    [House Hearing, 108 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     FEDERAL ELECTRONIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT: WHAT IS THE PLAN? WHAT IS OUR
                                   PROGRESS?

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                    SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
                    POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
                                   THE CENSUS

                                     of the

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                               GOVERNMENT REFORM

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                          ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                  JULY 8, 2003

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 108-132

                                   __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

      Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
                          http://www.house.gov/reform

                                     ______

    93-006              U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
                                WASHINGTON : 2003
    ____________________________________________________________________________
    For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
    Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov  Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
    Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001

                         COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

                         TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
    DAN BURTON, Indiana                  HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
    CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut       TOM LANTOS, California
    ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida         MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
    JOHN M. McHUGH, New York             EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
    JOHN L. MICA, Florida                PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
    MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana              CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
    STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio           ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
    DOUG OSE, California                 DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
    RON LEWIS, Kentucky                  DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
    JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia               JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
    TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania    WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    CHRIS CANNON, Utah                   DIANE E. WATSON, California
    ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida              STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia          CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
    JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee       LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
    JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma              C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
    NATHAN DEAL, Georgia                     Maryland
    CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan          ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
    TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania                 Columbia
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    JOHN R. CARTER, Texas                CHRIS BELL, Texas
    WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota                 ------
    MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee          BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
                                             (Independent)

                           Peter Sirh, Staff Director
                     Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
                          Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
                           Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
                  Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director

       Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
                            Relations and the Census

                       ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
    CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan          WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
    DOUG OSE, California                 DIANE E. WATSON, California
    TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania             STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

                                   Ex Officio

    TOM DAVIS, Virginia                  HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
                            Bob Dix, Staff Director
                     Lori Martin, Professional Staff Member
                          Ursula Wojciechowski, Clerk
               David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on July 8, 2003.....................................     1
    Statement of:
        Carlin, John W., Archivist of the United States, National
          Archives and Records Administration; L. Reynolds Cahoon,
          Chief Information Officer, NARA; Harriet Riofrio, E-Records
          Management Policy and Program Lead, U.S. Department of
          Defense; and Linda Koontz, Director, Information Management
          Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office.....................    11
        Sprehe, J. Timothy, president, Sprehe Information Management
          Associates; Robert F. Nawrocki, CRM, director, Records
          Management and Imagining Services Division, Library of
          Virginia; Caryn Wojcik, State Government Records
          Management, Michigan; and Dr. Richard Lyusakowski,
          director, Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems
          Association [CENSA]........................................    86
    Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
        Cahoon, Reynolds, Chief Information Officer, NARA, prepared
          statement of...............................................    26
        Carlin, John W., Archivist of the United States, National
          Archives and Records Administration, prepared statement of.    13
        Koontz, Linda, Director, Information Management Issues, U.S.
          General Accounting Office, prepared statement of...........    51
        Miller, Hon. Candice S., a Representative in Congress from
          the State of Michigan, prepared statement of...............     7
        Nawrocki, Robert F., CRM, director, Records Management and
          Imagining Services Division, Library of Virginia, prepared
          statement of...............................................    95
        Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
          State of Florida, prepared statement of....................     3
        Riofrio, Harriet, E-Records Management Policy and Program
          Lead, U.S. Department of Defense, prepared statement of....    40
        Sprehe, J. Timothy, president, Sprehe Information Management
          Associates, prepared statement of..........................    89
        Wojcik, Caryn, State Government Records Management, Michigan,
          prepared statement of......................................   101

     FEDERAL ELECTRONIC RECORDS MANAGEMENT: WHAT IS THE PLAN? WHAT IS OUR
                                   PROGRESS?

                                  ----------

                             TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003

                      House of Representatives,
       Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
            Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
                                Committee on Government Reform,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
    room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
    (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Putnam, and Miller.
        Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel,
    counsel; Lori Martin, professional staff member; Ursula
    Wojciechowski, clerk; David McMillen, minority professional
    staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
        Mr. Putnam. Good morning. A quorum being present, this
    hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
    Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to order.
    I want to welcome everyone to today's hearing entitled,
    ``Federal Electronic Records Management, What is the Plan and
    What is our Progress?''
        In today's world of emerging technology, Federal agencies
    are conducting more and more of their business through
    electronic means. As an example, e-mail has become a primary
    form of communication, often used now in place of the telephone
    and as a vehicle for sending memos or other important
    documents. While this has increased the efficiency and
    productivity of the modern day office, it has also presented a
    new set of challenges to the issue of records management and
    preservation as the Federal Government moves from being paper
    based to more and more electronic and technology based.
        The importance of records management and preservation has a
    long history. Not only is the legacy of our history at issue,
    but this issue has a direct impact on the continuing ability of
    the Federal agencies to function properly. Without a
    comprehensive and cohesive strategy, records can be misplaced
    or even lost. This not only has the potential to hinder day-to-
    day operations, but also has potentially significant
    ramifications on the national archival process.
        The management of all Federal records and now particularly
    electronically generated records creates new and additional
    challenges. Examples include what types of electronic records
    need to be saved, what process or technology should be utilized
    for their preservation, how will the retrieval of these records
    be guaranteed and through what process in the future. This
    whole issue raises another set of questions as well, what
    happens with all of the existing records in their various
    formats? How many, if any, of these existing records will be
    converted to an emerging process or technology? How will all of
    these records and exhibits continue to be preserved, and how
    are these records being cataloged? And what is the magnitude of
    the process required to retrieve an existing record and how are
    classified versus nonclassified records treated?
        The Federal Records Act has provided the National Archives
    and Records Management Agency with the responsibility for
    oversight of records management within the Federal Government.
    Under the provisions of FRA, NARA is to provide guidance and
    oversight to Federal agencies as they execute the electronic
    records strategy. Certainly having a common set of goals and
    objectives in those strategies will ensure consistency and
    continuity in this process.
        Presently, NARA is working to develop the necessary tools
    to support that guidance. A number of projects including the
    development of their electronic records archive program and
    NARA's leadership role as a managing partner of the Electronic
    Records Management E-government Initiative will put them in a
    position to help define the national standards for electronic
    records management.
        At the same time, Federal agencies themselves must begin to
    work more diligently in making electronic records management a
    higher priority, many agencies have not fulfilled their
    obligations to confer with NARA about the progress of their
    records management plans. While NARA has been charged with
    oversight responsibility regarding these matters, they have
    been provided little, if any authority, to enforce compliance.
        As it currently stands, it is the responsibility of each
    individual agency to develop and implement an electronic
    records management strategy. One of the areas we will explore
    at this hearing is whether the authority and accountability
    that presently exists related to this issue is sufficient to
    get the job done.
        These are just some of the challenges facing the subject of
    Federal electronic records management. Through the research and
    preparation for this hearing, the subcommittee has come to
    recognize the enormity of the task. It is our objective to
    learn from a variety of stakeholders, institution, academic,
    government and private sector, and to work with NARA together
    with Federal agencies to determine the progress in developing
    and implementing an effective management strategy.
        Today's hearing can be viewed live via Webcast by going to
    reform.house.gov and clicking on the link under live committee
    broadcast. It is an important hearing, and we have two
    distinguished panels of witnesses, and we are fortunate to have
    a vice chairman of this subcommittee who served as the
    Secretary of State in Michigan and has worked extensively on
    this committee in a number of issues, but particularly in the
    modernization and the utilization of technology to improve the
    efficiencies of government operations.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.002

        Mr. Putnam. So I now yield for her opening comments to the
    vice chairwoman of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from
    Michigan, Mrs. Miller.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
    holding this hearing today. I'm sorry, I was just a few minutes
    late. I know you like to start your hearings on time. We should
    have a hearing on the elevators in this building I think
    someday. But I certainly appreciate your commitment to
    exploring ways, examining ways to improve the business of the
    Federal Government. I think that the challenge facing the
    Federal Government in regards to electronic records management
    is certainly very complex. It is extremely daunting. The
    National Archives and Records Administration [NARA], as we
    commonly call it, possesses the responsibility to provide
    guidance and oversight to Federal agencies regarding the
    records management strategies. Under current law, Federal
    agencies are required to submit record schedules to NARA, which
    must be approved and then, in turn, to allow NARA to aid
    agencies in their records management strategy implementation.
        However, as with so many other statutory requirements
    concerning the modernization and the improved efficiency of
    government, many Federal agencies are not cooperating. NARA has
    been working for years on developing an effective electronic
    records management policy, but the responsibility of
    implementing the strategy really falls directly on each
    individual agency, quite frankly.
        Today we will be examining the strategy that NARA has
    developed and the progress that has been made. I feel it is
    very important to also examine the successes and the failures
    of Federal agencies in regards to this enormous task. Though
    each agency is responsible for its own success, the valuable
    lessons learned throughout government at all levels must be
    utilized as an important resource. For this reason, I'm very
    pleased that we're going to be hearing from witnesses at both
    the Federal and State levels of government, and then
    representatives from the private sector also.
        As the Federal Government progresses into the 21st century
    and moves to modernize its operations, a problem has arisen in
    that the Federal agencies seem to place different priorities on
    utilizing technology. Some agencies have seen the benefits of
    implementing substantial technologies, while others seem to be
    stuck in a time warp, stuck in the past. Something needs to be
    done to force these particular agencies to realize the
    importance of modernizing their records management.
        The current scenario is simply more than an adjustment to
    the current frame of thinking. It also includes agencies not
    complying by federally mandated statutes. Currently, there is
    no real enforcement mechanism that forces agencies to abide by
    statutes outlined by the Federal Records Act and to submit
    schedules required by NARA. Many Federal agencies have not
    placed any degree of priority on electronic records management,
    and this has resulted, of course, in a wide variety of
    problems.
        I notice Linda Koontz, in her written testimony, states
    that NARA has developed a strategy for raising awareness
    amongst agency management of the need to place electronic
    records management at a very high priority, and I'm also--I
    found that very encouraging. I'm also looking forward to Mr.
    Carlin's testimony also, hoping that he can elaborate on the
    measures taken by NARA within the last year to impress upon
    agency officials the need to implement an effective management
    strategy, and I certainly especially want to thank Caryn
    Wojcik, who will be testifying in the second panel taking some
    time to testify before our subcommittee today, as the chairman
    mentioned, during my tenure as Michigan Secretary of State, the
    archives were sort of under the umbrella of the Michigan
    Secretary of State's office, and we think because of the great
    people that led our agency there, our State's archiving and
    records management projects, Michigan has certainly become one
    of the national leaders by incorporating a lot of information
    technology into the everyday activities of government, and in
    addition, our State managers have been working very hard to
    ensure that the State is prepared as its technology evolves
    well into the 21st century.
        So I hope that Ms. Wojcik will be able to inform the
    subcommittee of some of the different things that have
    happened. Since I've been gone, I know you're going like rapid
    fire there as well. But Federal agencies certainly must utilize
    the knowledge acquired by State governments so we're not
    reinventing the wheel. Although electronic records management
    at the Federal level is very daunting, as we say, there are
    resources available that can enrich the process, and again I
    reiterate my point that these Federal agencies must make a
    concerted effort to implement a successful management policy.
    As records sit untouched or the technology that has been used
    to create these records becomes obsolete, it is certainly
    imperative that action be taken and agencies prepare for the
    future, and certainly it is important that Congress play a very
    active role in ensuring that electronic records management be
    implemented effectively and in a timely manner as well, so I'm
    looking forward to all of the testimony from the witnesses
    today and I certainly want to thank you all for coming and
    thank the chairman for calling this hearing. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Hon. Candice S. Miller follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.003

