Government still confused how to manage e-documents as records

Agencies aren't held accountable for how they manage records, says U.S. Archivist David Ferriero. Kevin Dietsch/Landov

Agencies' practice of printing out electronic documents to archive, weak oversight and unclear guidance as to which e-mail messages should be saved have increased the likelihood that federal managers have destroyed important government information that should be stored for historical purposes, federal managers and records experts told lawmakers on Thursday.

Until recently, federal agencies typically printed digital documents to file as official records rather than use electronic archiving systems that save the files in their original form, professional archivists and federal IT executives told members of the House Oversight Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee. As e-mail use in government expanded during the past years, agencies have deleted or lost potentially important digital records, they said.

"We need to modernize so we have a 21st century bureaucracy, not a 19th century bureaucracy," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the subcommittee's ranking member.

The federal government spends about $80 billion a year on information technology, most of which creates official records that should be saved, but agencies are not held accountable for how they manage those records, said David Ferriero, U.S. archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Government Accountability Office recently reported 79 percent of agencies are at a moderate or high risk of destroying records that should be archived.

According to Paul Wester, director of NARA's modern records program, many agencies until recently used a paper-based record-keeping system, which included a print-and-file method for saving e-mail messages. A shift to using electronic records management systems requires the government to develop policies that hold agencies accountable for properly saving electronic records. But only in the last 18 to 24 months have agencies begun putting guidance in place, he said.

The challenge is to install IT systems that are transparent, easy to use, can be expanded to manage increasing workloads and meet an agency's business demands, said David Wennergren, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Department. Agencies must have access to records management tools that meet security compliance standards, he added.

Lawmakers and witnesses agreed the reliance on e-mail makes it difficult for federal employees to discern the difference between personal and professional messages, and then decide which work-related messages should be saved. Rules governing what should and should not be archived are "fuzzy," said Carol Brock, a representative of ARMA International, a nonprofit records management association.

She said limited IT resources and the complicated nature of capturing e-mails have raised the risk that important messages haven't been stored as permanent records.

In May, two watchdog groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive, found the Bush administration failed to archive 83 percent of e-mails for 21 days during a two-year period.

To reduce the risk that electronic records are lost, witnesses suggested the government hire more information management officers, Congress pass amendments to the Federal Records Act that holds agencies accountable for saving the information, and NARA improve its oversight by conducting inspections of record retention policies.

"Technology is a tool to help solve problems, but [it's] not a solution itself," said Valerie Melvin, director of information management and human capital issues at GAO.