[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 20, 1999
__________
Serial No. 106-121
__________
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
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
64-651 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas
LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California ------
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent)
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian
Carla J. Martin, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Bonnie Heald, Director of Communications/Professional Staff Member
Chip Ahlswede, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 20, 1999................................. 1
Statement of:
Carlin, John, Archivist of the U.S. National Archives and
Records Administration, accompanied by, Lewis J. Bellardo,
Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff; and Adrienne C.
Thomas, Assistant Archivist for Administrative Services.... 5
Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce
Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; Page Putnam Miller,
executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of
History, representing the Organization of American
Historians; Stanley Katz, vice president for research,
American Historical Association; and H. Thomas Hickerson,
associate university librarian for information technology,
Cornell University, and president, Society of American
Archivists................................................. 88
Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:
Bellardo, Lewis J., Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff,
information concerning records of party conferences........ 52
Carlin, John, Archivist of the U.S. National Archives and
Records Administration:
Information concerning grants awarded.................... 64
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Hickerson, H. Thomas, associate university librarian for
information technology, Cornell University, and president,
Society of American Archivists, prepared statement of...... 112
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, prepared statement of................. 3
Katz, Stanley, vice president for research, American
Historical Association, prepared statement of.............. 107
Miller, Page Putnam, executive director, National Committee
for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization
of American Historians, prepared statement of.............. 102
Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce
Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement
of......................................................... 90
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 130
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Stephen
Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Horn and Turner.
Staff present: Matthew Ebert, policy advisor; Bonnie Heald,
director of communications and professional staff member; Chip
Ahlswede, clerk; P.J. Caceres and Deborah Oppenheim, interns;
Trey Henderson, minority counsel; David McMillen, minority
professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority staff
assistant.
Mr. Horn. This is the Committee on Government Reform's
first oversight hearing on the National Archives and Records
Administration since the Honorable John Carlin became the
Nation's Archivist in 1995. We welcome Governor Carlin, former
Governor of Kansas. He has done a great job as the Archivist
and we look forward to having some of that put into the record.
The National Archives and Record Administration is an
independent Federal agency charged with preserving the Nation's
history through its oversight and management of Federal
records. The agency has 33 facilities that hold more than 4
billion pieces of paper generated by all branches of the
Federal Government from 1789 up.
Today we will examine one of the agency's essential
responsibilities: how it determines which Government records
should be preserved and which records may be destroyed. I
shudder at the last remark.
The National Archives assists other Federal agencies in
maintaining and disposing of Government documents--electronic
and paper. The agency is attempting to streamline and revise
its guidelines under an 18-month business process reengineering
plan and plans to survey Government agencies on their
electronic records management programs. The subcommittee will
examine the agency's progress on this plan today.
Since President Clinton's 1995 order to declassify historic
documents which are 25 years or older, the Federal Government
has processed 593 million pages for declassification. The
subcommittee will examine how the National Archives, as a key
player, is implementing this process in meeting its
declassification deadlines.
In addition, we want to examine the viability of the
National Archives' revolving fund. The fund, which was
established last year, was set up as a mechanism for Federal
departments and agencies to reimburse the National Archives for
the expenses it incurs for storage of temporary records.
We welcome our witnesses today. We look forward to each of
their testimonies.
We will proceed and yield to Mr. Turner when he comes in
shortly.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
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Mr. Horn. As panel one, we have Governor John Carlin,
Archivist of the United States, National Archives and Records
Administration, who is accompanied by Mr. Lewis Bellardo,
Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff, and Ms. Adrienne C.
Thomas, Assistant Archivist for Administrative Services.
I think you both know the routine here. We swear in all
witnesses. Please stand and raise your right hands. If there
are any staff behind you that will be giving you suggestions,
please have them stand, too.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that the three witnesses and
one staff member affirmed the oath.
Governor, we are delighted to have you here. Please take
any time you want, but we would obviously like you to summarize
your fine statement.
I might add that the statements automatically go in the
record when we call on each witness. You do not have to read
it, but we would like to have you summarize it. Then we can
spend more time on dialog.
STATEMENT OF JOHN CARLIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE U.S. NATIONAL
ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY, LEWIS J.
BELLARDO, DEPUTY ARCHIVIST AND CHIEF OF STAFF; AND ADRIENNE C.
THOMAS, ASSISTANT ARCHIVIST FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman and staff, I am John Carlin,
Archivist of the United States.
As the Chair has pointed out, I administer the National
Archives and Records Administration. We are certainly grateful
for this opportunity and welcome the chance to work with this
very important oversight committee. I thank you for placing my
full text in the record. I will summarize. I would like to
touch on some of the things that might be of particular
interest to you and then of course answer questions.
Because our strategic plan puts our customers first in our
thinking, I want to first make it clear who they are and what
we provide them.
Our mission, as defined in our strategic plan, is to ensure
ready access to essential evidence documenting the rights and
entitlements of citizens, the actions for which Federal
officials are responsible, and the national experience. As you
stated, we have 34 facilities across the country. They include
regional archives, records services centers, and 10
Presidential libraries, where we preserve and provide access to
literally millions of records--billions if you count individual
pages, photographs, and recordings--ranging from our 18th
century records to 100,000 late-20th century electronic files.
Literally thousands of people, including genealogists,
lawyers, historians, veterans, newspaper and television
journalists, and government employees, annually do research in
our archival facilities, and thousands of others write or call
with inquiries for records or information from our records.
Approximately 1 million people, many of whom are school
children, annually view the Charters of Freedom in our
Washington rotunda, and each year approximately 1.4 million
people view exhibits in our Presidential libraries.
Approximately 1.5 million veterans annually request
documentation from us of their entitlement to benefits.
People throughout the country this past year made more than
7 million user visits to our webpages. And the number of
documents that researchers have pulled up to review from
electronic editions of the Federal Register, the Code of
Federal Regulations, and related publications that NARA
produces now exceeds 100 million annually. In addition, as you
know, Mr. Chairman, many historians, archivists, and records
managers across the country are carrying out projects to
preserve and publish records with the help of grants from the
National Historical Publications and Records Administration,
which is part of NARA.
I am pleased to say that increased support from the
Congress and the administration for special initiatives over
the past 3 years is enabling us to serve these customers
better. As a political scientist, Mr. Chairman, you will be
glad to know that scholars, among other researchers, are
grateful to the Congress for making it possible, in the budget
just passed for fiscal year 2000, for us to hire more
archivists to assist them in our research rooms, and to provide
better research room equipment for their use.