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.004

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.005

        Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
        We'll now begin with our first panel of witnesses. Each has
    kindly prepared written testimony which will be included in the
    record of this hearing, and I ask each of you to summarize your
    thoughts in a 5-minute presentation to give us ample time for
    questions and dialog. You'll notice that there's a timer with a
    light on the table in front of you. The green light means begin
    your remarks, the point that you see the yellow light, we ask
    you to sum up, and at the red light, please bring it to a
    close. In order to be sensitive to everyone's time schedule, we
    ask that witnesses cooperate with us in adhering to the time
    system.
        As is the custom with the Government Reform Committee,
    we'll swear in our witnesses. I would ask the first panel of
    witnesses to stand and raise your right hands, and if you're
    accompanied by anyone who will be called upon to answer the
    questions or elaborate on a question, if they would stand as
    well, please.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that the witnesses
    responded in the affirmative.
        Our first witness this morning is Mr. John Carlin. As
    archivist of the United States, John Carlin is the head of the
    National Archives and Records Administration, an independent
    agency of the Federal Government with more than 2,900 employees
    and 33 facilities throughout the Nation. NARA is the Nation's
    recordkeeper. Its mission is to ensure for the citizen and the
    public servant, for the President and the Congress and the
    courts, ready access to essential evidence.
        Mr. Carlin was appointed archivist in 1995 by President
    Clinton. In 1998, he launched a major initiative to build the
    Electronic Records Archives to preserve and provide access to
    virtually any type of electronic record created anywhere in the
    Federal Government.
        Prior to being named archivist, Mr. Carlin had a
    distinguished career in politics, business and education. A
    native Kansan, he first entered public service in 1971 by
    serving in the legislature of the State of Kansas. He became
    Speaker of that State's House of Representatives, and in 1978,
    won election to the Kansas Governorship serving two terms
    through January 1987. His fellow Governors elected him chairman
    of the National Governors Association in 1984. Following his
    political career, he joined the faculty of Wichita State
    University teaching graduate courses in public administration.
        In 1987 he received an honorary doctorate of laws degree
    from his alma mater, Kansas State. As Governor of Kansas, he
    strongly supported the Kansas State Historical Society and the
    State archives within it, in which he deposited his own
    gubernatorial papers. Before heading NARA, he served on the
    National Archives Foundation Board.
        Governor Carlin, we welcome you to the subcommittee. You're
    recognized.

     STATEMENTS OF JOHN W. CARLIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES,
       NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; L. REYNOLDS
      CAHOON, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, NARA; HARRIET RIOFRIO, E-
    RECORDS MANAGEMENT POLICY AND PROGRAM LEAD, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
      DEFENSE; AND LINDA KOONTZ, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
                 ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

        Mr. Carlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to express to
    you our real appreciation for you holding this important
    hearing today on the subject of----
        Mr. Putnam. If you could just turn the mic on, please.
        Mr. Carlin. That might help.
        Mr. Putnam. So that we can have it for the archives.
        Mr. Carlin. That is a little embarrassing. We're going to
    talk about technology today, and I can't turn the mic on.
        We're still appreciative of your holding this hearing
    today. Obviously, your knowledge of technology has been clearly
    demonstrated, Mr. Chairman, in your brief tenure as the Chair
    of this committee, and I know your Vice Chair, a former
    Secretary of State, likewise has great experience, and we
    appreciate the opportunity to work with both of you.
        As you all know, the rapid evolution of information
    technology has produced huge volumes of diverse and complex
    digital records. These electronic records pose the biggest
    challenge ever to keeping records in the Federal Government.
    When you combine the rate of technological obsolescence with
    the explosive number of electronic records being created by the
    government every day, then you can begin to imagine the
    challenge that we face.
        In the National Archives and Presidential libraries, NARA
    is responsible for preserving and providing sustained access to
    records of all three branches of the Federal Government, and
    our challenge is magnified by the need to preserve and deliver
    authentic records for generations of Americans who will not be
    born for 100 years or more. The National Archives and Records
    Administration's statutory responsibilities relating to
    electronic records management are rooted in the Federal Records
    Act, which is codified under Title 44 of the United States
    Code.
        Under the statute, the archivist shall ``provide guidance
    and assistance to Federal agencies with respect to ensuring
    adequate and proper documentation of the policies and
    transactions of the Federal Government and ensuring proper
    records disposition.''
        The archivist also has the responsibilities to approve the
    disposal of any temporary Federal record and to take into the
    National Archives of the U.S. Federal records that ``have
    sufficient historical or other value to warrant their continued
    preservation by the U.S. Government.'' And these statutory
    responsibilities apply to electronic records as well as records
    in other formats.
        All this we have summed up in a simple succinct statement
    of mission which you have already stated. The mission of the
    National Archives and Records Administration is to ensure for
    the citizen and the public servant, for the President and the
    Congress and the courts, ready access to essential evidence.
        The scope of NARA's responsibilities compounds the
    challenge, for the historically valuable electronic records
    that come to the National Archives and the Presidential
    libraries come from applications deployed across the entire
    Federal Government. So they can be virtually in any digital
    format, from word processing and e-mail, to Web sites, data
    bases, geographic information systems, digital photography and
    motion video, computer-assisted engineering or manufacturing
    applications, laboratory simulations, satellite observations
    and many others.
        Within the past decade, there has been significant progress
    in developing software products which enable agencies to apply
    records management discipline to electronic records that are
    typically produced on individual desktops. An example, the
    Department of Defense has developed a program for certifying
    these products as complying with Federal records management
    requirements. NARA has worked closely with the Defense
    Department on this program, and has endorsed its use by all
    Federal agencies.
        However, implementing such a product is a time and
    resource-intensive effort. As a result, agencies are trying to
    manage many records and paper filing systems despite the fact
    that some of the new electronic formats cannot be rendered
    well, or, in some cases, at all in a paper environment.
        Through the E-government Electronic Records Management
    Initiative, NARA works with its agency partners, in providing
    guidance on electronic records management that is applicable
    governmentwide, and will enable agencies to transfer their
    permanent records to NARA in a variety of data types and
    formats.
        In a few moments, Mr. Reynolds Cahoon, the assistant
    archivist for Human Resources and Information Service, will
    give you details on our programs and initiatives designed to
    effectively manage electronic records throughout their life
    cycle.
        In closing, I'd like to thank you again for your interest
    in electronic records and the challenges they pose for agencies
    the government as a whole and our Nation. The records of our
    country have played a vital role in our history, and it is
    imperative that we find solutions for electronic records. For
    I'm sure you will all agree with me when I say that records
    matter for our citizens, our government and the future of our
    democracy.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Governor.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Carlin follows:]

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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.015

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.016

        Mr. Putnam. Our next witness is Reynolds Cahoon. Mr. Cahoon
    was appointed Assistant Archivist for Human Resources and
    Information Services and Chief Information Officer at the
    National Archives and Records Administration in February 1996.
    His responsibilities include the Nationwide Information
    Technology Program, oversight of NARA's Electronic Records
    Archives Program, human resources staff and organizational
    development services, NARA's Record Management Program.
        Mr. Cahoon currently serves as cochair of the component
    subcommittee of the Federal CIO Council's Architecture and
    Integration Committee, and as a commissioner for the
    International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional
    Genealogists. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Cahoon served as
    managing director of the family history department of the
    Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
        In that position he had global operating responsibility for
    one of the world's largest genealogical research support
    institutions. He previously served as the director of
    administration and controller and is the director of projects
    and planning for the Family History Department. He also served
    on the board of the Civil War Trust and was a member of the
    International Council and Archives Committee on archival
    automation from 1986 to 1997. Welcome to the subcommittee.
    You're recognized.
        Mr. Cahoon. Thank you. I join the archivist in thanking
    you, Chairman Putnam, for recognizing the importance of
    electronic records management and for holding this hearing.
    NARA's plans for electronic records management aim at making it
    an integral part of electronic government and at delivering
    electronic records to future generations. Both records
    management support of current government business and
    preservation of electronic records for the long term face the
    technical problem of making digital information assets
    independent of the specific technologies used to process,
    store, and communicate them.
        Key objectives of the E-government Act of 2002 depend on
    how well the government creates, retains, and manages records
    that document its decisions and its performance.
        Ultimately, for the trustworthiness of the government,
    these assets must remain authentic and reliable in the short
    term as they move between different systems and in the long
    term when they are retrieved by our great grandchildren and
    their descendents. To respond to the challenge in a sustainable
    way, we have launched three major interrelated initiatives:
        Our first initiative, redesign of Federal Records
    Management, builds a foundation that aims to make records
    management a normal and integral part of agency's asset and
    risk management processes and add real value to the conduct of
    government business. We have developed and are working on 14
    interconnective strategies to improve records management.
    Several of the strategies including flexible scheduling and
    resource allocation are being prototyped by partner agencies.
    Implementation plans for five more are currently being
    developed.
        In our second initiative, the electronic records management
    project in the e-government portfolio, we are working with
    other agencies to provide guidance on electronic records, tools
    for agencies to manage them, and more format options for
    agencies to transfer electronic records to NARA. We have
    produced capital planning guidance on electronic records
    management application acquisition. We have promulgated and
    endorsed version 2 of the Department of Defense 5015.2
    standard. We have authorized two new transfer technologies,
    digital linear tape and file transfer protocol and three new
    data formats for transfer of electronic records to NARA and,
    finally, initiated automating the process of transferring
    records to NARA using extensible markup language [XML].
        In addition, NARA will lead acquisition of records
    management components to be included in the Federal enterprise
    architecture service component infrastructure. Service
    component software can be reused and leveraged in many
    different systems enabling agencies to integrate management and
    use of electronic records within the systems they actually use
    to transact business.
        The electronic records archives must be scalable--excuse
    me. In our third initiative, the Electronic Records Archive
    Program will authentically preserve and provide access to any
    kind of electronic record free from dependency on any specific
    hardware or software enabling NARA to carry out its mission
    into the future. The Electronic Records Archive must be
    scalable and evolvable to accommodate both growth in volume and
    new types of electronic records and take advantage of
    improvements in technology. We will implement a flexible
    approach starting with physical preservation of electronic
    records in their original formats and, where appropriate,
    converting them to more durable or more accessible formats.
        In the long-term, electronic government and electronic
    business will drive the emergence of standards, products, and
    services that make information assets independent of specific
    technology. We expect agencies will increasingly adopt open-
    standard infrastructure independent formats, such as XML, which
    are also suitable for long-term preservation and access.
        In the ERA program, we have spent the last 2 years
    developing the management infrastructure to ensure proper
    stewardship of this critical program with an eye to its
    contribution to both electronic government and to posterity. We
    are completing requirements development and refining our
    acquisition strategy with the target of issuing a request for
    proposals by the end of this calendar year. In this process we
    have engaged both our customers and the IT industry in an
    extensive dialog.
        Facing the challenge of electronic records is a difficult,
    serious endeavor, but we have no alternative. To this
    committee, I respectfully testify that we, as the National
    Archives, face the challenge squarely and with full purpose and
    resolve to leave for our descendents a trustworthy record of
    our turn on this planet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd be happy
    to answer any questions you might have or your subcommittee
    might have.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Cahoon follows:]

