases its five year digital strategy (French only)
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
Delivery of government services to be improved
As part of the government's The Way Forward document a "digital by design" plan has been released whose goal, over the next five years, is to develop a new web portal to better connect the public with government.
See also: "A More Efficient Public Sector" (Newfoundland and Labrador); New Brunswick to go digital with five-year digital strategy
Government of Yukon
Government proposes changes to Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Acts
The changes would include providing more training for departmental coordinators, making more information public, and adding a new rule that would allow information requests to be denied if they are deemed to be too much work to answer.
See also: Amendments to freedom of information acts now in effect (Saskatchewan); Freedom of information law now covers colleges and municipalities (Prince Edward Island); Appointment of new Information Commissioner (Federal Government)
Australia
Government funds digital identity system and blockchain
The federal government has committed to making it easier for the public to access government services online and to investigating the benefits of using blockchain for government services.
See also: Blockchain applications to be studied
Australian Government Agencies Privacy Code now in force
According to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the code "… requires Agencies to move towards a best practice approach to privacy governance to help build a consistent, high standard of personal information management across all Australian Government Agencies."
See also: Video: Official Launch of Privacy Awareness Week 2018
Europe
Linked Open Data Working Group created
The Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) has announced that the working group will produce a set of guidelines, best practices, and tools for opening library data.
See also: Government creates group of experts for digitization (Sweden)
Ireland
Amended National Archives bill changes records transfer criteria
The National Archives bill permits the transfer of departmental records to the National Archives after 20 years instead of the current 30, resulting in records being released to the public earlier.
See also: "New rule will allow for early release of cabinet papers"
New Zealand
Government adopts International open data charter
By adopting the charter, New Zealand has committed to making government data open by default. The charter calls for the timely and comprehensive release of data in an accessible, usable, comparable and interoperable format.
See also: Third National Action Plan for Open Government Partnership implemented (Latvia)
Program to strengthen contribution of national archives and libraries
A new program has been developed that will strengthen the contribution that national archives and libraries can make to New Zealand's culture and democracy to better meet the challenges they are facing and to take advantage of the opportunities that a digital environment provides.
Singapore
Bill to amend the National Library Board Act passed
The government has introduced the National Library Board (Amendment) Bill. The amendments will allow the National Library Board to collect and preserve works published digitally.
Switzerland
Government passes ordinance to fast-track the digitization of authentic electronic acts (French only)
L'ordonnance sur l'acte authentique électronique came into effect on February 1, 2018.
United Arab Emirates
Blockchain 2021 strategy launched
By using blockchain technology, the goal of the strategy is to have 50% of government transactions conducted at the federal level by 2021.
See also: Blockchain and the first government entity in the world; "Smart" government online with one-stop service centre; "Guidelines for government entities on social media"
United Kingdom
Open standard principles have been revised
The newly revised Open Standards Principles that make it easier for government departments to adopt open standards are now available. The updated version uses clearer language and clarifies several important points.
United States
Federal Government
Published e-books are now included under mandatory deposit rule
Responding to an increasingly digital environment, the Library of Congress has announced that it is now including published e-books under its mandatory deposit rule, but only on a by-request basis. Previously, the rule specifically excluded electronic-only works.
See also: New position created: Director of Digital Strategy; Library of Congress and Bibliothèque Nationale de France collaborate on international digital content; Access to collections facilitated through innovative technology
FOIA Advisory Committee issues final report with recommendations
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee, which is comprised of government FOIA staff and representatives from the requestor community, has issued its final report and recommendations.
See also: Freedom of Information Act portal launched; Video: Freedom of Information Act Advisory Committee, January 16, 2018
Section 2—Events
Annual Meetings and Conferences, National
October 2018
Public Sector Social Media 2018
17–18 October 2018
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 2018
Rethinking Digital Government
7–9 November 2018
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
January 2019
16th Annual Privacy and Data Security Compliance Forum
29–30 January 2019
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
January/February 2019
2019 Ontario Library Association Super Conference
30 January–2 February 2019
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
March 2019
National Privacy and Data Governance Congress
13–15 March 2019
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Annual Meetings and Conferences, International
February 2019
14th International Digital Curation Conference
4–7 February 2019
Melbourne, Australia
March 2019
ICDH 2019: 21st International Conference on Digital Heritage
11–12 March 2019
Miami, Florida, United States
23rd Annual Enterprise Data World Conference
17–22 March 2019
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
AIIM Conference 2019
26–28 March 2019
San Diego, California, United States
May 2019
The Web Conference 2019
13–17 May 2019
San Francisco, California, United States
National Conference on Managing Electronic Records (MER 2019)
20–22 May 2019
Chicago, Illinois, United States
IASSIST (International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology) 45th Annual Conference 2019
27–31 May 2019
Sydney, Australia
Section 3—Current Trends and Products
Recordkeeping: Current Developments, Projects and Future Initiatives
Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)—Website harvesting program
Every day, websites are created, evolve or disappear. In order to keep track of this information, often ephemeral in nature, BAnQ has integrated website harvesting to its activities constitutive of Quebec published heritage materials.