Researchers are grateful to Congress for enabling us to
continue our progress in building an Archival Research Catalog
that eventually will provide on-line descriptions of everything
in our holdings so that their research can start at home. And
researchers, especially genealogists, are also grateful for
funds appropriated in our fiscal year 2000 budget to enable us
to prepare for opening the 1930 census records.
Providing public access to records, however, is only half
our job. We are the National Archives and Records
Administration. We provide guidance to our largest customer,
the three branches of Government, including the Federal courts
and more than 300 Federal agencies with thousands of locations
nationwide and around the world, on documenting their
activities and managing their records. We also have the
responsibility to approve how long Federal records are kept in
order to protect individual rights, hold Government
accountable, and document the national experience. For the
Congress and its legislative agencies, we preserve official
records in our Center for Legislative Archives and provide
access to them.
Mr. Chairman, I do not have to tell an oversight committee
how important it is for Government agencies to be able to
locate and provide access to records quickly and adequately.
When they have difficulty doing so, as in some recent cases,
congressional committees feel frustrated by what, to us, is a
records management problem. There have been a lot of charges
and counter-charges about records availability, but I think it
is true to say that the Congress, the executive branch, and
NARA itself have not in the past put enough emphasis on the
need for effective records management in the Government.
But fortunately that is changing, and we are grateful for
the support that the Congress and the administration have been
giving us in recent budgets for records management improvement.
With that introduction to what we do and for whom, Mr.
Chairman, I would like now to turn to some specific concerns
that may be of particular interest to you and your committee.
As you know, we are all concerned about electronic records.
They pose an unprecedented challenge because such records are
vulnerable to erasure, media instability, and technological
obsolescence, and because they are mushrooming in quantity and
in multiple formats. But we are making progress toward meeting
these challenges and averting loss.
The magnitude of the problem has made us realize that NARA
does not have, nor will we have, the expertise or the resources
to meet these challenges on our own. Consistent with our
strategic plan, we have made partnering with others our key
strategy, so that our limited resources can be leveraged for
maximum return.
For example, we have partnered with the Department of
Defense to develop a set of baseline requirements for the
management of electronic records, and we subsequently endorsed
this baseline as a starting point for agencies that want to
begin implementing electronic recordkeeping. Also, we have
formed a partnership with Government records managers and
information officers, and with private sector consultants, to
launch an inter-agency Fast Track Guidance Development Project.
This project will identify ``best practices'' currently
available to Federal recordkeepers in managing electronic
records.
In terms of electronic records preservation and access, we
also have new hope, thanks to another partnership. Over the
past quarter-century, NARA has taken into our archives
approximately 100,000 files of electronic records from the U.S.
Federal Government as a whole. But we estimate that the
Treasury Department alone, for example, is now generating
annually, in e-mail alone, nearly a million files of electronic
records that we are likely to need to take into our archives.
So we entered into a partnership to support work at the San
Diego Supercomputer Center on an automated system to enable us
to take in large quantities of Government e-mail messages in a
short time, and the Center has produced a prototype that is
able to preserve 2 million e-mail messages in 2 days. This
could be a huge breakthrough.
In the meantime, we continue to have volumes of paper
records with which to deal through our records center
operations for Federal agencies. We maintain a regional network
of records centers in which we provide storage, retrieval, and
other services on records that remain in the agencies' legal
custody. With your support, Mr. Chairman--for which we are
grateful--we instituted on October 1st a reimbursable program
in which we offer agencies customer-oriented, fee-supported
records center services.
For the first time, all agencies--not just some--will
reimburse us for all records center services we provide. And as
part of implementing this program, records storage standards
were established, which will apply to both NARA and private
sector or agency facilities.
We also continue to address needs of archival facilities
that house the permanently valuable records in our own legal
custody. Funds appropriated by the Congress are enabling us to
search for the kind and quantity of space we need to replace
outmoded and full-up facilities in Anchorage, AK and Atlanta,
GA. And we plan to renovate our grand old original archives
building here in Washington--the building that houses, among
other treasures, the records of Congress.
We'll upgrade its HVAC system to meet today's archival
preservation standards, remedy shortcomings in electrical
distribution and fire safety, meet requirements of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, and improve public spaces
generally. Here again, though, we are developing partnerships
by soliciting private sector contributions to supplement public
funds for educational aspects of the project.
The centerpiece of the renovation will be the replacement
of currently deteriorating cases for the Nation's Charters of
Freedom--the Declaration of Independence, the U.S.
Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They will receive state-
of-the-art reencasement so that they may continue to be safely
viewed in our rotunda by millions of visitors well into the new
millennium.
On that happy note, I conclude my oral testimony. Again, I
am grateful for support from you, Mr. Chairman, this committee,
and the Congress. We have far to go to reach the goals in our
strategic plan, but I am more encouraged today than at any time
since I became the archivist. I am beginning to see real
progress toward meeting the electronic era's great challenges
in providing the services that the people of a democracy need
to document their entitlements, hold their Government
accountable, and understand our national historical experience.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carlin follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We thank you, Mr. Carlin.
Do either of your other staff members wish to add anything
to that?
Mr. Carlin. Not at this point.
Mr. Horn. Let me turn first to our ranking member on the
subcommittee, a very hard-working member from Texas, Mr.
Turner. I am going to start the questioning with him. We are
going to alternate between him and myself and anyone else that
shows up 5 minutes at a time. So we can get a lot of subjects
out on the table.
Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Governor. Thank you for being here. Thank you
for the visit we had the other day. I am impressed, Governor,
with the enthusiasm with which you have undertaken your job. I
think it has meant a lot to all of us to have you in that
position.
There is one issue I wanted to ask you to comment on. I
know there has been some concern from the Census Bureau about
the preservation of the original forms. I know the plans, I
think, are to make only copies or the computer records being
ones that you archive rather than the original forms.
Could you tell us a little bit about why that decision has
been made? What are the pros and cons? I know it is something
that the Census Bureau has expressed some concern about.
Mr. Carlin. Historically, this has been the pattern. Only
up until the 2000 census, the original documents--there was a
microfilm copy and it was the microfilm copy that was the
preservation copy, the access copy, the copy by which we
distributed across the country to all our facilities and made
available for rent. Once we had the microfilm copied, then the
original questionnaires were always destroyed. That has been
the pattern from the very beginning.