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        Mr. Putnam. Our next witness is Ms. Harriet Riofrio. Ms.
    Riofrio serves as electronic records management policy lead and
    senior staff officer for knowledge management for the Office of
    Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information
    Integration. You must have the longest business card of anybody
    in government. You have to flip it over to read what your
    address is.
        In this capacity her primary role is to assist the deputy
    CIO and director IM to enable netcentric process change
    throughout the Department of Defense. Duties include strategic
    planning for and application of the principles and techniques
    of ERM and KM. She is responsible for the management and
    evolution of the Department of Defense 5015.2 STD--only the
    Department of Defense can come up with this stuff--and the
    Records Management Application Certification Program at the
    Joint Interoperability Test Center. She represents DOD and the
    DOD-NARA partnership that maintains as its objective the
    development of DOD standard to improve records management
    processes and electronic transfer of records between the two
    agencies.
        She also originated and leads the DOD-KM community of
    practice. We did our best to include every conceivable acronym
    in your biography. Previously, Ms. Riofrio headed the Executive
    and Information System and Microtechnology Group at HQ Defense
    Logistics Agency, where she was responsible for designing and
    implementing innovative technology solutions to include major
    agency executive information and decision support systems.
        She has numerous speaking engagements, awards and
    publications to her credit. She was born here in Washington,
    DC, and received a Masters Degree in 1980. Ms. Riofrio is known
    as an innovator and thought leader in business process design,
    new technology insertion and management disciplines. She joined
    the OSD staff in 1997. Welcome to the subcommittee. Hopefully
    your testimony will be more clear than your biography.
        Ms. Riofrio. It took coming here to realize how many
    acronyms we use. I apologize for that.
        Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased
    to appear before the subcommittee this afternoon to describe
    the evolution of the Department of Defense Electronic Records
    Management Program and standard, culminating in its current
    relevance to and integration with our plans for advancing the
    Department to a netcentric government environment.
    Netcentricity will provide an unprecedented accessibility and
    usability of data to include departmental records in every
    electronic media. Through the development of our Global
    Information Grid Enterprise Services Initiative, we will be
    converting our information infrastructure from a platform based
    to a netcentric environment.
        We will be applying a metatagging standard to DOD data in
    general and facilitating its just-in-time discovery. Official
    records are a critical part of our enterprise knowledge base.
    The intent is to make them more visible and usable while
    utilizing sound content management principles to ensure their
    proper storage, preservation and protection.
        I will describe how our approach to electronic records
    management has been developed and applied to date and how it
    represents one of several foundational disciplines converging
    to achieve our vision of enterprise wide netcentricity.
        Looking back, it seems we have been working for the last 10
    years to ready our records management processes for
    netcentricity. In 1993, records management was analyzed as part
    of a functional process improvement initiative. A baseline
    analysis of records management in the Department was developed.
    This work culminated in the first version of the DOD 5015.2
    standard that was signed in 1997. The focus of the standard has
    been to prescribe essential records automation functions
    consistent with the law and regulations. The intent has been to
    help DOD components bid, test or buy compliant records
    management application software. Its objective has been to be
    unambiguous and not to dictate design.
        In 1998, we began the process of developing the second
    revision to the standard. We added a section on national
    security classification markings, and the declassification
    schedule as requested by the Intel community. We also included
    recommendations from NARA. We added a requirement for
    information related to section 508 of the Federal
    Rehabilitation Act. Version 2 of DOD 5015.2 standard was signed
    in June 2002.
        Currently, the Joint Interoperability Test Command [JITC],
    of the Defense Information Systems Agency, manages the
    compliance testing process for the DOD standard. This testing
    is mandatory for DOD and endorsed by NARA. At this time, JITC
    has certified approximately 43 records management applications
    as compliant to our standard.
        An example of how this standards process has begun to
    influence our enterprise-wide environment can be seen in its
    application to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet. The Navy and
    Marine Corps are looking to merge records and document
    management for over 350,000 users which they claim will make
    the Department of the Navy the world's largest electronic
    records management customer.
        In 2003, DOD formally partnered with NARA on electronic
    records management as part of the President's E-government
    initiatives. We are working to certify direct export from RMA's
    from record management applications to NARA to include
    coordination of transfer and specification for transfer file
    format. This effort, especially upon its adoption by the
    Federal community, has the potential for substantial
    improvements in the timeliness, cost and quality of permanent
    records transfers throughout the government.
        As we begin to operationalize netcentricity through our
    Global Information Grid Enterprise Service Initiative, we are
    cognizant of the need to assure electronic records management
    becomes a part of the Department's enterprise services.
        In summary, we are finding that the DOD standard could not
    be more opportune. It is being sought after and used by some of
    our States, by the Federal Government and even the
    international community. It is open enough to encompass
    different functions and infrastructures but serves to assure
    consistently useful electronic records products. We look
    forward to planning for integration of ERM into our new
    netcentric environment and working closely with the Federal
    community to develop solutions for our common data and records
    problems.
        We welcome your support as we continue to shape the future
    of this critical area together. Thank you.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Riofrio follows:]

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        Mr. Putnam. Our final panelist for panel one is Ms. Linda
    Koontz. Ms. Koontz is Director of Information Management Issues
    at the U.S. General Accounting Office. She is responsible for
    issues concerning the collection, use and dissemination of
    government information in an era of rapidly changing
    technology. Recently she has been heavily involved in directing
    studies concerning e-government, privacy, electronic records
    management and governmentwide information dissemination issues.
    She is a frequent panelist before the subcommittee, and we
    always appreciate your insight and support. You're recognized
    for your testimony.
        Ms. Koontz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
    opportunity to participate in the subcommittee's hearing on the
    challenges of records management in an electronic era. As you
    know, agencies are increasingly moving to an operational
    environment in which electronic rather than paper records are
    used to document their activities and business processes. This
    migration is likely to accelerate in light of the E-government
    Act of 2002 which encourages the expansion of electronic
    government. This transformation is leading to improvements in
    the way Federal agencies work and interact with each other and
    with the public. However, the rapid evolution of information
    technology is creating challenges in managing and preserving
    electronic records. Complex electronic records are increasingly
    being created in a decentralized environment and in volumes
    that make it difficult to organize them and make them
    accessible.
        Further storage media themselves are affected by the dual
    problems of obsolescence and deterioration. For example, few
    computers today have disk drives that can read information on 8
    or 5\1/4\ diskettes, even if the diskettes themselves remain
    readable. These problems are compounded as computer hardware
    and application software become obsolete. They may leave behind
    electronic records that can no longer be read. Unless these
    challenges are addressed, the government will be unable to
    effectively leverage the information it has and valuable
    government information may be lost forever.
        We report last year that while NARA has responded to these
    challenges, most electronic records, including data bases of
    major Federal information systems, remain unscheduled, and
    records of historical value were not being identified and
    provided to NARA, and as a result, they were at risk of loss.
        Three factors contributed to this condition. First, NARA
    has acknowledged that its policies and processes on electronic
    records have not yet evolved to reflect the modern
    recordkeeping environment; second, records management programs
    were generally afforded low priority by Federal agencies. A
    related issue was that agency management had not given priority
    to acquiring the technology tools required to manage electronic
    records.
        Third, NARA was not performing systematic inspections of
    agency record programs. Such inspections are important as a
    means to evaluate individual agency records management
    programs, assess governmentwide progress in improving records,
    and manage and identify areas where guidance needs to be
    strengthened. We recommended that NARA develop strategies for
    raising agency management awareness of the importance of
    records management and for performing systematic inspections.
        In the last year, NARA has taken steps to improve its
    guidance and address the lack of technology tools. In response
    to our recommendations, it has devised a reasonable strategy
    for raising awareness among senior agency management. In
    addition, it has developed a comprehensive approach to
    assessing and improving agency records management programs that
    includes identification of risks and priorities and
    inspections, but it has not yet described how this will be made
    an ongoing program and an implementation plan for the strategy
    has not yet been established. Until NARA fully addressed these
    issues, the risk is increased that records management programs
    will continue to show the weaknesses that led to the scheduling
    and disposition problems that we and NARA described in our
    earlier work.
        NARA also faces significant challenges in acquiring an
    electronic record archive, an advanced system that is intended
    to address the problems associated with preserving electronic
    records and making them accessible. Specifically the plans,
    policies and practices that NARA is using to acquire the system
    do not, in many cases, conform to standards or to applicable
    Federal acquisition guidance.
        In addition, NARA is unable to track the cost and schedule
    of the product adequately. Unless NARA addresses these issues,
    the risk is increased that the system will fail to meet user's
    needs, will cost more than currently estimated and will be
    delivered later than planned. In view of these risks, we have
    recommended that NARA address weaknesses in its acquisition
    plans and project schedule.
        In conclusion, NARA and the Federal Government face
    significant challenges in managing electronic records. While
    NARA is responding to these challenges and is making progress,
    much work remains to be done to gain control over the massive
    numbers of electronic records that continue to grow and prevent
    the loss of valuable permanent records.
        That concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any
    questions.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Koontz follows:]