See also: Video: Priorities and projects (French only); Visualizing NetArchive Harvests (Royal Danish Library)
McMaster University—Vivo and Elements location project (video)
Launched in 2016, the goal of this two-year project is to have a Research Information Management System (RIMS) for the entire institution. In this video, Dale Askey and Jason Brodeur talk about the issues, challenges and lessons learned.
See also: Interactive maps and linked data project (University of British Columbia)
Australia
Whole-of-Government Digital Records Platform project
The project, to be completed by 2020, is being led by the Department of Finance, in consultation with the National Archives of Australia. The platform will automate the records management function, taking into consideration user needs and technological advancements.
France
National Archives—"Pilote d'interopérabilité pour les autorités archivistiques françaises" (French only)
This experimental project of semanticization and visualization of archival metadata had a goal of developing a prototype, which is now online. The results offer interesting perspectives for organizations that have a responsibility for archival documents and that would be interested in using data web technologies.
Ireland
Video: "Beyond 2022: Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury"
Seven centuries of Ireland's historical and genealogical records of the Public Record Office of Ireland were destroyed by fire in 1922. A project is now underway to digitally reconstruct the building and the records in 3D virtual reality, allowing the public to "walk" through the building and explore the lost records.
Latvia
National Archives/National Library project—"Digitization of the Cultural Heritage Content (1st Stage)"
The National Archives and National Library will be working together to ensure that their current digital content, along with that of other cultural institutions, is made widely available and accessible in the digital environment by 2021.
New Zealand
National Library—Digital collections
Jessica Moran, leader of the digital collection services team at the Alexander Turnbull Library, which is part of the National Library, speaks about how to capture, store, analyze and curate digital data to make it accessible and meaningful in the future. (Includes audio interview)
United Kingdom
National Archives—Handwritten text-recognition software pilot project
Optical character recognition (OCR) technology can be used to search for words written inside a book, newspaper or archival document, but is not able to "read" handwritten documents. This pilot project will address this issue by testing the feasibility of a new platform called Transkribus.
See also: Making old books and records readable (Switzerland)
Various organizations—ARCHANGEL: Blockchain research project
The project is exploring how to determine that a digital record has been modified and whether the change was legitimate so that, ultimately, it can still be trusted as the authentic record. Specifically, the project is investigating how blockchain might be used to achieve this.
United States
National Archives Records Administration—Federal Electronic Records Modernization Initiative (FERMI)
FERMI provides a government-wide, modern, cost-effective, standardized, and interoperable set of records management solutions with common, core functionality to support records management services for federal agencies.
See also: "Citizen Archivist Dashboard"
Yale University—"Emulation as a service" infrastructure project
This project will significantly impact curation practices by increasing the understanding of how institutions of different sizes and types may engage in Operations Support Systems tool integration and workflow development.
Products and Tools from Around the World
Canada
Archives Association of British Columbia—The AABC Archivists Toolkit
Updated in January 2018, the toolkit offers access to a wide range of online and published resources for archivists and archives workers at all levels.
See also: "Digital Preservation Toolkit" (Canadian Heritage Information Network)
Federal Government—Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat—"Do-it-Yourself Open Data Toolkit"
The toolkit is an instructional manual that provides a step-by-step guide on how to develop your open data initiative. It brings together training materials, best practices, tools and resources to help you prepare for and implement an open data project.
See also: Open Data Home Page (York University)
Australia
Government of New South Wales—Reducing file share dependencies
The Aboriginal Housing Office describes how their records management program implementation increased their EDRMs usage adoption and reduced their dependence on shared/network drives.