What is new and unique this year is that we are shifting to
a new medium. For the first time, instead of microfilm, we are
talking about electronic medium. What is left at issue, in my
mind, is really two very significant things. One, we have not
yet scheduled with the Census Bureau those electronic
documents--the systems, et cetera. The existing schedule for
the questionnaires that are temporary is in place, but
communicated with that schedule--if they will be destroyed--is
that they cannot be destroyed until they have made a copy on an
appropriate medium. In this case, in the year 2000 it will be
electronic. We have that work left with the Census Bureau to
get that scheduling done.
The second thing I would assure you is that I am not
signing those schedules until I am confident that this new
first-time use of electronic systems, electronic technology,
that we in fact have the information so that we can provide
access--or obviously somebody else, 72 years later down the
road--to those records. In that sense, it is very different. It
is very sensitive and it is the first time. I can assure you
that we will be very, very careful before we sign the schedules
for those records, which would then allow the destruction--
which we have always done. It has been the patter from the very
beginning that the voluminous volume of originals are not
practical to be kept as long as there has been made a copy--and
of course to this time, it has been microfilm.
Mr. Turner. So for the first time we will not microfilm,
but there will be a computer file.
Mr. Carlin. That is correct. They are being produced in
electronic form. So access to them 72 years down the road will
be very different. As I talked to my staff yesterday, thinking
about some of the subjects we might discuss, one of the things
we readily agreed was that it would be somebody else's problem
to convert those microfilm reading rooms to electronic many
decades down the road. But our responsibility is to make sure
we have captured and secured that information--those census
records--so that we cannot just preserve but provide access at
the appropriate time.
Mr. Turner. Specifically, what type of concerns have been
expressed by the Census Bureau? Are they worried that these new
computer records will not be as accessible as they were under
the microfilm system?
Mr. Carlin. I am not aware that they have expressed any
concerns along that line. I am aware that my staff has worked
very closely with them on the procedures, the development of
the process--starting as early as 1995--beginning the
discussion and communication back and forth.
I think the concern is more on our side in making sure that
the scheduling gets done and making sure we are confident that
the technology that we have been a part of describing and
developing in fact can do the job.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. Let me pick up on Mr. Turner's question.
I was on the visiting committee once for the Stanford
University libraries. One of the librarians came in and had 30
books there and started to snap them in half. We all just about
fainted. But that is the problem with the acidic paper.
To what degree do you have that problem in the preservation
of records and the wear and tear on paper since the 1830's?
Mr. Carlin. This is a good followup question because that
is again where microfilm plays a significant role and where we
try to focus our energies on the limited resources we have for
microfilming additional records, that is, microfilming those
records that are used most frequently so that the access the
researcher gets is through microfilm, not the original.
Obviously, this is a small portion of our holdings, but we
focus on that for preservation purposes.
Mr. Horn. What do we know about magnets and other things
that can upset an electronic data system? Suppose you had it
all wiped out after this? Where is the record?
Mr. Carlin. Well, if you are relating this to the past
question, we are talking about a very nervous archivist in
terms of making sure that we are confident in what we have.
I am going to yield to my Deputy in a moment, who has a
little more direct expertise in this area. But that is why I
want to make sure we get it. I do not know if the plan is to
have a back-up preservation copy--I assume there is. That is
the traditional way. But you are correct. As I stated in my
opening remarks, one of the challenges of electronic records is
that they are so easy to disrupt, so easy to erase.
Lew.
Mr. Bellardo. The standard procedure that we have for
electronic media would be to have an offsite back-up copy,
which I guess we would call our preservation copy.
Mr. Horn. Where do you store that? In a cave somewhere?
Mr. Bellardo. Well, we currently----
Mr. Horn. I am not being facetious. Get it away from
effects that could be on them electronically.
Mr. Bellardo. That is the case for microfilm security
copies. We do have them actually in underground storage. The
magnetic media are stored--unless there has been some recent
change--in the Washington area, but offsite, therefore, we have
the ability to generate another copy.
The other concern that the Archivist expressed is to be
sure that the format that these materials would be coming to
us--that we would be able over time to preserve that and to
also provide access to it. We are working through those format
questions with the Census Bureau.
Mr. Carlin. The technology we will receive it on will be
migrated several times before ultimate access. We cannot even
imagine what technology might be like 75 years down the road,
but we can assume it will be several generations--many, many
generations--removed from what we experience today. So one of
our issues is to make sure that we can migrate that information
to a technology that would be in use at the time access becomes
available.
Mr. Horn. The census records, you say, have been destroyed
from past censuses?
Mr. Carlin. The originals are destroyed once they are
copied onto microfilm.
Mr. Horn. Did the person who was polled in that census--did
they fill out a separate form saying 1860? 1870? 1910? What was
the form?
Mr. Carlin. The patterns have varied over the years, but it
is my understanding that we have always microfilmed the
original.
Mr. Bellardo. Basically, what happened was the enumerator
would walk down the street and question the individuals and
they would make notations on the form. They would occasionally
encounter people who did not want to be interviewed or
whatever. But other than that, they did their best. You can
actually track the street they were on and the addresses and so
forth of the people they were talking to.
But generally speaking, it was not a form that people
filled out themselves. I think the most recent census I
participated in I actually got a mail-in form, filled it out,
and sent it back in.
Mr. Horn. Let's say a President in 1860 and a President in
the year 2000--it would seem to me to be very interesting to
keep that document--the original. So what do you do with that?
You burn Abraham Lincoln's interview and you burn William
Jefferson Clinton's about-to-be interview?
Mr. Bellardo. I think what has happened in the past is that
at the time the microfilm was transmitted to us those records
were in fact destroyed after the quality was checked.
In the case of Clinton--of course, in the case of Lincoln,
it would not have been in his handwriting. It would have been
the enumerators handwriting. In the case of Clinton,
presumably, if he has a mail-in form and mails it in, then it
would in fact be in his hand.
