Losing Our Memory/The lessons for the digital age

The challenges of paper records and those on obsolete media pale in comparison with the whole question of electronic records. They answer the question of "space" by compressing data into ones and zeros, but at the same time—and perhaps as a consequence—electronic records are even more likely to be saved than paper records. They answer the question of technological obsolescence by being hardware independent, but at the same time, electronic records are just as likely to be lost if maintained solely in their proprietary formats.

The National Archives long ago recognized the need to develop a means of dealing with the data smog. Perhaps the largest undertaking in the history of the National Archives is the creation of the Electronic Records Archives—or ERA. Established in partnership with the private sector and developed using the best available research from around the world, ERA is intended to preserve and provide access to any type of electronic record created by a federal agency. It is intended to handle any changes in software and remain a collaborative laboratory with the public to provide access to electronic records.

Progress has been slow, but steady. Records are being ingested into the system. Just this past fall, 77 terabytes of presidential records from the George W. Bush administration were entered into the system. And e-mail from the Bush White House was converted from Microsoft's Exchange server format into an "open source" format, in order to make all the e-mail messages of administration staff searchable. We look forward to a day when data miners and historians can have at this trove of information.

We must be mindful of the special needs of electronic records, just as for paper and special media, which require both access and protection, the preservation and conservation routines which care for the physical object to extend its life, usually through providing an appropriate storage environment. And we must be on guard against unintended consequences brought about by conversion from one medium to another.

And we must be prepared for the new ways in which government and citizens interact and the new kinds of records created through social media. Two years ago, President Obama and his campaign staff began the first truly Internet campaign, and now the Administration is using social media and new communications techniques to reach out to citizens in ways once inconceivable, especially from the federal government.

We are following suit. The National Archives first tweeted in the spring of 2009. It has web pages for most of the Presidential Libraries, several regional centers, the Federal Register, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Foundation for the National Archives. We are up on Flickr—with some 360,000 visitors, and we are on YouTube. One day soon, I predict, we will have the first Social Media Archivist, whose job it is to figure out how to tame the dragons we have set free.

Web 2.0 is a wild and crazy place. Let’s just look at just one part of the new social media dynamic: Facebook. Some 300,000 businesses in the U.S. are on Facebook, including the Federal Government. The White House has nearly 500,000 fans, the National Guard nearly 400,000, the U.S. Army 200,000 and the Centers for Disease Control over 54,000. Facebook is spreading quickly. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million; television reached the saturation point in 13 years; the Internet in 4 years; and the iPod in 3 years. In less than 9 months, Facebook added 100 million users. QZone—the equivalent of Facebook in China—has 300 million users.

More than 1.5 million pieces of information are shared on Facebook each day. Generation Y—who just this year blew past the Baby Boomers in terms of overall population share—uses this stuff the way our generation relied on the daily mail and the newspaper. The whole commerce of information has changed permanently. The transactions between organizations—including the federal government—and users will continue to spread and grow. We are struggling to come up with the right framework for preserving the most basic records for the short term, and we need to be good stewards of this new dynamic.