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        Mr. Putnam. I want to thank all of you for your both
    written and verbal testimony, and it has certainly set the
    table for an interesting hearing.
        Before we start peeling this onion down to several layers,
    I want to start in a very basic way. If you would, answer for
    me how you determine what records are worthy of archiving, what
    records are worthy of being kept for posterity and how much of
    that is defined in the law. What form it should be saved in and
    what the life cycle is of those forms? In other words, an old
    TSR 80 RadioShack computer disk that looks like a cassette
    tape, what is the life span of that versus a 4\1/2\ inch disk,
    3\1/2\ inch disk or microfiche, microfilm, CD ROM? How long do
    those things live in a manner that we can retrieve that
    information?
        And what process do we have for converting that? And is the
    conversion of the format in and of itself changing history? In
    other words, we wouldn't be content to have run a Xerox copy of
    the Declaration of Independence and feel like we'd saved the
    Declaration of Independence, and that is an extreme example,
    but certainly you can address that spectrum of issue.
        So that is a lot to throw out there. But Governor, if you
    could begin to attempt to address these issues for us to get us
    going.
        Mr. Carlin. By law, it is our responsibility. In fact, in
    the end, my sign-off on the scheduling of records, in practice
    we historically have worked with agencies to evaluate records
    to determine whether they should be ultimately an accession to
    the archives which works out to be 2 or 3 percent of what is
    originally created, which one should be disposed of earlier and
    how long they should be kept for appropriate business purposes
    as well as protecting rights and entitlements for
    accountability reasons and so forth. That has been a back-and-
    forth with agency process, and, on any disposal, communication
    with stakeholders through a publication in the Federal
    Register.
        As indicated in testimony that you have here today, we are
    working to overhaul that process, because we know, with the
    massive size of the Federal Government, with all of the records
    now that have been created electronically, with more and more
    of them wanting to be the record copy, that we must have a more
    efficient, effective way of scheduling records. Things change
    too fast for it to be an old system when a schedule stays in
    place for a long period of time. We have made a lot of
    progress. We are literally testing some of those changes with
    agencies as we speak, and I'm confident in the end we will have
    a system that will allow us to stay current with the technology
    here in which we live and schedule records appropriately, but
    it is our responsibility. We accept that responsibility, and
    work with agencies to carry it out as well as with
    stakeholders.
        On the technology issue, the second part of the question,
    if I might, I would yield to my colleague here who probably can
    better explain to you that aspect of the question.
        Mr. Cahoon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The technology chosen
    for any particular type of record often depends on the
    technology that was used to create it, and from there the
    technology required to ensure that those records are available
    from generation to generation. Microfiche, for example, can
    last, if preserved properly, for hundreds of years. When that
    microfiche begins to appear to deteriorate, then that
    microfiche can be recopied using the same technology because it
    is human readable.
        Electronic records, however, present a more difficult
    challenge. Electronic records will come in many different
    formats when they are created but ultimately, for us to
    preserve those records for the long term, we need to find
    formats that will enable us to remove the dependence that we
    often find that those records have on the technology that
    created them. We need to find technology independent formats
    for them.
        The media, which is one of the issues that you raised--the
    media presents an interesting problem. We find that the best
    way to deal with the media at this point is to migrate the
    media as technology changes. For example, we might record
    information on cartridge tapes, 3480 cartridge tapes. When
    those become obsolete, we might convert that information to
    3590 cartridge tapes and continue to progress as the technology
    evolves. So we're continually making copies--faithful copies of
    those original records.
        So to sum up, the technology used to migrate records or
    to--excuse me, to preserve records depends on the original
    format that they came in and on the strategies we need to
    engage to migrate them from one technology to another.
        Mr. Putnam. That makes sense for ordinary memos and
    personnel records and payroll records, but when you get into
    the GIS or maps or digital photography, so much of what we
    generate in great volumes in this day and age. Do we save the
    original photograph or the original map, or are we content to
    scan it and leave it on a cartridge or a disk or microfilm? How
    was something like that handled that is, at best, different
    than just ordinary memorandums or other documents?
        Mr. Cahoon. The technology that creates these electronic
    records, a geographic information system record, for example,
    is highly dependent on the software that created it and the
    format that record is actually stored in. And so, the intent
    would be to find a format, ultimately, that would free that
    record from its dependence on the format that it was created
    in.
        So in your example, where we're concerned about scanning a
    map, that's different, Mr. Chairman, from the technology used
    to capture the record originally and electronically and evolve
    it over time. So for scanning a map, for example, we would find
    a technology independent format to store that map in and be
    able to migrate then that map from generation through
    generation of media technology.
        For a geographic information system where the information
    for the data associated with it is proprietary, we would try to
    find a technology independent format for that, and then migrate
    it as faithfully as we could through generations of media
    technology.
        Does that respond to your question?
        Mr. Putnam. I'm not sure. Our capabilities today are so
    dramatically different than when Lewis and Clark were drawing
    their own maps or when Cartier was charting the St. Lawrence. I
    mean, it seems obvious to us today that is historic and worthy
    of preservation as it is, but if we're shooting tens of
    thousands of pictures over Baghdad in a 90-day period of time,
    do we save all of those as they are because they are historic--
    as they are? Or do we change how they are saved and therefore
    lose the actual document that was used by decisionmakers to
    make particular policy decisions that are historic by
    definition?
        But when you calculate that there's a constant stream of
    images being generated of Mars or the moon or a tropical storm
    in the Gulf of Mexico or where a gas line is in the city of
    Alexandria, how do we decide which of those things are worthy
    of keeping as they are because the very nature of that form is
    in itself historic just as if it had been drawn on the back of
    a deer skin?
        Mr. Carlin. I would just say this, Mr. Chairman, that when
    you move from historically the important documents whether they
    are written on parchment or paper, whether they are still
    photos or videotapes, as you get more and more into the
    technology realm, it changes in terms of preserving that
    original. In other words, ultimately 100 years from now to look
    at something that was created digitally today, it won't be
    essential that you have the equipment of the 2003 to use it to
    see it.
        What you want to see in modern equipment of 100 years from
    now is what was there. So we won't be preserving that record
    that is on that first. The information will be preserved, and
    it will be preserved authentically. That is one of the real
    challenges, to make sure that you have authentic records over
    time, but in contrast to that Lewis and Clark map, which we
    will keep in its original form because it has intrinsic value
    as well as informational value, although even today we will
    scan, digitize and put up on a Web site that map to expand
    access to it, we will keep that original, yes; but when you
    move, it seems to me, into technology, we're not--the original
    is important only in the sense that we keep the authentic
    document, the information, the numbers, the diagrams, the
    descriptions and not keep a historical presentation itself or
    the equipment it was presented on.
        Now, that is my cut at answering----
        Mr. Putnam. If I heard you correctly, you said that it is
    less important to preserve the actual document and more
    important to preserve the information on that document using
    the best available technology. I believe that is what I heard
    you say.
        Mr. Carlin. As a layperson, that is what I communicate,
    yes.
        Mr. Putnam. But my point is that the format that it is
    saved in today, which is the best possible technology today,
    that actual physical document, the map or the photograph or the
    thermal imagery of the fires below the rubble in Ground Zero of
    New York, in and of itself, will be historical because 100
    years from now, people will think, well, isn't that quaint and
    charming that they could rely on something so rude, so crude or
    so rudimentary compared to what they have 100 years from now?
    And so the difference between the pictures of Ground Zero or
    the Pentagon from September 11th and the pictures of Pearl
    Harbor are the magnitude in terms of volume.
        I mean, there's thousands of pictures of New York. There's
    probably dozens of pictures of Pearl Harbor. So how do you
    decide which of those things are worthy of keeping as they are
    because of what they are, in the format that they are in,
    because they are intrinsically historic?
        Mr. Carlin. Well, Mr. Chairman, to use the Pearl Harbor
    example, of photographs taken at that time, at some point, that
    record, that picture will diminish, and we will copy it. So 200
    years from now they will not be looking at that original
    picture. They will be looking at a copy of that record, of that
    picture. That's been true in terms of still photos, color
    photographs, videos. The preservation over time is
    transferring, making sure you have a quality preservation copy,
    and then as the use of it from researchers diminishes quality
    or just time does, you make a new copy in the technology of the
    time. So that will not change. In terms of deciding what we
    keep that goes back to the scheduling issue and working out
    with the agency and stakeholders' participation whether or not
    those images or those records in electronic form should be kept
    for 50 years, 100 or as we say permanently in the archives,
    accessioned into the National Archives.
        Mr. Putnam. Well, my time is long since run out, and I need
    to yield to my very able Vice Chair. I would just say that I
    hear what you're saying, but the fact that we have made copies
    and preserved the content of the declaration of independence
    doesn't mean that we quit preserving the actual parchment.
        Mr. Carlin. That is correct.
        Mr. Putnam. And that same drive to preserve will apply to
    other things. As we go through this hearing, my interest is in
    finding out the processes used for determining what things are
    worthy of keeping for posterity.
        People may not have thought it was terribly important to
    keep a list of the procurement orders that Washington ordered
    for his men for the winter at Valley Forge 225 years ago. Today
    an archaeologist looks up what they bought and how many buttons
    and where the buttons came from, and they can now find exactly
    where the campgrounds were because of what they threw out the
    back or what fell off their uniform. It probably didn't seem
    terribly important to save all that back then, but it has
    tremendous uses today. Now in this information age, in this
    allegedly paperless society, we're generating a whole lot more
    stuff, and it's in a format that is more tricky, because of
    obsolescence, to keep, and so those decisions become more and
    more important.
        I'll yield to the vice chairwoman, Mrs. Miller.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find your questions
    so interesting, I think it really does go to the whole heart of
    this, is what are we trying to archive? What is really
    necessary? I think that is what we're all struggling with, what
    are we actually--what is necessary and what is not, I suppose.
    You know, actually, I think in this case--well, in many cases,
    but certainly when we think about archiving, let me just--a
    personal example, first of all. We're thinking about everything
    that we should be archiving or shouldn't be archiving. I think
    Members of Congress need to set our own example and our own
    standards of what we are trying to do as well as we're
    questioning everybody else and all of the other agencies of
    what they are doing, and the Members themselves sometimes could
    be more cognizant, I think, of what is important and what is
    not.
        We've tried to just, within my own office what happens when
    you--I'm a freshman. When you become a new freshman Member, you
    inherit everything from your predecessor. The most up-to-date
    piece of equipment I had was a 1986 Macintosh, if you can
    imagine.
        So we purchased a new computer system. We have no paper in
    our office to speak of. We put our whole data base into the
    thing. Any correspondence that we get from any constituent. We
    have every registered voter in my district, their name and
    their address, if they fax us or call us or what have you. We
    have a paper trail on it. We have a workflow that we can
    generate their name, and if they were asking us about a Social
    Security issue or a Veterans' benefit. That has been a helpful
    tool.
        Here we are as a Federal Government telling you to get away
    from paperwork, and then sometimes we have way too much
    paperwork. What is important? We are looking for a little
    assistance from you about what is important.
        I would like to ask a question of Ms. Koontz. I thought
    your testimony was very interesting. You outlined a number of
    things in regards to NARA that you thought probably could be
    done better. And I am just wondering, should there be a
    function with GAO when you are doing your audit process that be
    part of your auditing process with the various agencies in
    regards to records management? Is it already a part? And, for
    instance, if there are some agencies that are doing well, you
    might want to point that out to other agencies. DOD is
    apparently ahead of the curve. If there are other agencies that
    are not doing well at all, would this be identified as a
    material weakness in their audit? And how can you assist from
    your perspective these other agencies?
        Ms. Koontz. I would not say that a look at records
    management would be a routine part of our information
    technology audits, but I think that is an interesting idea. And
    one of the things that we have looked at lately is how to,
    perhaps, get more recognition of records management in some of
    the institutional processes that we are trying to get in place
    across the Federal Government.
        I think Mr. Cahoon talked earlier about the Federal
    Enterprise Architecture. Another way to go is to try to embed
    records management concerns in the investment process that
    agencies go through in order to make investment decisions about
    new IT systems. As they decide to acquire and monitor a system
    over time, that would certainly be a good way for an agency to
    be asking over time, how are you handling the records issues?
    And putting additional emphasis on them. Those are processes
    that we are trying to get institutionalized in agencies. But I
    think your idea about making it a more routine part of the
    audit is interesting.
        The other thing I would mention, too, is that this last
    year we contracted with Grant Thornton to start doing some work
    that was best practices-oriented on records management across
    the Federal Government, and the principal investigator on that
    was Tim Sprehe, and he will be talking on the second panel. So
    he has developed some, shall we say, preliminary models for
    records management and identified a number of best practices
    that I think could be transferred to other agencies.
        Mrs. Miller. I think that is very commendable that you
    would be doing that with best practices with the private
    sector. The reason I asked you that question, you also
    mentioned that there is a possibility of very important
    information being lost in those kinds of things. Have you found
    that? How can you make that kind of a statement? Are you
    finding these kinds of things very important information that
    has been lost by the various agencies? Are you finding that
    during your course of your audits? And if you do find that out,
    who do you tell about it?
        Ms. Koontz. From an audit perspective, once it has been
    lost it is hard to find. And from that perspective, I don't
    think we have independently documented the loss of the
    information. What I think we are talking about there is that
    the risk that information is lost is dramatically increased.
    Although, I think maybe the NARA representatives might be able
    to talk about something like this in more detail that I can at
    this point.
        Mrs. Miller. I am wondering if part of the hesitancy that
    many of the agencies, and maybe this is a question for Mrs.
    Riofrio with the Department of Defense, but perhaps much of the
    hesitancy on behalf of all of the agencies about archiving and
    that kind of thing, particularly e-mails, you mentioned about
    e-mails. Now, in this last theater, we saw all of the troops
    that were using e-mails to communicate with their families, and
    what a wonderful thing that was. Obviously, you do not want to
    archive people's personal correspondence. But many people may
    feel hesitancy about giving up their records of e-mail in the
    normal course of business in the various agencies, and that I
    would suspect, makes it more difficult to determine what you
    are going to archive, as the chairman was mentioning about
    General Washington and those kinds of things. If he could have
    sent an e-mail, perhaps he would have done it, and now it makes
    some sense.
        Ms. Riofrio. We have been working records management from a
    very decentralized approach for a long time. And it has not
    been particularly visible, I think. We concur with GAO's
    statement. But we have found that the focus, the new focus that
    we have taken with records management applications really
    transforms the way people think about electronic records,
    focusing on what is it that we are going to preserve and what
    is it that we are not. It seems that the people who are
    performing the function have the best understanding of what is
    most important.
        But they were not necessarily, at least in the past,
    thinking about records management. But we were talking about
    now records management applications, sound like software. ``Why
    don't you go put software in?'' But you can't do that. You have
    to rethink your function. You have to rethink your schedules.
    You have to plan again. And then everyone in the organization
    becomes a records manager of sorts, and becomes conscious of
    records, and starts to make those decisions.
        And the records management standard--we were going through
    this in detail yesterday--requires a great deal of flexibility
    and decisionmaking on the part of the organization and then of
    the individuals. And I think that is the beginning of some of
    the answers that visibility, not just the capability, but the
    visibility and the understanding.
        So we are very excited about the large efforts in the Navy
    to see how that evolves. Thank you.
        Mrs. Miller. I am interested as you mentioned about the
    flexibility, and I know Mr. Cahoon mentioned in his remarks
    about trying to give all the various agencies a great degree of
    flexibility, and in concept, I think that sounds very good. But
    as we are trying to get to standards, if you give everybody
    that much flexibility, you could find yourself in a situation
    with particular format that is not compatible with proprietary
    systems. I am sure you are finding that all the time. Should
    NARA be establishing the standards and defining the standards?
        You mentioned during your testimony, I think you mentioned
    about the GIS. We are all onto this GIS. We had a very