Mr. Horn. There are a lot of people, as you know,
interested in genealogy. You have the Mormon church, the Church
of Latter Day Saints. They have great genealogy records. It
seems to me that I would rather put these in State libraries--
if it is a State--or someplace. Or make some money off it, to
be blunt about it. We have everybody in their library who hangs
up commissions by this or that President or confederate bonds
or whatever it is. It seems to me there might be an interest in
genealogy if one had one's ancestors records before they are
burned. I would like nothing more than to have the records of
my great grandfather from Ireland in the 1840's in Washington,
DC.
There is a possibility there to make money for the archives
in a trust fund, or an endowment, or whatever.
Has that been thought of?
Mr. Bellardo. If I can return to the historical census, we
have really been talking about the population schedules. The
non-population schedules, which were also done during the 19th
century--some of those survived in hard copy and actually some
of those are deposited in State libraries or archives or the
equivalent of that. We have some of them at the National
Archives as well.
In terms of the 2000 census, we have not thought about that
at this point.
Mr. Carlin. You have given us something to think about, Mr.
Chairman.
I would tell you, we have not been pressed by the
genealogists on that subject as much as making sure that we get
the information so it can be made available. The originals--we
will take a look at that.
Mr. Horn. I have a real problem with microfilm--I will tell
you--and to microfilm readers. The ones in the Library of
Congress are a disgrace and they know my opinion on it. Maybe
we will have to put a line item in their next budget to make
sure that they get some decent microfilm readers. But I am
going through about 50 years of records on microfilm in
newspapers. I did that in research as a graduate student and
other books and so forth. But it seems to me they are a
horrible thing and there must be a better way to invent a
decent microfilm reader where you can get focus and not have
things blacked out on the page and all the rest of it. It
depends on how the person held the object before they snapped
the microfilm button.
That bothers me that records are just smudged and all the
rest of it. In this case, it is the California State library
and I am using the Library of Congress equipment to read it.
But it bothers me.
So what do we do to improve that service?
Mr. Carlin. Thanks to the support of Congress, starting in
the year 2000, we have a sum of money to replace on a sane
basis our microfilm readers in all our facilities across the
country. Assuming we can find quality microfilm readers, we
will not be talking about broken-down, ancient, poor-serving
microfilm readers.
Mr. Horn. Let me move to another subject. I am not done
with that, but in a report we might have something to say on
it.
What would you say, Mr. Carlin, is the greatest challenge
you face as Archivist?
Mr. Carlin. I think the most significant challenge I face
and that we at NARA face is the set of issues involving
electronic records.
Mr. Horn. Are you issuing guidance to Federal agencies on
these? How does that work? Is there another agency in the
Government who is looking at the overall electronic use of
records--just for operations, let alone archival purposes?
Mr. Carlin. We are accepting the responsibility we have to
work with agencies to provide them guidance. As I indicated in
my testimony, we have established a group of our own experts,
plus experts from Federal agencies, as well as outside experts
to begin the process. In fact, very soon, the first set of
advice going to agencies will be up on the web.
Clearly, we feel--not just because of our responsibility
for those records scheduled permanent, but for all records,
temporary as well that have an incredible value for a
particular period of time--that we have a responsibility to
work with the agencies. Our partnership with the Department of
Defense to establish standards was an effort to start to
provide guidance to the private sector to produce software that
met certain standards that would be conducive to agency use
today and our use as well as theirs down the road for future
access.
Mr. Horn. Do you feel that industry is responding in terms
of what you are seeking in the software?
Mr. Carlin. They appear to be very interested in what we
are producing. They obviously know the Federal Government is a
large customer and they want to make sure they are providing
something the Federal Government will buy. I think there is no
problem here. The challenge is to make sure--as we have
indicated--to DOD we are saying, This is one way to go. We are
not saying it is the only way to the private sector or
agencies.
Mr. Horn. The National Archives' fiscal year 1999
performance plan indicated that the business process
reengineering plan would be complete in 1999. However, fiscal
year 2000 performance plan notes that the reengineering plan is
scheduled for completion in the year 2000. What is the cause
for the delay?
Mr. Carlin. We are talking about the business process
reengineering of the scheduling and appraisal of our operation,
I assume, if I heard you correctly.
The reason this is delayed is--first of all, we put this in
our original strategic plan as a key challenge we needed to
address. We set the time table which we thought was realistic.
Then we faced a lawsuit, for one example, that took a great
deal of our time and energy. With our limited staff and
resources, we had no choice but to focus and suddenly make it a
priority. That was one point that caused it to slip.
The second thing that caused it to slip is that the more we
looked at the subject, the more we realized that initially
there were major policy issues that needed to be addressed
first before we even started the traditional BPR.
I would like to have my Deputy, who is working on this in
terms of what we are really doing today, take a moment to share
where we are headed on this very important task.
Mr. Horn. Fine. And as you know, we will have the GAO on
the next panel. If you can stay, we will get a dialog on that
report.
Mr. Carlin. OK.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Bellardo.
Mr. Bellardo. As we have been dealing with the GRS-20
guidance and bulletins and have heard back from agencies, one
thing that has become clear to us is that the world is changing
very rapidly in terms of how agencies are doing their work. In
order to get a real sense of what the problems are that need to
be addressed in a reinvention project relating to appraisal,
scheduling, front-end, what our role should be, what the
agency's role should be--we need to have a better picture of
the way records are being created today, the role of the
various players within the agencies--the IGs, the internal
auditors, the general counsel's office, records managers, and
so forth--and then how those records are being used.
We do know that there are developments with the web and how
people are using information, how they are accessing it, and
how they need it presented to them. We are interested in both
the public as well as agency users of information.
On top of that, we think we need more information about how
the records are actually being disposed of in the agencies.
This is an area where the dialog has been with the GAO folks.
But we are not setting aside this reinvention effort. In
the coming few months, we are going to be gathering information
in the areas I have just talked about, feed that information to
the policy review, and out of that build our as-is model and
our to-be model in terms of how we feel we can be more
effective in the agency scheduling and appraisal processes.
Mr. Horn. In July, when the General Accounting Office
issued the report stating that the National Archives could
learn from its planned baseline survey of Government-wide
agency records management and could incorporate positive
changes in their business process and reengineering plan, why
did the Archives disagree with the GAO recommendation to move
forward with the baseline survey?
Mr. Carlin. Let me just say in general, from my point of
view I do not think we have a disagreement. The initial
baseline was heavily focused on just standard data elements,
not the kind of information my Deputy feels very strongly that
we need to know to do this right.
