Meeting the records transfer challenge: Simplifying Digital Preservation for government agencies & archives

Public records are crucial for a functioning democracy. They document the actions and decisions of government agencies and officials, ensuring accountability to citizens.

As we move further into the digital age, the volume of long-term and permanent government records in digital form is rapidly increasing. While this shift opens new opportunities for efficiency and accessibility, it also presents a significant challenge: ensuring archival records can be transferred from agencies and departments to the archives in a secure, timely and efficient way.

In 2021 CoSA (The Council of State Archivists),with support from Preservica, published the MoVE-IT report (Modelling Viable Electronic Information Transfers). The report explored several real-world examples of records transfers.

Since publication the landscape of software and technology used across government has changed significantly, especially the adoption of Microsoft 365 and the migration of legacy content into Microsoft SharePoint. At the same time records capture and digital preservation technologies have also advanced to provide new faster and more automated options for transfer.

This new White Paper explores the challenges of transferring and preserving electronic government records and outlines different transfer options for different frequencies, volume and type of records. The aim is to help government agencies and archives assess and choose the best solutions for their records workflows and jurisdiction.

The paper also examines the Digital Preservation, metadata and security requirements to ensure records:

• stay readable over the long-term
• follow state preservation policies
• are quick to retrieve for requests
• meet the highest levels of integrity and trustworthiness

Read the full White Paper here.

Michael Hope, VP Marketing Strategy