    interesting hearing a couple of weeks ago about GIS, and all
    the local municipalities have these wonderful GIS systems, but
    nobody at the county level can use them, and the State can't
    use them, and the Federal can't use them. And as we think about
    homeland security, how does that all trickle down? And in this
    way, I think, perhaps as well, is the Federal Government
    responsible for setting some standards as you are archiving
    different things? How do you work with the States and the other
    levels of government?
        Mr. Cahoon. I think, Vice Chairwoman Miller, I believe that
    NARA has been very cautious about the formats that it has
    allowed to be transferred to the permanent archives. In fact,
    we have been so conservative in that up until recently, we only
    allowed relational and flat-file formatted data bases that
    would be readable independent of technology, to be accessioned
    into the archives and only records that were in ASCII format;
    those were the only formats that we accepted. And, of course,
    with that fairly limited set of records, there were a lot of
    records being created that did not fit neatly into that set of
    standards.
        So as a result, we have opened up the possibilities for
    additional formats. E-mail with attachments. We have a standard
    associated with that. Tagged-image file formats for images, and
    PDF for textual documents can now be sent to us. But those are
    the only formats currently that are accessionable into the
    archives. And so we will continue to set standards for these
    other kinds of records as time goes on. That is part of our
    major initiative with the Electronic Records Archive.
        And we are constantly involved in very collaborative
    efforts that include the States in thinking about not only
    standards and the records management applications that have
    been spoken of, but we collaborate with NASA on the set of
    standards, particularly the Open Archival Information System
    Model and the standards associated with it. We do believe that
    NARA is in a very important position to set standards for
    records that would be accessioned into the National Archives.
        Mr. Carlin. May I add something to that? You folks helped
    us a lot under the leadership of Chairman Davis on the e-
    government legislation because of a couple of aspects of that
    are going to be very helpful to us in making OMB a real player,
    and obviously, helping us as one agency working with the entire
    Federal Government, not only in the structure within OMB that
    will have a direct responsibility, but the committee that is
    set up. We will be a direct participant, including the Deputy
    Archivist who is going to be a major player on that.
        I think in terms of setting the standards, it is not just
    like, yes, we have a responsibility. I also think we have been
    given additional tools now to convert that into reality.
        The other thing I would quickly add, as a former State
    official as well, I understand very clearly the incredible
    amount of Federal money that flows to State and local. And
    whether it is Homeland Security or whatever, if we do not work
    with State and local to make sure those records are preserved,
    we will not have, from a Federal point of view, the records to
    really deal with accountability, whether the program really
    worked. So there are huge incentives for us to work with State
    and local. And one of our main avenues, of course, is the
    National Historic Publications Records Commission, which is our
    modest grant-providing division that supports and helps State
    and local governments, and certainly as we look to the coming
    years, working with them, passing along, allowing them to try
    some things. You, in the State of Michigan, have done some
    really great things working with the NHPRC to move us all
    forward as we share up and down the channels.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you, I think my time has expired, Mr.
    Chairman, I appreciate it.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mrs. Miller. Ms. Riofrio, how do you
    handle the issues of classified versus nonclassified documents
    as part of your electronic records management?
        You can answer the question if you would like. We can swear
    you in real quick if that will save time. Would you like to do
    that? Could you identify yourself and your position for the
    record into the mic?
        Mr. Matsuura. Steven Matsuura. I am a senior electronic
    engineer from the Joint Interoperability Test Command, part of
    the Defense Information Systems Agency.
        Mr. Putnam. Very good, please rise and raise your right
    hand.
        [Witness sworn.]
        Mr. Putnam. The witness responded in the affirmative. If
    you could please answer the question.
        Mr. Matsuura. First of all, classified and unclassified
    records have to be segregated. So they are not handled the same
    way because there is extra security procedures and safeguards
    that are required for classified records.
        Additionally, the standard has additional requirements for
    information when a classified record is declared as a record.
    In addition to the normal information that a user has to input
    to document the records, he has to add information such as the
    reason for classification, what the declassification schedule
    is, and, of course, what level of classification it is.
        Mr. Putnam. We collect, in Mr. Rumsfeld's terms, an
    ``unknowable amount'' of information from around the world
    through various sources and methods. It is then filtered and
    screened through a variety of appropriate personnel and
    agencies as part of our intelligence briefings and intelligence
    plans. How would someone know, and at what point in that chain
    does someone know, that they should preserve either the raw
    data or the interpreted data or the refined data? At what point
    does that become a record and subject to the process as a
    classified document that you just outlined?
        Mr. Matsuura. Well, it is somewhat subjective, but as
    mentioned before, each agency has to have a schedule, and if a
    record falls into a certain category or series, he knows that--
    or a document or a piece of information--he knows that it needs
    to be saved as an official record.
        Mr. Putnam. Are the schedules designed by each individual
    agency, or are the schedules designed by NARA and handed down
    to the agency?
        Mr. Matsuura. Well, NARA, of course, develops the General
    Records Schedule, which agencies use if they are applicable or
    where applicable. But actually, agencies propose schedules,
    depending on what their business line is, and submit them to
    NARA for approval and that gives them the disposition
    authority.
        Mr. Putnam. Ms. Koontz, would you like to comment on this
    whole process? There seems to be a general difficulty in
    describing to the subcommittee how the decision is made, what
    records are worthy of archiving.
        Ms. Koontz. Well, I am not sure I can elaborate a whole
    lot. NARA has a whole process that they have used over many
    years where they use experts to appraise--that is, you know,
    look at the value of a record and determine whether that record
    could possibly be a permanent record or not. They are certainly
    more expert in that process than I am, but they do have a very
    longstanding process to decide which records will be kept and
    which records can be disposed of. That is what the whole of
    records management is, knowing what to keep and to get rid of
    the rest.
        Mr. Putnam. But in your testimony, you said that their
    architecture for archiving electronic records has raised some
    concerns about costs and progress on that system.
        Ms. Koontz. Right, the electronic record archiving.
        Mr. Putnam. On the electronic side.
        Ms. Koontz. Right. We are talking there about the
    development of their electronic archival system, which does
    what Mr. Carlin and Cahoon talked about preserving electronic
    records independent of software, so that you don't have to
    worry about software obsolescence, you can maintain the content
    over time, and part of the strategy is to migrate the media
    over time as well.
        Mr. Putnam. And as all agencies move forward purchasing new
    IT infrastructure, and we spend $60 billion a year on that,
    does OMB require a component of that enterprise architecture to
    be electronic records management? Is that part of it?
        Ms. Koontz. I think Mr. Cahoon talked with this earlier,
    about the relationship of records management to one of the
    component service areas in the Federal Enterprise Architecture.
    I know less about it than he does. He is working on that
    particular aspect.
        Mr. Putnam. Well, we have had a lot of hearings in the
    subcommittee this year on the inadequacy of our IT procurement
    and acquisition programs, the lack of information security, the
    fact that even within a department, especially DOD, there is an
    awful lot of different rabbit trails that are being pursued
    with regard to IT. So it would surprise me if they all had
    their act together on electronic records management? Is that
    the case or not?
        Mr. Cahoon. You needn't be surprised, Mr. Chairman. I would
    have to say that we are all working to get our act together.
    The Federal Enterprise Architecture specified in four different
    places records management as a key component of the business
    reference model of that architecture. In the service component
    architecture, there are identified a set of service types, and
    digital asset management is one of those service types. And
    within that service type is electronic records management
    identified specifically as a component in the Federal
    Enterprise Architecture. And that electronic records management
    then has a series of elements to it that, over time, when
    implemented, will provide not only guidance but specific
    software, component software, that can be used by agency
    applications that will help us move a long way toward
    standardizing how records are managed, how they are described,
    the kind of information that is available about those records
    how those records relate to one another, how they form
    collections, information about their disposition, how long they
    could be kept and for what purposes they should be kept. All of
    that is part of this architecture.
        And for me, that provides a sustainable, long-term way of
    bringing electronic records management into the forefront of
    information technology application development, because the
    components will be there, available for people to use and to
    integrate into their applications rather than having to figure
    out everything for themselves. So our requirements and
    standards, Mr. Chairman, can be built into those components
    themselves.
        Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, could I add some, because you
    have a question that still has not been answered yet, and I
    would like to try one more time.
        Mr. Putnam. OK.
        Mr. Carlin. First of all there is a basic fundamental that
    the format itself does not impact whether a record is kept 1
    year, 2 years or permanently, whether it is on paper or
    electronic form. So when we shift to more electronic, that does
    not suddenly force a whole new set of schedules, generally.
    Now, obviously, there are some individual aspects that require
    some changes, and we are creating records electronically that
    we did not even have before in the paper form, but the format
    is not a factor. When we work to schedule records, to make
    those determinations, we want to document the decision and what
    the decision is will determine to a great extent how long it's
    kept.
        Reference was made to General Records Schedules by our
    friend from the Department of Defense. Those are the schedules
    that are across the board for every agency, for them to use
    efficiently to deal with very short-time, important for the
    moment, but certainly not important in protecting rights and
    entitlements, not important for accountability, certainly not
    important for telling the national experience, but just for
    that particular business transaction for a moment. Those are
    General Records Schedules that deal across the board, that will
    apply as well electronically.
        And so it's not the media that is the factor that
    necessarily determines how long a record will be kept. Because
    we are now electronic and have so much more volume, does not
    mean that we will go from 2 or 3 percent accessioned in the
    archives to 50 percent. It may go to 5 percent because of the
    ease with which dealt with it and our capacity to provide
    access to those records efficiently. But we don't want to cloud
    the whole electronic storecase with endless records that are
    not needed. If they were not needed in paper, probably they
    aren't needed electronically any longer than they were when
    they were a paper format.
        Mr. Putnam. That is a fair point. My concern is as much as
    anything on the map, GIS, geospatial photography side of
    things, which are much more voluminous than they were in the
    past, and frankly, easier to store because you can put all of
    this stuff on a CD-ROM or whatever. But the other issue and as
    the Technology Chairman, I am probably going to say something I
    shouldn't, but I will make a confession, I was on Air Force 1
    on September 11th. And until we shut down all of our electronic
    devices, I sent out e-mails to my wife for one. Well, I made a
    point of saving those e-mails, but I also printed them out
    because I did not trust the computer. One day I would be, you
    know, I would hit the wrong delete button. I just did not trust
    it, so I printed them out and saved them.
        I suspect you all probably do the same thing. That, you
    know, as good as your electronic capacity is, if there is
    something really special in there, you probably drop back to
    the good old-fashioned paper form, which is what all of us do,
    which is why this paperless society cuts down more trees than
    we ever have.
        And so the root of my questions about what is worthy of
    being saved and all of that, and how do we save it as the
    technology changes so that you don't have to keep a TRS8 to be
    able to read this 10 years worth of documents, and a 286 to
    read this, and a Pentium to read this decade's worth of
    documents. You know, at the end of the day, as that technology
    changes so quickly, we have to be very careful about how we
    preserve these things. And so that is my concern as an amateur
    history buff, that is my issue in trying to decide how you guys
    decide what to save.
        And, unquestionably, you are the best in the world at it. I
    mean, I don't propose to tell you how to decide what to save.
    But if you are just the systems administrator in the field
    office of the Farm Service Agency somewhere in Kansas, and you
    are trying to decide what is worthy of saving, I am trying to
    figure out before we go cracking heads who gives them some
    direction, some clear-cut policy on what they should keep and
    what they can throw out the back-door. And I have taken this
    hearing--the staff is going nuts, I have taken this way out
    into the historical side and not in the enterprise
    architecture, which is where we are supposed to be.
        I recognize Mrs. Miller for another round of questions, and
    then we will move on.
        Mrs. Miller. In the interest of time, I will pass. Thank
    you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Putnam. One last question. Is there--and this gets to
    what I was saying about I printed out my e-mails--is there,
    say, a backup nondigital system for the storage of vital
    information should that information be lost?
        Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, what you described previously is
    very real. Until we get records management applications to the
    quality that we are comfortable, a lot of agencies today, and
    with our encouragement, are printing out to paper. The record
    copy is paper, not the digital form that was originally
    created. So the practical issue you addressed is one that
    agencies do address today. That decision out there in Kansas
    that you made reference to, first of all, a schedule is going
    to determine and that schedule will say whether the electronic
    or the paper copy is the record copy. And probably out there, I
    would guess, it would be paper today because we are still at
    the early stages of developing--when I say we, I mean globally,
    we are testing and learning, but the private sector, in
    producing, has made a lot of progress. And we may have one
    there today, but is it available or been tested to the extent
    that everybody across the board, we are saying go forward and
    use it. So your experience is one that has been experienced by
    agencies all across the Federal Government.
        Mr. Putnam. Very good. Would any of the witnesses wish to
    add anything? Something that we did not ask about? Something,
    if you would like to clarify anything? This is your opportunity
    before we seat the second panel. Yes, sir?
        Mr. Cahoon. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add, with respect
    to this, your critical question. NARA looks very carefully at
    the business processes that each agency undertakes to do their
    business. And, based on an analysis of those business
    processes, determines what records are necessary to document
    the decisions and the transactions that business process
    creates.
        Based on that analysis, a record schedule is developed.
    That schedule is then reworked and evaluated and tuned up and
    then presented to Mr. Carlin for his signature. And it's based
    on that understanding of the business process and what is
    necessary to document the rights and entitlements of
    individuals, the decisions and actions of Federal officials and
    what would be important to know for the national experience,
    all become factors in the decision of what we should keep.
        Risk of those records being lost, and the value of those
    records to the business of the agency all factor in to the
    decision that is made as to what we ought to keep and what can
    be disposed of after the normal course of business. Thank you.
        Mr. Putnam. Very good, anyone else?
        Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, I would only add that we
    appreciate very much this opportunity. We appreciate your
    leadership, along with your vice chair and your interest. And
    that we would hope that this would be an ongoing communication
    over time, because we realize you need to know what we are
    doing. You need to have your questions answered. And as I said
    to you privately, we appreciate the relationship with GAO and
    their active involvement in what we are doing in all aspects of
    electronic records, and we thank you very, very much for this
    opportunity today.
        Mr. Putnam. You are welcome, and we look forward to seeing
    your facility next week. The record will remain open for us to
    submit further questions that were not addressed in the
    hearing, and we would ask your cooperation in responding to
    those. At this time, we will excuse the first panel and seat
    the second. So the committee will go in recess for a minute and
    a half.
        Thank you.
        [Recess.]
        Mr. Putnam. The subcommittee will reconvene. We want to
    welcome the second panel. And as was the custom with this
    subcommittee and as you saw with the first panel, I would ask
    you to rise and raise your right hands, please, for the oath.
        [Witnesses sworn.]
        Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that all of the witnesses
    responded in the affirmative.
        We will immediately go to witness testimony.
        Our second panel begins with Dr. J. Timothy Sprehe. Dr.
    Sprehe is president of Sprehe Information Management
    Associates, a firm offering consulting services and information
    resources management to government agencies and private firms
    since 1991. He specializes in issues such as strategic planning
    for information resources management, public access to
    government information, electronic records management and
    electronic collection and dissemination of information.
        He has conducted consulting studies for many U.S. Federal
    agencies and private firms doing business with the Federal
    Government. He retired from OMB in 1991, where at OMB he was
    the principal author of the original 1985 OMB Circular, No. A-
    130, the Management of Federal Information Resources. This
    governmentwide information policy directive established
    comprehensive policy on managing information and managing
    information systems and technology.
        Mr. Sprehe received an M.A. in 1963 and an Ph.D. in 1967 in
    sociology from Washington University in St. Louis. We welcome
    you to the subcommittee, Dr. Sprehe, and look forward to your
    testimony. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