See also: "File Format Migration—Considerations Before you Begin" and "Who holds the keys to your Content Management System?" (Archives New Zealand)
Government of New South Wales—"What is appraisal?"
Topics include Public Record Office Victoria's appraisal framework and appraisal to determine retention requirements.
National Archives—Launch of Digital Authorisations Framework
With the goals of delivering digital government more efficiently to the public and supporting the re-use of information, the Framework was developed to assist Australian Government agencies in transforming analogue approval processes to fully digital approvals.
France
National Archives—Sharing and outsourcing of certain functions in the context of electronic archiving systems (French only) [PDF]
The National Archives of France published this document on January 4, 2018.
Germany
Inovoo—NOVO CxP
NOVO CxP is a platform that receives, processes and analyzes structured and unstructured data and documents in a wide variety of formats.
See also: RicohDocs – 3.0 (office automation platform) (India)
Scotland
National Records of Scotland—Tools: Digital Preservation Guidance for Local Authorities and Capacity Planning Tool
The Digital Preservation Guidance for Local Authorities details what digital preservation means, describes what is involved, and facilitates the start of the process. The Capacity Planning Tool helps local authority archivists to calculate what their digital storage needs are.
See also: Digital preservation tools (Archives New Zealand)
United Kingdom
British Library—"Web Archiving Tools for Legal Deposit"
Andy Jackson, Web Archive Technical Lead at The British Library, speaks about web archiving tools for legal deposit.
United States
National Archives Records Administration—"Strategy for Preserving Digital Archival Materials"
Several key strategies are discussed along with subjects covering digital preservation activities, format and media sustainability, information security, and key enabling factors.
See also: "The Lifecycle and Preservation of Electronic Records"; "General Records Schedule Transmittal 29"; "Criteria for Successfully Managing Permanent Electronic Records" [PDF]; "Managing metadata for permanent records"
State Archives of North Carolina—"FAQs: Transitory Records"
The FAQs provide a more in-depth look at transitory records and how you can identify them.
See also: "FAQ: so text messages can be records—how do we capture and retain them?" (Texas State Library and Archives Commission)
Studies and Surveys
New Zealand
"Born digital in New Zealand: report of survey results"
Written by: Jessica Moran, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, February 2017 [PDF]
"Born digital" refers to content created digitally or electronically, and without an analogue original or equivalent. The survey was conducted in the hopes that uncovering the current state of born-digital collecting in New Zealand might be useful for organizations interested in setting strategic priorities, and might support more informed decision-making. The survey was sent directly to organizational contacts in May 2016, and attempted to account for all cultural heritage institutions in New Zealand that could hold archival or special collections materials.
Global
Survey: "Open Government Data: Assessing demand around the world"
Conducted by: The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), October 19, 2017.
Open government data (OGD) is information contained in government databases and private servers that can be freely accessed, used and republished by people and businesses. The survey compares OGD uptake and usage across 10 countries (United States, United Kingdom, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Finland, Mexico, Australia, France and India) and seeks to identify benefits and opportunities that OGD can offer to citizens. The findings are based on a survey of 1,000 citizens—100 from each of the target countries.
Survey: "2017 The Hanzo Annual Report: The State of Enterprise Collaboration" [PDF]
Conducted by: Hanzo
Hanzo conducted a detailed survey of over 500 of the Global 2000 senior executives in eDiscovery, Risk and Compliance about the platforms they use, as well as their concerns surrounding these tools.
The goal of this survey is to analyze the extent to which platforms are being used, so that corporate legal departments can best address the compliance issues that arise from the increased use of these technologies.
Section 4—Selected Readings and Recordings
Articles, White Papers, Presentations, Reports, Videos and Podcasts
Canada
Audio Interview: "Change and Innovation in the public sector", 2018.
Alex Benay, chief information officer of the Government of Canada, talks about the steps to create a digital government and fundamentally change how the government operates in terms of balancing technology, policy, and legislation with the need to be more collaborative and more open to the innovation ecosystem.
Article: "Why companies need a document retention and destruction policy"
Written by Byron Yep, an associate at Hakemi & Ridgedale LLP who has appeared as counsel at all levels of court in British Columbia. Featured in Business Vancouver, November 7, 2017.
A document retention and destruction policy is essential for organizations in order for them to effectively manage risk, increase efficiency, and reduce storage costs.