So in terms of communication, we stopped that part of it
because we felt it was foolish to gather all that information
if eventually the system was going to be changed and it would
have to be done again. But from a practical point of view, what
GAO was saying I think we are now doing. We think it is very
important to know what is going on, to gather information. It
is just that the original plan was very narrow and focused on
detail rather than the kind of general knowledge that we needed
that would only come from a different approach.
Mr. Bellardo. I would like to first say that it is an
excellent report. We were very much interested in it. I think
if there is a failing here, it is perhaps in our ability to
communicate what the original baseline was projected to be.
It was basically projected to be a review of how agencies
are following our existing policies and procedures and so
forth. What we are now about looking at is whether those
policies are working and whether we need to look at other
policies and other kinds of procedures. I think that is
probably underlying the suggestions that are being made in the
GAO report.
So I do not think we are really in disagreement as to where
we need to be. It is just that in order to comment on the
recommendation that we should do the original baseline as we
outlined it, we feel as though that would not have helped us in
the reengineering process.
Mr. Horn. My understanding is that the fiscal year 2000
performance plan aims to convert 10 percent of existing record
series descriptions or finding aids to an on-line archival
research catalog. Is that the way----
Mr. Carlin. That is the direction I would want to check to
confirm.
I would say in general that as an agency we are very
supportive of GPRA and the targets--the performance aspect. We
are very committed to our strategic plan. We were committed to
that plan before, so all of this has worked very well together.
But we did learn very early--although in general, in most areas
we are achieving our goals--because we did not in many cases
have good baseline information, we will be adjusting those
goals to a more realistic set of targets as the 2000 is
finalized as well as the 2001 developed.
Mr. Horn. Do you think you can hit the 100 percent mark by
2007? That is what presumably 10 percent means when you start
in the year 2000. Is that a realistic timeframe?
Mr. Carlin. We think it is realistic if we can secure, by
one means or another, the resources to achieve that goal.
Mr. Horn. What do you need? Is it the hardware, the
software, or both?
Mr. Carlin. In this particular case, talking about the
research catalog, it is just the challenge of populating. We
have the resources to put the catalog together. That will be
done very shortly--in terms of months, not years. But then it
will be the challenge of populating it, getting everything in
there, and that will be labor-intensive.
Mr. Horn. Have you asked for those resources in recent
budgets? If so, has OMB cut you or supported you?
Mr. Carlin. We have not specifically asked for resources to
populate to OMB, so they have not--we have been supported for
the resources we felt we needed through the 2000 budget to do
because the focus through 2000, for the most part, is to
complete the system, to get it up, operational, and running.
Then the challenge ahead is populating, which we think can
heavily be focused on existing resources, but we do not know at
this point how far that will take us and whether in future
years to be complete in 2007 we will have to add additional
resources.
Mr. Horn. Agencies often rely heavily on websites to convey
information to the public. To what extent does the Archives
consider materials on websites as permanent records and what
guidance are you issuing to agencies for their preservation?
Mr. Carlin. I am going to let my Deputy comment
specifically on how we schedule web records. We see the web as
an incredible opportunity to take our resources to people that
never have the opportunity to visit one of our facilities. We
also see it as an incredible opportunity to communicate more
efficiently with our biggest customer, the Federal Government
and all the agencies we deal with in terms of guidance we
provide. Our hope is, in the coming years we will greatly
expand how we use the web to communicate back and forth to make
the processes that work through the life cycle of the record
much more efficient.
But on the scheduling issue, I want to yield to my Deputy.
Mr. Bellardo. First, a word about guidance.
We have been working and have an internal draft for records
management guidance for agencies relating to websites. We are
not happy with that draft at this point. One of the things we
hope to be working on with this fast track team is the web
guidance. We would hope that one of the projects they take up
would be to refine the web guidance and really make it a tool
that could be useful to agencies.
In terms of the scheduling aspect, what we are saying to
agencies is that if you do not have a separate record file of
the document that you are putting on the website, then these
must be treated as records and must be scheduled. On that
basis, we would do an appraisal and then make a determination
as to which of those we will accept for accessioning.
From a practical standpoint, we are going to have to be
looking in the future at creative ways--if I can use the word--
to harvest that information in cooperation with the agencies
because much of it, I suspect, will be very ephemeral if we do
not act in a very proactive way.
Mr. Horn. To what degree do we know, in the Presidential
libraries, the degree to which we have electronic records? Have
they been destroyed? We think of the Ollie North situation
where he can go through and wipe out a lot of the electronic
records. What can we do to get the material into the
Presidential libraries without a lot of ``throwing a few tapes
overboard''?
Mr. Carlin. There are a lot of things we can do. Obviously,
the Presidential libraries--the Presidential records are more
electronic to date than Federal records. So it has sort of led
the challenge in dealing with electronic records going back two
or three administrations.
The No. 1 thing we can do, Mr. Chairman, for the future, is
to be much more aggressive as an agency and successful in
working with a new administration from day one. The problems to
this point have come from not knowing what should be done, to
not being there with succeeding administrations to really
assist them. It is our goal to be very aggressive with the new
administration in the transition period following the 2000
election so that--particularly with electronic records, but not
exclusively--we can provide the guidance, make sure the systems
are set up.
As you are well aware, the bulk of Presidential records are
permanent. It is a very different situation. We do not do the
traditional scheduling. We start out with the assumption that
they are permanent and go from there. So we are talking about a
large volume of electronic records in various formats that are
being preserved today for Reagan and Bush, for example, but in
a difficult and expensive way. If we can get there up front and
get it done right, we can save money and provide access much
faster.
Mr. Horn. We put legislation in to provide for an
orientation of Presidential appointees and nominees, regardless
of who is President in 2000 and regardless of whether it is
between the election and taking the oath of office because
there is a continual number of appointees. I think it would be
good--and I will have staff note it--that we also get into the
archives role of that.
You are absolutely correct. Cabinet secretaries ought to be
brought up to speed.
I remember in the Eisenhower administration we had three
wonderful mail clerks in the secretary's room and those records
were absolutely immaculate when they were turned over to the
Eisenhower Library.
I think that would be very helpful.
I see we have a vote on. I will have to recess this so Mr.
Turner and I can keep faith with our constituency, whatever
that is over there.
Mr. Carlin. We would not want that to be interfered with.
Mr. Horn. So we will be in recess for about 10 to 15
minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Horn. What can you tell me on records about the
legislative branch and the degree to which you are getting
them?