    STATEMENTS OF J. TIMOTHY SPREHE, PRESIDENT, SPREHE INFORMATION
       MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES; ROBERT F. NAWROCKI, CRM, DIRECTOR,
    RECORDS MANAGEMENT AND IMAGINING SERVICES DIVISION, LIBRARY OF
     VIRGINIA; CARYN WOJCIK, STATE GOVERNMENT RECORDS MANAGEMENT,
    MICHIGAN; AND DR. RICHARD LYUSAKOWSKI, DIRECTOR, COLLABORATIVE
            ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOK SYSTEMS ASSOCIATION [CENSA]

        Mr. Sprehe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
    appear before this subcommittee to discuss the subject of
    electronic records management [ERM].
        The National Archives' 2001 survey on current Federal
    recordkeeping practices, of which I was a coauthor, stated that
    the chief paradox of today's Federal records management is the
    disconnect between paper and electronic recordkeeping. Many
    agencies do competent paper records management; only a handful
    do competent electronic records management.
        One reason for this condition is the cultural chasm between
    the records management community and the information technology
    community. Generally, records managers do not understand IT,
    and IT managers do not understand records management.
        A Federal record is not just something saved by a computer.
    Rather, a record is maintained as evidence in pursuance of
    legal obligations or in the transaction of business. It's
    something you can take into court where you must be able to
    prove that the record has authenticity, reliability, integrity,
    and usability. IT professionals seldom understand this meaning
    of ``record.'' It's common to say today that most records are
    born electronic. Where do they live and where do they grow up?
    In IT systems. And nobody is talking to the IT people about
    records.
        A second reason that ERM is sadly wanting in Federal
    records is because the National Archives has been painfully
    slow to address ERM, let alone get out in front of it. Bold
    out-in-front policy guidance on ERM comes slowly in NARA's
    culture of archivists and historians, compounded by the
    agency's extreme, and perhaps well justified, fear of adverse
    litigation. You might note that for all of its commendable
    initiatives in the electronics record management area, NARA
    itself does not use electronics records management.
        A third reason for the slow spread of ERM is the obstacles
    the agencies face, namely, lack of funding for ERM and
    indifference on the part of senior management. Too many agency
    heads and chief information officers consider ERM a back-burner
    low priority. They believe their top priorities are more
    immediate and include items such as security and risk
    management, not appreciating that ERM improves security and
    lowers risk.
        Thus, as the volume of electronic records multiplies
    exponentially in the agencies, progress in ERM creeps along
    inch by inch. Disasters such as happened at the Bureau of
    Indian Affairs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are the
    tip of a large iceberg. Many more records management disasters
    are out there waiting to happen.
        On the bright side, a few agencies have achieved
    significant advances in making ERM an integral operating
    component in their information architectures. Agencies such as
    the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Civilian
    Radioactive Waste Management--otherwise known as the Yucca
    Mountain Project--in the Department of Energy, and the Office
    of Comptroller of the Currency in the Treasury Department.
    These are agencies that take records very seriously by the
    nature of their missions, agencies where top management has
    issued a mandate that ERM shall exist enterprise-wide.
        Agencies reaching full ERM implementation discover that an
    electronic records repository is an asset with many beneficial
    applications beyond records management. ERM gives the agencies
    instant access to institutional memory starting yesterday. They
    can leverage this asset to provide economies and efficiencies
    to other business functions. For example, the Nuclear
    Regulatory Commission's ADAMS, which stands for agencywide
    document access and management system, is a combined electronic
    documents and records management system. NRC has made ADAMS a
    core component of its public Web site, so that ADAMS not only
    performs records management, it also performs other important
    public information functions.
        Even more, NRC has coupled ADAMS with electronic signature
    capability, so that ADAMS can receive electronic submissions
    from nuclear reactor licensees in the general public, and,
    hence, NRC has leveraged its ERM investment to carry out not
    only its records management responsibilities, but also the
    Government Paperwork Elimination Act and improve its
    performance under the Government Paperwork Reduction Act.
        My single recommendation regarding Federal ERM is this: The
    Office of Management and Budget should change exhibit 300 on
    capital planning and budgeting in its annual budget directive,
    Circular No. A-11. The section of exhibit 300 that deals with
    IT systems should state that no new IT system will receive
    funding for development and acquisition unless the
    justification for the new system adequately explains how the
    system will provide for records created by or passing through
    the system. NRC and the Yucca Mountain Project are already
    implementing such a policy.
        We can only hope that the many agencies planning today for
    ERM will receive the funding and leadership they deserve. From
    my research and consulting I have come to believe that ERM is
    the bedrock of what is known today as enterprise content
    management or what we used to call information resources
    management. Without ERM, enterprise content management is
    incomplete and hollow at its core. Thank you for inviting me to
    testify. And I would be happy to answer any questions you have.
        Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much, Dr. Sprehe. I wish the
    first panel had hung around.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Sprehe follows:]

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        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3006.063