See also: "Why content management is king in digital strategy"
Australia
Paper: "Metadata Provenance and Vulnerability"
Written by Timothy Robert Hart, PhD researcher, and Denise de Vries, lecturer of Computer Science, at the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University. Featured in Information Technology and Libraries, December 2017, Vol. 36, no. 4.
Today, many organizations must find new and innovative ways to take the complexity out of information capture. This article highlights five key challenge areas where organizations can benefit from working with a solutions provider.
Article: "Addressing the open data imperative through sound information management"
Written by Priyankar Bhunia. Featured in OpenGovAsia, April 5, 2018.
New South Wales Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd talks about the role played by open data in improving government service delivery and building trust in institutions. She also explains how information release can benefit from process automation and initiatives taken by her office towards promoting open data and open government.
France
"Pour une action publique transparente et collaborative : plan d'action national pour la France 2018-2020" (French only)
Published by the Government of France, 2018.
The goal of the action plan is to advance transparency in public action, open innovation and citizen participation by engaging institutions in openness and innovation.
Gibraltar
Article: "Self-preservation: The Gibraltar National Archives uses cloud to safeguard its history"
Written by Caroline Donnelly. Featured in ComputerWeekly.com, September 13, 2017.
This article discusses how cloud and archiving technologies are safe-guarding its history for future generations at the Gibraltar National Archives.
See also: Digital preservation software preserves collections
United Kingdom
Report: "Open Government National Action Plan 2016 to 2018: mid-term self assessment"
Published by the Cabinet Office, Government of the United Kingdom, December 19, 2017.
This self-assessment report looks at progress 16 months into the implementation of the two-year plan.
See also: Webinar: "Using Open Data", The Open Data Institute, November 21, 2017.
United States
Video Presentation: "Email Archives: Issues, Tolls and Gaps"
Presented by Chris Prom, archivist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Kate Murray, Digital Projects Coordinator at the Library of Congress, May 23, 2018.
Recommendations from the report "Task Force on Technical Approaches to Email Archives", whose purpose is to assess current tools, methodologies, approaches and conceptual models that can be used to acquire born digital correspondence and to manage it as an archival resource in repositories is discussed.
Case Study: "Archiving Content from Mobile Devices: Challenges and Strategies" [PDF]
Written by: Laura Alagna, Digital Curation Assistant, Distinctive Collections, Repository and Digital Curation, Northwestern University. Featured in Society of American Archivists Campus Case Studies, October 2017.
This case study describes the challenges involved in archiving content from mobile devices, including the lack of equipment and software, and describes how staff at Northwestern University Archives overcame these obstacles and developed policies and workflows for transferring data from mobile devices.
Books, Selected Readings
Gerardus Blokdyk, Electronic Document and Records Management System (2nd Edition) (2018)
This book has been written as a self-assessment tool that will show the reader what needs to be clarified to organize the business/project activities and processes so that electronic document and records management system outcomes are achieved.
Lina Bountouri, Archives in the Digital Age: Standards, Policies and Tools (1st Edition) (2017)
Divided into five sections, Archives in the Digital Age: Standards, Policies and Tools discusses semantic web technologies and their increased usage in distributing archival material. The book provides detailed analyses of how metadata and standards are used to manage archival material, and how this material is disseminated through the web using the Internet, the semantic web, and social media technologies.
Published by ARMA International, Implementing Electronic Messaging Policies (ARMA International TR 31-2018) [PDF]
Implementing Electronic Messaging Policies provides guidance for organizations that are developing policies for managing electronic messages.
Lois Hamill, Archival Arrangement and Description: Analog to Digital (2017)
After presenting the basics of arrangement and description (processing) for analog materials, the book discusses digital materials incorporating the OAIS preservation model into a detailed, sample workflow. Although accessioning and technical appraisal precede processing, they are discussed because they are performed differently for digital materials and create a different starting point for processing digital files.
Edited by: Christine M. Angel and Caroline Fuchs, Organization, Representation and Description through the Digital Age: Information in Libraries, Archives and Museums (2018)
This book provides a historical perspective of the evolution of linking devices within the library, archive and museum environments, and captures current cataloging practices in these fields. It offers suggestions for moving beyond community-specific cataloging principles and thus has the potential of becoming a springboard for further conversation and the sharing of ideas.