The 2007 Government Recordkeeping Survey is now underway with responses due by 20 July. This annual survey collects data on recordkeeping practices in every public office, and will form the basis for the Chief Archivist’s annual report on the state of government recordkeeping. The survey is a census, using the mandatory ‘direction to report’ powers in the Public Records Act 2005 (PRA). A letter has been sent to the Chief Executives of 198 public offices, asking them to nominate one person who will complete the survey for their organisation. There are 13 questions, and it should take about 20 minutes to complete online. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Patrick Power on 04 894 6035.
“Navigating the Metadata Maze” was the subject of the June government recordkeeping forum in Wellington. A high level of interest was shown in this technical topic by the forum’s 180 plus participants. Speakers from Archives New Zealand (Kate Jones, and John Roberts), Recordkeeping Innovation Ltd (Barbara Reed), and the Inland Revenue Department (Noni Oldfield) talked about standards for metadata and how they can be used to enable recordkeeping in digital systems. Presentations are available online.
Budget 2007 provided $8.5 million over four years for new initiatives at Archives New Zealand. This funding will support the development of an archival preservation strategy for ‘born digital’ records from public offices. This continues the work of the Digital Preservation team, which was introduced by Janine Delaney at our Recordkeeping Forum in December 2006. For information about digital preservation, contact Janine on 04 495 6228. The budget funding will also enable replacement of Repoman, Archives’ 16 year-old file location and tracking system and increase our capacity to manage ministers’ and security-classified papers.
Advisory Groups met in June to initiate two projects to develop significant new recordkeeping standards under the PRA. The Create & Maintain Standard will set out the minimum requirements for the creation and maintenance of full and accurate records within a PRA compliant New Zealand recordkeeping system context. The Recordkeeping Metadata Standard will set out a framework for creating, managing and using recordkeeping metadata. Both standards will draw on existing international standards (ISO-15489 and ISO-23081). Exposure drafts of the two new standards will be issued for consultation in late 2007. More information and contact details for these projects are available online.
Two new introductory fact sheets on the PRA have been published in Continuum. Public Records Act and Central Government (F15) and Public Records Act and Local Government (F16) give simple overviews of what the PRA means for central and local government. These resources aim to introduce the PRA to non-recordkeepers and aid in training new staff. Both fact sheets are available online. If you would like extra print copies as training resources, please contact: rkadvice@archives.govt.nz
While it’s clear that the PRA covers all government departments, Offices of Parliament, State Enterprises and Crown Entities as public offices, there are some cases where it can still be difficult to determine whether an organisation is covered by the PRA. To help with this question, there is now a list of all the organisations that Archives New Zealand regards as public offices on the Continuum website. We have also published a new fact sheet What is a Public Office? (F12). This explains how our legal advisers determine whether an organisation is covered by the PRA. The fact sheet is available online.
The Digitisation Standard (S6) that we launched in April has been picked up by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) for development into an ISO standard. This shows that there really was a gap internationally for advice on how digitisation fits with digital recordkeeping. Our Electronic Recordkeeping Systems Standard (S5), issued in 2005, is also in the process of being adapted into an international standard as part of a project led by the International Council on Archives (ICA) jointly with the Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative (ADRI). If you are interested in providing input on either of these projects, please contact Stephen Clarke on 04 894 6030.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to give us their feedback on our Storage Standard during its consultation phase. We received over 80 written submissions and over 100 people came to consultation workshops in Wellington and Auckland. The Advisory Group met on 4 May to review the feedback and decide on changes to improve the standard. One major change will be to make the standard much clearer about which requirements apply to which categories of records. The final draft of the standard is now with the Chief Archivist for approval. If you have any questions about the Storage Standard, contact Patrick Power on 04 894 6035.
Due to high demand and volume of recent transfer requests, Archives New Zealand’s Wellington office has introduced a planned transfer programme. Much as Archives would like to take all public archives immediately, we have to prioritise to work through agencies’ requests. Priority will be given to records that are over 25 years old, fragile or at risk. The Wellington transfer programme for the coming year is full and agencies are already on the waiting list for the following year. If you have records that you think should be transferred, please contact Archives New Zealand early in the planning process. We can also advise you on what to do with your semi-current records. Contact: transfer@archives.govt.nz
We welcome Margaret Parbhu, the new Manager, Arrangement and Description, who has a background in public libraries as a children’s and teens’ librarian, a community library manager and most recently manager of the Central Library in Lower Hutt. We also welcome new Archives Analysts into the Government Recordkeeping Group — Alice Patterson has joined us from the Department of Conservation, and Kate Jones and Mark Crookston have been appointed to permanent positions.
Recordkeeping enquiries: rkadvice@archives.govt.nz
Appraisal enquiries: appraisal@archives.govt.nz
Transfer enquiries: transfer@archives.govt.nz
Physical address: PO Box 12-050 / 10 Mulgrave St, Wellington
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