Mr. Carlin. As you are aware, we are the custodian of the
legislative records. I will let Lew comment in depth, but it is
my feeling that Mike Gillette and his operation have
established a very good relationship with both House and Senate
and not only are we getting the records, but access is not only
based on a schedule but congressional support for access. That
support has significantly improved on the access side of things
in the last few years.
Mr. Bellardo. I am a previous head of the Center for
Legislative Archives, and even at that point in the late 1980's
and early 1990's we had a good rapport. I think Mike has been
even more aggressive in working with the historical offices and
with the committee staffs and so forth.
The sense that we have is that there is a very regular
process of transferring materials. As you know, it is committee
records and not the records of the individual Members' offices.
Those are basically their records and they usually donate them
to a university back home.
We are also doing some work on the Senate side as they are
developing a new electronic records system in the Senate. We
have staff who are involved in working with Senate staffers on
that. I believe that cooperation is moving forward as well.
Mr. Carlin. I would also add, Mr. Chairman, your new clerk
is exceptionally well-grounded on records issues. We look
forward to a very good relationship with him.
Mr. Horn. Thank you. Mike Gillette has done a terrific job,
no question about it. I particularly enjoyed seeing what he had
done for the schools of this country in terms of real-looking
documents. You would think they were the originals in terms of
Thomas Jefferson, women's suffrage, and this sort of thing.
Besides the committee records, to what degree are you able
to get the party records, such as the Democratic Caucus in the
House and the Republican Conference in the House? I would love
to see the notes Bobby Baker in the Senate kept on who got what
position and what committee and this kind of thing. They could
put a 50-year limit on it, but it would be great historical
evidence that frankly you do not have right now. I do not know
what they do with those, whether they dump them in the ash can
or what.
Mr. Bellardo. No, I do not think they do. I think we need
to get back with you with more accurate information, but it is
my understanding that there has been significant progress on
the caucus records. Whether or not we have actually accessioned
them at this point I am not sure. That is what we will need to
get back to you on.
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Mr. Horn. I will give you another example that you might
get them collecting, then.
When I first came here, I started collecting each flyer
that is used on the floor to pass or to not pass a bill. No one
has ever done it. I have 6 years and I am going to keep it.
[Laughter.]
Somebody around this place--once I am not here--should be
doing that because it is fascinating in terms of what they say
is in that bill versus what is in the bill. I can put a lot
of----
Mr. Carlin. We will make sure we pass that one along.
Mr. Horn. It would be a fascinating little comparison.
We were talking about websites. You project that in fiscal
year 2000 the Archives will process and release 75 million
pages of agency records for access. What portion of the total
amount of records are backlogged and need processing of that 75
million? Is that a realistic schedule?
Mr. Carlin. Are we talking about classified records?
Mr. Horn. Mostly, yes, it is classified records.
Mr. Carlin. How much progress we make is obviously impacted
by additional responsibilities we are given. We estimate, for
example, the Lott amendment, which will require us to go back
and revisit page by page a lot of records that have already
been declassified and in fact are out on the shelf. The latest
estimate that has been given to me is some 200 million pages
that will have to be gone through page by page which will slow
us down in terms of how much we can get done under the
challenge of declassifying records that have never been
declassified.
As you are well aware, we are heavily dependent upon the
agencies to provide us guidance. If they provide us guidance,
we can do the work. If they do not provide us guidance, then
all we can do is try to facilitate, encourage, support, assist,
fix up a nice room for them, provide them support, bring the
records, encourage them to come down to do the work. What
really gets challenging is where you have multiple equities in
one record where you can get the Air Force to declassify it but
the Army hasn't. So until all the equities have been resolved,
you do not have an open record.
Mr. Horn. On that point, somebody told me a couple of years
ago that we still have some World War I records that have not
been declassified. Is that true?
Mr. Carlin. Yes. And my Deputy would like to comment on
this. We also have the formula for disappearing ink classified.
Although I never ate the right cereal, my Deputy might share
his experience.
Mr. Bellardo. I understand that there are such formulas
available to those who eat the right breakfast cereals. But I
do not know if we can go into further detail than that. The
information is----
Mr. Carlin. My Deputy is much more sensitive to CIA
restrictions than the Archivist. [Laughter.]
Mr. Horn. But who has control over those World War I
records?
Mr. Carlin. The agencies that still maintain an equity in
those records. If they had provided us guidance, they would be
open. But they have not. So by law they have total control.
President Clinton's Executive order--a more aggressive
order than previous Executive orders--put a deadline. But now
there has been and will be a postponement of that deadline and
the new administration ultimately will deal with whether that
deadline will in fact be real or not. But it did put some teeth
in and the massive amount of declassification that has been
done in the last 3 years is directly related to the strong
orders that were issued in that particular Executive order.
Mr. Horn. The Executive order cannot trump a law, so do we
need a law to say that all the records relating to World War I
should be released?
Mr. Carlin. We would certainly be interested in any
legislation that would encourage access. We are as sensitive as
anyone to inappropriate declassification. There have been
multiple discussions in the last few years--as you are well
aware, Mr. Chairman--on ways to take lessons from Executive
orders and put it into the law. There has not been much
progress to this point.
You have been involved and supportive of--Nazi war crimes
records have a particular emphasis right now. We are making
progress in that area and a lot of records are being opened
that would not have been opened without that leadership. But a
more across-the-board systematic approach would be the most
conducive for efficiently dealing with declassifying records in
a way that is appropriate.
Mr. Horn. Should there be a special commission of outsiders
and insiders to do that? Or do we just say, Do it, and forget
about it? Who has the records on World War I? Where are they?
Mr. Carlin. To those agencies that would be responsible, it
would--from our perspective, we would like to have generic
across-the-board guidance that would lead to action rather than
a special committee that would pick and choose. It is less
efficient and we feel ultimately will not serve the best
interest. But we would certainly welcome the opportunity to
discuss what legislation might be able to provide and followup
on the successes and the lessons we have learned from Executive
orders.
Mr. Horn. Does the Archives have the papers from World War
I that have not been declassified? Is it under your custody?
Mr. Carlin. Under our custody to store them, but we do not
have the authority to declassify them ourselves.
Mr. Horn. But you have the records? Or does the Department
of Defense have it?