        Mr. Putnam. Our next witness is Mr. Bob Nawrocki.
        Mr. Nawrocki is the director of the Records and Imaging
    Service Division in the Library of Virginia. Previously he was
    the electronic records coordinator for the library. He is
    responsible for dealing with electronic records issues facing
    the State of Virginia. Previously he spent 2 years as a
    contractor with the Air Force working on their integrated
    digital environment.
        His experience involves working for State and Federal
    Governments, as well as for several law firms and private
    industry. Mr. Nawrocki is a Certified Records Manager and has a
    Masters in Science in Library and Information Sciences from the
    Catholic University of America. He is an adjunct faculty member
    with Catholic University teaching Information Systems for
    Libraries and Information Centers and Organization of
    Information.
        Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.
        Mr. Nawrocki. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will briefly be
    speaking today about the Library of Virginia and what we are
    doing here in Virginia dealing with electronic records.
        The Library of Virginia has responsibility for the
    Commonwealth's records management and archival programs. As
    such, we work closely with State and local agencies to assist
    them with the management of their records. Over the past 5
    years, electronic records have become a significant issue. In
    2000, the Library was able to hire their first electronic
    records coordinator to develop polices, guidance, and provide
    advice on the management of electronic records.
        The Library faces many of the same problems that NARA does,
    even though they are on a much smaller scale. In the 1990's, a
    number of Virginia counties began to use scanning and
    electronic storage for the recording of deeds. While this
    reduced the amount space required and improved access, it did
    not provide the long-term stability and preservation required
    of such records. In fact, we had a county that actually lost
    about 30 or 40 deeds when they had a computer crash. Luckily,
    they were able to recover those over a short period of time.
        Changes to the Code of Virginia have made digital images
    legal substitutes or replacements for original documents. The
    Library wants to encourage the use of microfilm as a backup to
    digital images, since there are no recognized, permanent media
    in the digital arena. When stored properly, microfilm can last
    up to 500 years. Through a philanthropist, the Library was able
    to obtain a Kodak Archive Writer to convert digital images to
    microfilm. We use an encrypted Internet connection for scanned
    images to be sent to the Library's State Records Center, where
    they are stored on a RAID device until data would be written to
    microfilm.
        The microfilm was processed under a quality control and the
    resultant negatives were stored in our media vault. And this
    project continued into the fall of 2002 when most of the staff
    was laid off due to extreme budget cuts. By that time, private
    vendors were able to step in using the same technology to do
    the same actions at the same or lower costs.
        Over the past 3 years, the Library has worked to educate
    State and local agencies about electronic records and the best
    methods to preserve them. Guidelines for transferring
    electronic records into the Library are under development. Our
    greatest concern is that in the short term we will lose access
    to these records before a reliable method of archiving them is
    developed. We have found that the single most important tool
    for raising awareness, though, is education through
    presentations and articles.
        Second, we believe that the development of guidelines that
    provide advice and suggested tools for electronic records
    creators are also useful. We also find it is important not to
    develop guidelines and tools that are too narrowly drawn since
    the same solution is not always applicable in all cases.
        Rapid technological change results in records only a few
    years old being unrecoverable because the hardware or software
    does not exist. While there is significant, extensive research
    being done long-term on electronic preservation, we need to
    remember that we have to manage these records in the short
    term, so that when the proverbial magic bullet is created,
    there will be older electronic records to be preserved.
        The current effort to create a Portable Document Format-
    Archival is an excellent example of this thinking. The use of
    hybrid analog/digital technologies is another. We need more
    collaborations like this which utilize existing technology and
    software to provide records managers, archivists and librarians
    with the tools needed to manage today's electronic records. We
    also need to continue to use the tools, both analog and
    digital, which allow us to provide access to existing
    electronic records and preserve them at the same time.
        There is much work being done around the world in the field
    of digital preservation and sharing of information. This is
    necessary and must continue if we are to solve this intractable
    problem. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Nawrocki follows:]

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        Mr. Putnam. At this time, I would like to turn the gavel
    over to our distinguished vice chair and native of Michigan,
    former Secretary of State, Mrs. Miller, for the next
    introduction.
        Mrs. Miller [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's my
    pleasure to do so, to introduce Karen Wojcik. She has worked
    for the State Archives of Michigan since 1996. She is State
    Archives' primary liaison with the executive branch, the
    legislature, the Supreme Court and our Court of Appeals. She is
    responsible for appraising public records for their historical
    value and for developing electronic records management and
    preservation strategy.
        Mrs. Wojcik received both her bachelor's degree in history
    and her master's degree in information and library science from
    the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. And we wonder who she
    roots for on football days between the Michigan State and the
    University. She is a Certified Archivist. She has participated
    in several grant projects funded by the National Historical
    Publications and Records Commission, including the Michigan RMA
    Pilot Project, the PERM Project, and she served on the advisory
    board for the SDSC Archivists' Workbench Project. She is the
    Chair of the National Association of Government Archives and
    Records Administrators, on the Committee on Electronic Records
    and Information Systems, and has been nominated to serve as
    secretary on this board as well, and we are certainly pleased
    to have her here as well.
        Ms. Wojcik. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting
    the Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries to
    testify at this hearing. I am honored to be speaking to you
    today about the management and preservation of our government's
    records, particularly electronic records. And, of course, I
    especially want to thank Congresswoman Candice Miller for
    inviting us to be here today.
        The Michigan Department of History, Arts, and Libraries is
    committed to enriching the quality of life for Michigan
    residents by providing access to information, preserving and
    promoting Michigan heritage, and fostering cultural creativity.
    The Division of Archives and Records Management within the
    Michigan Historical Center is responsible for ensuring that
    Michigan's government records are properly managed and
    preserved throughout their entire lifecycle.
        Public records are essential for protecting our legal
    rights, for documenting the actions of our government, and for
    understanding the society in which we live, and, therefore, it
    cannot be sufficient to have our history preserved by accident.
        As a general rule, we estimate that less than 5 percent of
    all government records possess permanent historical value.
    Professional archivists and records managers have worked for
    years to develop systematic processes that identify which
    records possess historical value and to provide for their
    preservation. Unfortunately, many government agencies do not
    follow these procedures, and they fail to protect the
    irreplaceable items in their custody.
        In the traditional paper-based world, valuable records have
    managed to survive despite this neglect. However, electronic
    records will not survive long enough to be used by future
    generations without active investments in their ongoing
    preservation and access. Computer technology and electronic
    records create many challenges and opportunities for the
    records management and archival professions. This technology is
    a moving target and we need long-term solutions. Certainly, the
    National Archives and Records Administration has served as a
    leader in this field of research.
        The Michigan Division of Archives and Records Management
    began discussing electronic records issues more than 25 years
    ago. With the advent of desktop computing, we became
    particularly concerned about how we could manage and preserve
    e-mail and word processed documents.
        The U.S. Department of Defense issued the first version of
    its standard 5015.2 for Records Management Applications in
    1997, and several commercial products are on the market that
    comply with this standard. We wanted to test the RMA software
    in State government offices to determine if it would address
    the record retention problems we were trying to solve.
        We decided to apply for and we received a 2-year grant
    beginning May 2000 from the National Historical Publications
    and Records Commission to conduct a pilot project using a DOD-
    certified Records Management Application. At the time, the
    State Archives was an agency within the Michigan Department of
    State led by Secretary of State, now Representative, Candice
    Miller. The project had three goals: One, to assess the ability
    of an RMA to classify and manage electronic records and execute
    retention requirements, including the identification and
    segregation of archival records; two, to analyze the cultural
    impact that RMAs have on agency staff, information technology
    personnel, records managers and archivists; and three, to
    conduct a business process analysis and evaluate the potential
    for RMAs to be used in an enterprise-wide setting.
        Our pilot project demonstrated that RMA software works.
    Electronic records that are created by common desktop programs
    can be organized and stored in a centralized repository that
    automatically implements the appropriate retention period for
    the records. However, we found people will resist changing the
    way they file and access their electronic records, because less
    than a third of our project participants adopted the RMA
    software as their primary tool for storing electronic records.
    The RMA features need to evolve to make the filing and
    retrieval of electronic documents appear transparent to users.
        We also learned that business process improvements can be
    derived from using RMA software, especially when the business
    process change involves the transformation from a paper-based
    process to an automated process. When these improvements are
    adopted by the agency, RMA use and satisfaction does increase.
        This project demonstrated that management support for
    change is essential to the success of an RMA. Managers must
    establish expectations and consequences for not following
    established procedures for electronic recordkeeping.
    Encouragement by management needs to focus on the positive
    benefits to the individual and the agency. The Department of
    History, Arts and Libraries is continuing to support the
    limited use of the RMA software now that our pilot project has
    ended.
        However, RMAs are record retention tools, not preservations
    tools. The electronic records that are stored in the RMA's
    centralized repository remain in their native format. The RMA
    is not capable of ensuring that they remain accessible as
    underlying technology changes. Therefore, a methodology must be
    developed for preserving archival electronic records and those
    with long-term retention requirements. This is why the NHPRC
    initiated a partnership between the San Diego Supercomputer
    Center and the State of Michigan to address long-term and
    permanent preservation of electronic records. In November 2001,
    we were awarded a 2-year grant from NHPRC for what we call the
    PERM Project. This collaborative project is developing
    functional requirements for preserving electronic records that
    are stored in RMA repositories so they remain accessible. These
    functional requirements were published in January 2003, and
    currently researchers in San Diego are developing a prototype
    to test these functional requirements.
        These and other projects are essential for ensuring that
    our documentary heritage remains accessible to future
    generations. Thank you again for inviting me to testify before
    you today.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Wojcik follows:]

