Archives Synthesizes Criteria for Agency Email Management
Most departments on track to meet end-of-year deadline.
For years the National Archives and Records Administration has admonished agencies to “stop paperizing”—the practice of printing out emails and submitting the paper as federal records.
On Wednesday the agency published new guidance that synthesizes past Obama administration requirements on how agencies can meet the goal of electronically managing all official email records by the end of 2016.
Successful email polices mean “having policies and systems in place to ensure that email records can be used, accessed and have the appropriate disposition applied,” said the memo from David Ferriero, archivist of the United States. “NARA recognizes that agencies may be stronger in some areas of email management than others. Organizational complexity, schedule development, budgetary or procurement constraints may affect each agency’s ability to meet specific criteria.”
Agency officials’ use of personal email—at the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor Department and the Chemical Safety Board, for example—has lent visibility to the governmentwide handling of emails as potential federal records, future access to which is a key mission of the National Archives.
The key Archives records management specialists on Wednesday gave an upbeat view of agency progress in managing email electronically to meet this year’s goal as well as the 2019 deadline for managing all agency communications electronically. “We win when we get it in a format we can use,” Lisa Haralampus, director of records, management policy and outreach at Archives, told the Content.gov symposium on records management that showcased the federal work of the contractor Alfresco. “Better digital record-keeping makes for better archives in 50 years.”
Reviewing agency progress on their annual “records management self-assessments,” in which agencies voluntarily answer questions on whether they have appointed records officers and are conducting sufficient training, Haralampus said 2015 was the first year in which all agencies complied with the survey.
Some 93 percent of those responding said their agency will meet their email goal for 2016, 80 percent said they would meet the 2019 goal, and 80 percent said they have begun records management for the coming presidential transition. “Few agencies said they are at low risk, and some don’t have records officers,” she said. “But they have improved over time and are spending more on the effort. You can’t get to records management without the people in place.”
The Archives has offered agencies an approach to email management and document disposition called Capstone, which, while not dictating any sort of software, recommends a practical “roles-based” approach to determining which level of employees at a given agency is more likely to generate communications likely to quality as permanent, rather than transitory, federal records. “Records management is a discipline, a value judgment,” she said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all.”
Her latest survey showed that 54 percent of agency officials said they will use Capstone, 29 percent are investigating it, 15 percent will submit a schedule for choosing a different plan and 2 percent don’t know.
Haralampus acknowledged that the Archives’ role in document retention practices is advisory rather than that of an enforcer. “We don’t like asking questions like, ‘Are you complying?’ ” she said. “But we expect overseers in Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to inquire if the agencies are not meeting their goals.”