The Information Specialist's Scoop

"More than 1,000 archivists from 90 countries have come to Brisbane this week to try and solve the challenges of the digital age.

   Hosted by the National Archives of Australia, the International Council on Archives (ICA) Congress is being held until Thursday (24 August) at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.
   The ICA is dedicated to the effective management of records and the preservation, care and use of the world’s archival heritage through its representation of records and archive professionals around the world."

Full program can be accessed here: http://ica2012.com/files/data/program/Program-matrix-1508.pdf

1,000 meet to explore challenges   

It is the first time the four-yearly congress has been held in Australia and this year’s theme A Climate of Change will be explored by a number of keynote speakers including the Head Archivist for the United States of America, David Ferreiro, who will present the topic, ‘Archives in a world of social media’.

Talk with David S.Ferriero, Archivist of the United States | Archives and Public History Digital - http://t.co/pvreAu3A...

"While the Archivist did not deliver a formal speech, the wide ranging Q&A touched upon many of the current conversations and concerns within the archival community.

One important topic discussed was the role of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and of its leadership to the larger archival community. As we all know, NARA safeguards and preserves the most important records of the U.S. government yet it was interesting to learn that only equates to roughly 3% of all records created. The protocols of NARA have often been reflected in the practices of private or independent archives and in the advent of electronic formats, many repositories are watching how NARA handles ingesting these records. The Archivist was enthusiastic about how NARA could help the larger archival community and we hope that future Archivists of the United States will share this vision.

Mr. Ferriero views the archiving of electronic records as an exciting development and challenge for our profession. As such, he discussed the proprietary software Lockheed is developing for NARA to ingest digital formats and it was encouraging to hear of the Archivist’s enthusiasm for open-source software that could be used elsewhere in the archival community."

Sue McKemmish & Andrew Wilson:

"It’s estimated that in 2011 a truly staggering 1.8 zettabytes of digital information was created. Or to put it in more meaningful terms, that’s 57.5 billion 32-gigabyte iPads full.

Recent articles about this “digital deluge” warn of an approaching “digital dark age” if this vast amount of digital information isn’t preserved for posterity.

The old refrain that “storage is cheap, just keep everything” was never true. Recently the global market intelligence firm IDCestimated that the world’s demand for storage is increasing by 60% a year.

Given market research firm IHS iSuppli estimates hard disk storage densities will only improve by 19% a year for the next five years, and IT budgets are growing at an annual rate between 0 and 2%, there is clearly a looming storage crisis.

The challenges involved in preserving the huge datasets created by governments, businesses and research institutions have prompted some dire predictions about the loss of digital history."

National Archives of Australia:

"We're capturing all of the tweets from the #ICA_2012 hashtag.
Please note the volume is beyond what we've expected so some may be missing - but most are here!"

By Bryan Bender

David Ferriero - "The man entrusted with America’s documentary heritage - including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution"

"Ferriero now directs the National Archives in Washington, the first librarian to hold the post of official “collector in chief.’’ He not only oversees 12 billion pages and 40 million photographs that tell America’s story, he referees release of America’s oldest secrets, from the formula for invisible ink to battle plans for the Spanish-American War.

He favors openness, he says, but agencies cling to a maze of often-contradictory secrecy rules and a deep-seated culture to lock away even innocuous information. “While progress has been made,’’ Ferriero said, “we still have a huge problem.’’

Ferriero’s primary job is ensuring the 275 executive branch agencies retain the most important government records for posterity.

But he also oversees the National Declassification Center, created by President Obama by executive order in 2009. That makes him point man for an aggressive effort to try to release, by the end of next year, a backlog of an estimated 400 million records that are more than 25 years old."