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        Mrs. Miller. We certainly appreciate your testimony today.
        Our next witness is Dr. Richard Lysakowski. He is the
    executive director and president of the Collaborative
    Electronic Notebook Systems Association and the Global
    Electronic Notebook Systems Association [GERA] as well. It is a
    professional standards association built on government-industry
    partnership with a mission to create program, policy, and
    procedural and technology standards for quality electronic
    records programs. Dr. Lysakowski has 25 years of experience
    working with automation systems in various scientific software,
    engineering and project management roles in both the public and
    the private sectors.
        We welcome you to the subcommittee and look forward to your
    testimony, sir.
        Mr. Lysakowski. Thank you, Ms. Chairwoman.
        A little bit of background on CENSA, the Collaborative
    Electronic Notebook Systems Association. Our primary mission is
    to create totally electronic replacements for inventors'
    notebooks and regulatory records, record books that are used in
    a research development quality assurance manufacturing other
    enterprise business environments. These are vital records that
    indicate the quality of a project that manufacturers are
    shipping. And the industries we cover include pharmaceutical,
    chemical, food and beverage, oil and gas, consumer products,
    government and many other industries.
        Replacing the inventor's notebook has been one of the
    greatest challenges because frequently in a patent interference
    it will come down a single page in a single record book that
    makes or breaks a multibillion dollar a year, 20-year monopoly
    for product revenues. So we are talking about serious
    commercial impact.
        Regulatory impact, if records are either fraudulent or
    inaccurate to the point where product quality is poor, can
    frequently shut down a facility--manufacturing facility for as
    long as 6 months, losing more than $1 million per day in
    potential revenue. So serious consequences can result from poor
    quality recordkeeping.
        And so for these records, making them electronic has been
    quite a challenge. And we worked with NARA to find out what the
    best practices are out there now and in the near future and
    worked with many vendors. Our role as a market development
    association is to create multiple competing products for all
    the necessary components that make up a complete electronic
    system for records creation, management, archiving,
    preservation, retrieval and access. So looking at the whole
    life cycle of the electronic record has been quite important
    for us.
        And NARA's focus has been, at least in its current funding,
    focusing on records management. We need it to include archives
    management specifications.
        So some summary points that I needed to make: We are
    appreciative of NARA in having funded the Global Electronic
    Records Association to create the first quality electronic
    records practice standards. That work is just being complete
    now.
        But looking more globally, I would say that NARA is
    underfunded to face the grand challenge of electronic records
    for the full lifecycle for all agencies that it serves and
    industry and the private sector in general.
        Government needs other funding sources. NARA's budget for
    fiscal year 2003 is $268 million. That is less than the annual
    revenue of even one of our member corporations. So one issue is
    that NARA is insufficiently funded to achieve the goals for all
    agencies and the private sector too.
        If NARA is to help the agencies and the citizens it serves,
    it should provide blueprints, mandate standards and
    requirements for policies and technology systems that implement
    records management and archives management. Don't forget the
    archives for each agency. The DOD standard does a nice job of
    covering records management but does very little on archives.
        Third point is the OMB exhibit 300. I would concur with the
    first witness on this panel, that two parts need to be added to
    that exhibit. One is on the preservation of business assets.
    The information assets that are created by any IT system must
    be demonstrated to be completely exported and reconstructible
    in another system before any system is purchased. So that
    procurement process must specify interoperability between at
    least three to five systems to guarantee alternatives. So the
    procurement process itself needs to change. These
    demonstrations of reconstruction of an archival information
    packet need to be shown before any money is provided to a
    vendor.
        The last point is subscription-based software pricing is
    one of the greatest threats we have to records and information
    assets. This is a new pricing model whereby you pay every 12
    months for use--continuing use of your software to access your
    property. Software is a tool to create intellectual and
    business assets. Some vendors are pushing subscription-based
    pricing instead of perpetual-right-to-use license for the
    software. So unless this software purchase includes purchase of
    the format and some type of free viewer that goes along with it
    is made available, then subscription-based pricing shouldn't be
    pursued by the Federal Government for any system containing
    important business assets.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you. You know, I might just pick up on
    that subscription-based pricing. I am just trying to understand
    what you were saying there. Because it would seem to me, with
    all the different--just the government demand itself, that
    there would be a software program that would be very viable in
    the marketplace, we are talking about setting standards and
    that kind of thing. Are you aware of such a thing, a
    governmental software for records management archiving? Mr.
    Sprehe had mentioned that as well.
        Mr. Lysakowski. I am not aware of any software program
    freely from the government.
        Mrs. Miller. Mr. Sprehe, are you aware of any software that
    the government agency would utilize for standards uniformity?
        Mr. Sprehe. I am not.
        Mrs. Miller. You mentioned, doctor, as well about NARA
    being underfunded, and I think you mentioned the amount of what
    their funding actually was in that. It would seem that it is
    very important that we identify in any funding request, when we
    talk about dollars here, from the congressional standpoint
    certainly, that we put in place in a business plan--as a plan
    that archiving for every agency, that records management, all
    of this would be a part of a business plan before appropriators
    would talk about funding particular projects for any agency as
    well.
        And Mr. Sprehe used the example of Yucca Mountain. I think
    he used two examples. I forget the other one that you
    mentioned. That they had actually included that in their
    business plan.
        Is that a recommendation that you would make to the
    Congress that in any business plan that they should put those
    kinds of critical portions in there?
        Mr. Sprehe. Most certainly, yes.
        Mrs. Miller. Do you have any comment, Doctor?
        Mr. Lysakowski. Yes. I was advocating that you actually add
    at least one new section to exhibit 300 that requires during
    the acquisition process that vendors--at least three to five
    vendors demonstrate interoperability of archival information
    packets before you make any single purchase. Thereby, you set
    up an insurance policy for all congressional systems.
        We have successfully used a strategy in industry for
    specific analytical techniques, mass spectrometry in particular
    is a good example. Dow Chemical wanted to purchase a mass
    spectrometry system, an instrument and the data system that
    goes along with it, $150,000 purchase, but, as a condition of
    the procurement, they short-listed the top three vendors, and
    they said, OK, we want you all to show us interchange of the
    mass spectral data sets among all three of you before we buy
    from any one of you.
        Well, it took 2 weeks to write the code by one programmer,
    2 weeks to distribute it to the other two vendors and embed it
    in their products, and the demonstration happened within 30
    days. Now, that was for $150,000 procurement.
        There was a specification that already existed, but it was
    not a standard and the vendors did not implement it. But if
    there is a specification, it is trivial for vendors to
    implement it; and on the last page of my testimony document, I
    state that vendors will use the lack of a specification as an
    excuse for creating proprietary file formats and buyers give up
    their power at the most critical moment by not demanding
    interoperability demonstrations.
        Mrs. Miller. I would be interested to know from the
    witnesses in the middle there, Ms. Wojcik from Michigan and
    also Mr. Naworocki from Virginia, do you--when you're making
    your funding requests to your appropriators, to your
    legislature for your work, do you put in as part of your
    business plan the kinds of funding that is necessary for
    records management and for archiving? Do you make that a big
    part of your business case? Do you find that there is enough
    attention being paid to what is necessary to actually archive
    these kinds of things?
        Ms. Wojcik. The State of Michigan does not require that
    record retention be addressed in business plans. We did draft a
    policy that's published in the Department of Management and
    Budget's administrative manual that requires that record
    retention be identified during the procurement of new systems,
    but, unfortunately, that has not been implemented. We do see
    that--if it was implemented systematically, it would certainly
    help us identify how long records need to be retained and which
    ones need to be preserved.
        Mr. Sprehe. If I could add to my comment, exhibit 300 of
    the OMB circular does mention records but only with respect to
    the Government Paperwork Elimination Act. The problem with that
    is GPEA is a very narrow act. It only affects information
    collected from the public. If you think of the Department of
    Defense, which has probably tens of thousands of IT systems,
    DOD collects very little information from the public, and all
    those other systems that may be producing or processing
    records, they don't pay any attention to records management.
        Mrs. Miller. Not to interrupt, but there I think is where
    you mentioned the cultural chasm, I think is the way that you
    had put it, between historians, perhaps, maybe librarians and
    IT, where you have people who are historians wanting to make
    sure that everything is archived properly and some IT people
    perhaps with the view that it happened, get over it, and not
    wanting to keep it.
        So how you bridge those, that may be another question. I'll
    let Mr. Naworocki respond to the first one first.
        Mr. Naworocki. Sure. Within the State of Virginia, working
    very closely with the various IT agencies in order to try to
    embed records management into that, it hasn't always been
    successful. I think our biggest problem has been simply the
    fact that Virginia has had a severe budget crisis over the last
    2 years, and that's overwhelmed it. But by working very closely
    with IT both in local agencies and on the statewide version in
    order to try to push that--I think it's very true there's a
    cultural disconnect. People assume, because it's electronic,
    it's not a record, or they just think it's too much trouble.
        I think that possibly one of the areas that we need to work
    in is not to work on very specific projects but rather to take
    a look at how we can leverage the power of the States and the
    Government--the Federal Government in order to talk to some of
    the software manufacturers about embedding it.
        I'm just thinking, well if we can convince Bill Gates it
    was worth a few bucks to him to embed records management and to
    award every other product he developed, we wouldn't have a
    problem--or archival, actually. That's literally when it comes
    down to. Whenever you have to graft something on, it becomes a
    kludge and just doesn't work. It needs to be embedded in the
    original activity in order to make it function, really.
        Mrs. Miller. Do you have any comments on how we might
    bridge that cultural chasm there with--how can the Federal
    Government assist in that kind of a thing in setting out
    standards? As you mentioned, it should be embedded in the
    original technology. Is there something that we can do to
    bridge that?
        Mr. Naworocki. You're the 800 pound gorilla. Whatever you
    guys decide, they are going to follow.
        Once again, the most important thing is that the Federal
    Government has to demonstrate a concern. They have to
    demonstrate a commitment to that, and then that flows from
    that. I think it also needs to be remembered that, really, it
    should not be just strictly what the Federal Government does,
    because what may work for you may not work for us, but rather
    if you look at it as a collaboration among private industry,
    the States, local governments and the Federal Government, I
    think certainly, as you continue your work in this project, you
    should take a look at what is being done in those other areas
    in order to determine what is the best practice. Very simply,
    just because it's been done in NARA for the last 50 years
    doesn't always mean it's probably the best thing to be done.
        Ms. Wojcik. You know, this is a technology problem, and
    it's going to need some type of technology solution, and the
    people who create that technology are part of that solution.
    Having tools is just one part, but there's also that cultural
    issue, and I think we need to see more accountability from the
    top down, where, you know, administrators, managers are
    accepting that responsibility, acknowledging it, are fully
    aware of the consequences of not taking responsibility for both
    records management and records preservation. Working form the
    bottom up isn't going to solve anything.
        Mrs. Miller. Working from the top down and setting that
    kind of standard I think is very important.
        I just mention a personal example that I have within my own
    office, but I'd like to address this question to the State
    librarian. Are you familiar with--libraries I think with the
    advent of the Internet and all this electronic, people thought,
    well, geez, no one will read books anymore, that libraries
    would lose their value, that they would go by the wayside. But
    in fact I think libraries have been very much on the leading
    edge of using electronics and reaching out to the community and
    in so many different ways.
        Are you familiar with the digital library research that's
    being conducted by the Library of Congress? And, if so, how
    does the Library of Congress--I'm sure you have your national
    association--how does that filter through the libraries as far
    as, again, a mix of cooperation between the libraries and the
    historians?
        Mr. Naworocki. I'm not the State librarian. I work in the
    records, but I understand the library process. I think what
    happens also is there's a number of different government
    agencies for different ways, and the Library of Virginia just
    as the national--the Library of Congress, we also have our own
    digital library project, and that is a very important part
    because we have very unique items, and through the Internet,
    through digitization, we're able to spread that information,
    make it available. So that someone who is doing genealogical
    research in their jammies in Australia--they don't have to make
    that trip.
        I think it's very important that both the archival and the
    records management world also understand what is being done in
    the digital library arena, because they're doing some very
    important work on access and how to obtain access and indexed
    material that often we don't think about on our side. I think
    sometimes I really would love to just take all the research
    that is being done, throw it in a blender and hope that the
    answers come out, but I think oftentimes we stovepipe but not
    always talk to each other, and we need to do more talking.
        But, yes, it's filtering down. I think many State
    libraries, local libraries are working on digital projects and,
    you know, preserving and making accessible information that
    otherwise would be totally inaccessible, except for those few
    folks who could make it to the library.
        Mrs. Miller. Well, as we're getting into the lunch hour,
    this will be my final question for the panel. You were all here
    for the first panel, and I think we are just trying to get to
    the crux of the problem here of trying to determine what kinds
    of records really need to be archived and what is the best
    practices. I remember in specific Ms. Koontz from the first
    panel had made a comment I think about Mr. Sprehe, that you had
    developed some preliminary models for recognizing the best
    methods for records management. Perhaps you could elaborate a
    little bit on that, if you would, sir.
        Mr. Sprehe. Thank you. I put a little bit of that into my
    testimony.
        One of the things that I learned and that I guess the team
    learned in this study of transitioning from physical to
    electronic records management--and we have applied the metaphor
    of a capability maturity model but only as a metaphor. The
    strategic advantage was that it speaks to the IT community.
    They know what that is. My view is that we have placed stress
    to a great degree on the bad things that will happen to you if
    you do poor records management and that the costs and risk--and
    that has limited appeal to top leadership in any enterprise,
    including Federal agencies.
        What we discovered is--and which I tried to present with
    the concept of leveraging the records management investment is
    that if you do good records management, very good things happen
    to you beyond records management. It helps you do other
    business functions far better, more efficiently and
    effectively. That grabs the attention of top leadership.
        In a recent presentation commending the ADAMS system at the
    Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the recipient from NRC said, you
    know, it took us a long time to get our electronic records
    management system into the shape it is in today. Now what's
    happening is that, as other systems are developed in our
    agency, those IT managers are saying, and we want a system just
    like ADAMS, because they understand that if you can grab
    instantaneously yesterday's records and all the way back
    electronically, it's an enormous asset that they should build
    into their application.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
        Well, I certainly want to thank you all for attending
    today. It has been fascinating. It really is quite a
    fascinating subject that we all struggle with, with our
    changing world and changing technology and how we best utilize
    it for everyone.
        Is there anything that any one of you four would like to
    add for the record that we didn't ask you or questions or input
    that you would like to put in as part of the record?
        Mr. Naworocki. If I might just briefly to touch on two
    points. One is accountability. And I think working with the GAO
    and within the State of Virginia we're looking to work with our
    accounting agency in order to develop that accountability. But,
    also, we need to understand that everyone will have to become
    their own records manager, and it's going to require a lot of
    training and a lot of understanding on behalf of folks to do
    that, and I think it's a long road ahead, but it really is
    going to require a great deal of education as well as the
    technological capabilities.
        Thank you.
        Mrs. Miller. Thank you all so very, very much for coming.
        The record will be held open for 2 weeks for submission of
    additional testimony or questions, and we'll be happy to have
    those given to the subcommittee as well.
        At this time, the hearing will be adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
        [Additional information submitted for the hearing record
    follows:]

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