Mr. Bellardo. We have basically a half dozen documents that
are still classified from World War I. We have many other
records from World War I that are not classified. But I do not
believe that we can with absolutely certainty state that there
are no classified records in an agency's physical custody from
that period. We do not know, so I cannot answer you.
Mr. Horn. Have we ever asked the question of them? It seems
to me, in response to a congressional committee, the Archives
ought to be able to ask the Department of Defense, the military
historians over there, what are the holdings and where they are
held.
Mr. Carlin. I think that is absolutely appropriate and one
of our long-term intentions in changing the culture of NARA to
where, in terms of our relationship with agencies, we are much
more proactive, we are partners with them. One of the issues in
terms of our scheduling reappraisal is the issue of
inventorying the records that exist. It is one of the first
steps an agency needs to take to make sure all the records are
scheduled.
Yes, I think it would be very appropriate for us to work
with agencies to get out on the table and make sure that we
have a better opportunity to address records that have been
held that we are not even aware of.
Mr. Horn. Could you explain for the record the Kyl and Lott
amendments and what impact they can have on the Archives and
your resources?
Mr. Carlin. The Kyl amendment was focused on existing
classified records in the pipeline, records that have not been
declassified. But instead of the traditional way, through
guidance and decisions, using more of a bulk approach, the Kyl
amendment focused on a page-by-page review. When you are
talking about millions and millions of pages of records, the
resource issue changes rather significantly when you go from a
more bulk approach to page-by-page.
We have tried--and are in the process of working out on the
Kyl amendment--a set of procedures which really were assigned
to us as part of that legislation that we sit down and work
with. The focus with the Department of Energy, for the most
part, is that we develop ways to identify where logical focus
ought to be for the page-by-page and reduce the quantity that
must be looked at page-by-page.
I think ultimately we will be successful with that.
The Lott amendment takes the next step, you might say, in
going toward page-by-page review of already declassified
records, records that are out on the shelf, records that have
been in the public arena. There again, we are trying to take a
look at ways we can narrow that universe so that we can have
some kind of consensus on where it is possible, most likely,
that a mistake might have been made, where records that should
not have been declassified in fact are out on the shelf.
It obviously requires an even more significant burden and
certainly puts on the table a set of records that we had
assumed were now open and beyond the challenge of
declassification.
Mr. Horn. What led to this? Was there something that
bothered somebody around here?
Mr. Carlin. What led to this was the concern of premature
release of records, of information in terms of nuclear energy
that were being shared overseas. Some of the scandals that have
been the focus of the last couple of years have caused Members
of Congress--and from that perspective, rightfully so--to
question and be concerned. Out of that came these two concepts
to--on behalf of making sure that records that shouldn't be out
there are not out there.
Mr. Horn. Generally, that judgment would be made, I
presume, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Or would it? Or
would it be made by the defense group within the Department of
Energy?
Mr. Carlin. Now it is a matter of going back to these
entities and working with them. Initially, particularly on
records that are already declassified, they would have been
declassified either by the entity--the agency themselves--or
through guidance they provided to us for us to do the work. So
it is a matter of going back and rechecking work that has
already been done.
In the case of the Kyl amendment, it is a more intense
focus on what has already been done, but done in a broader,
more general way than the page-by-page.
Mr. Horn. Are we talking about hiring a number of nuclear
physicists for the Archives who could understand what is in
those documents?
Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, that is why in most cases--in
this specific example--we will not receive guidance to do it on
our own, but we will be working with the agencies. I think it
would be inappropriate for us to come to Congress and ask for
the resources to have expertise in all the technologies. When
we get into a technology, an area of science like nuclear
energy, that is where we should work with the scientists. But
it is our responsibility to push the envelope and try to bring
them to the table so that in an appropriate way these records
are dealt with and open to the public.
Mr. Horn. I am told that it is possibly 513 million records
that might be subject to the Lott amendment?
Mr. Carlin. That is correct. We are hoping to--through
discussions and negotiations--lower that to about 200 million.
Mr. Horn. And would it be a sampling? Or page-by-page
review? Or how detailed will it be?
Mr. Carlin. It is my understanding that it is to be page-
by-page.
Mr. Horn. Your appropriations committee will be interested
in that.
Mr. Carlin. And we intend to keep them in the loop on this
issue.
Mr. Horn. Let's move to State archives issues for awhile.
You and I have chatted about this and the possibilities of
partnerships. We have some very fine State archives in this
country.
What is the relationship between the National Archives and
the State archives? What could be deposited within those
libraries to save you space for some things that pertain to the
history of that State?
Mr. Carlin. We partner in a variety of ways, Mr. Chairman.
As you are very personally aware, one of the areas is through
the National Historical Publications Records Commission, our
grant-writing entity, where we provide grants to State and
local units to assist them in archival records management
challenges.
The benefit there is multiple--not just to the entity that
receives the grant--but the other State and local entities that
can benefit from what was learned with the carrying out of that
grant. A lot of times there are examples where they have done
demonstration work that has been beneficial to us because our
work is basically the same. So NHPRC is an incredible entity
for us to partner with State and local.
But it is really broader than that because we share not
only similar responsibilities. As I have indicated to you, I am
very much aware, as a former Governor, that much of what is
done at the State and local level is done with Federal money.
But once the responsibility shifts to the State and local
unit--once the money has been delivered--the records that are
created are State and local records. So I have taken a real
interest in a variety of ways of making sure we work together.
When we worked on the standards of the storage of records,
Lew and I worked very closely with inputs from the States and
across the country because they were interested in those
standards. When we have tried to deal with some of the
electronic guidance challenges--they have similar challenges--
we have likewise tried to partner with them to make the most of
the combined resources that we can bring to the table.
In terms of there being a site for the storage of records,
we do have what we call an affiliated archives system. Compared
to what you might be alluding to, it is very modest. But we
have examples of Federal records, archival records, permanent
records that are stored in a non-Federal facility for various
unique reasons--usually a specific collection rather than a
more broader, general purpose.
We do try, in terms of the direction you are headed, to
make sure--where it is good archival practice--to have records
of a particular interest to an area that those records are
deposited in a regional archive rather than a Washington
archival facility.
Mr. Horn. I think there is a lot to that.
You know the Smithsonian is now loaning a number of
artifacts from its collection to university museums, city
museums, and that has been very helpful in broadening the
opportunity for people to look at a particular period of art,
or whatever it is.
Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, we are doing something somewhat
similar, but not in a massive way. We do loan particular
records of significance to a particular area for a time,
assuming preservation security issues can be agreed upon.
Mr. Horn. What do we know at the national level about the
state of various State archives? Is there an accrediting group
to tell us which States are prepared to handle the turning over
of records which pertain to those States?
Mr. Carlin. The bulk of what we know comes through our work
with NHPRC and the State advisory groups that are set up. There
have been, over the years, a number of projects where the
results have provided us some information. As I indicated to
you in a conversation we had last week, we do not have a
program right now where we go out and analyze in depth, State
by State.
I think it could be justified because, as I said earlier,
there is a lot at stake in terms of--purely from a
congressional point of view on accountability for the programs
you pass--being able to document what is really happening with
those programs, you need State and local records to make that
accountability really work.
Mr. Horn. The gentleman from Texas?
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Governor, I wanted to inquire into this issue of archiving
e-mail records. I was interested in your statement about the
ability of the San Diego Supercomputer Center to basically
preserve 2 million e-mail messages in 2 days time. Yet I
understand there are questions about--once you preserve the
records--whether you have the computer system that can then go
read those records.
What is the status? And what is the Archives' position on
preservation of e-mail records by the various agencies? And how
are we going to accomplish that?
Mr. Carlin. First of all, I think it is very important to
understand that the medium on which something is presented,
contained, or printed does not determine whether it is a
record. A record is a record, whether it is on an electronic
system, textual, microfilm, whatever. So the same applications
apply. The unique challenges are there, certainly in terms of
e-mail.
One of the principal issues we are dealing with with the
San Diego Supercomputer Lab is to address what you are really
raising here. Until we have the capacity to not only take in,
preserve, and provide access in an electronic system, we cannot
really have the capacity in that way to deal with e-mail. Now,
in many cases where agencies do not have the electronic
recordkeeping system--which is the bulk of them--they print out
paper. That was part of the discussion with the lawsuit we got
involved in and some of the aspects of that.
But ultimately we want a system by which we can take those
e-mail records in electronically, preserve them, and make them
accessible electronically.
Do you want to add anything?
Mr. Bellardo. Just one of the aspects of this we are
working on this year. We have a prototype that is being built
for the reference end of this set of systems. By the end of
this year, we believe that prototype testing will be complete,
which was basically to determine--once you have it preserved--
how you can make it available for people to use in an on-line
environment. We are very hopeful that this prototype will work
well and that that would feed to the larger project that would
involve all the processes we would have to do to bring the
materials in, to preserve them, to put them in a neutral
environment or hardware/software independent environment, and
then to make them available.
We are excited about this prototype and are looking forward
to seeing how this works out.
Mr. Turner. Since agencies and Presidents have been using
e-mail, how much of it have we preserved? How much do we have
access to? And once you capture it, is it in a form that will
last? Or are there some problems with it deteriorating over
time?
Mr. Carlin. In the case of Presidential records, that is
one of the issues I alluded to earlier indirectly when I said
that we must get there at the beginning of an administration to
get the system set up right. We have gone to extraordinary
means to be able to recapture and ensure documentation that was
created in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. I
think in the end we are going to be successful and we will be
able to say that we have those records and be able to provide
access to them.
But it was not done efficiently and certainly not without
great cost. The bulk of the agencies are printing out e-mail
that are Federal records in paper and we would be dealing with
them, for the most part, in the regular way.
Mr. Turner. That must be a very inefficient way of trying
to preserve those records.
Mr. Carlin. Absolutely. But until we have systems set up to
be able to preserve and provide access long-term, it is the
short-term transition procedure that we must continue to use.
One of the decisions out of the lawsuit was in this area
and policy-wise we made the decision--separate from the
lawsuit--that all program records should be scheduled,
including the electronic copies of records. That is one of the
issues we are working on to carry out ultimately, how we do
that with agencies to make sure that even the electronic copy--
there is an opportunity for the public to comment on how long
it should be kept. If the recordkeeping copy is the textual one
and it is a permanent one, it will be the permanent. But the
decision is that the electronic copy--there should at least be
on program records a review of how long it is kept because it
might in the short-run be very valuable for a period of time.
Mr. Turner. Are the e-mail records of past Presidents
available at the Presidential libraries today?
Mr. Carlin. They will be, as the law provides and
processing has taken place, yes.
Mr. Turner. In hard copy? Or is it available in some
accessible form on the computer?
Mr. Carlin. I think there will be some electronic access,
yes.
Mr. Bellardo. Until we have a full system in place, we will
be basically using simple viewers for people to be able to view
the messages. The next step beyond that would be moving this
prototype to an operational pilot and then a full-blown
reference system. That is a few years out.
The first step would be simply to be able to view them as
opposed to having very sophisticated searching capabilities and
so forth. But that is being built. It is certainly the case for
Reagan, Bush, and Clinton--their records will be in electronic
form and not just on paper.
In fact, we have just worked out an agreement with the
Office of Administration relating to the transfer of formats
and processes by which we will get the Clinton e-mail. You can
see why we are so excited about this prototype. We want it to
work.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
Let me pursue a few closing questions here on this panel
and then we will have the GAO and others come forward.
Just for the record, what is the current funding level of
the National Historical Publication and Records Commission?
Mr. Carlin. For the basic program, it is $6 million.
Mr. Horn. Has that changed at all over time?
Mr. Carlin. The current fiscal year will be the second year
at the $6 million level. It has gone from $4 million to $5
million to $5.5 million to $6 million.
Mr. Horn. How much money could we use there?
Mr. Carlin. I think it depends a lot on whether the program
is reevaluated and redesigned. There is some interest across
the country among State archivists at taking a bigger picture
look at particularly their records management challenges in the
State and local areas. At this point, based on applications
that come in, we are able to fund almost all of the quality
projects. We seldom turn down.
In fairness, a lot of the not so acceptable are screened
out before they even come to the NHPRC. So if you were to look
at the total universe in terms of ideas being proposed, we
would not be funding almost 100 percent. But of the ideas that
come through the screening process of the advisory committees,
the current level takes care of the funding.
That does not mean it takes care of all the need. But the
way the current program is designed, it takes care of those who
apply.
Mr. Horn. Could you just file, for the record, the number
of projects that are underway now and the ones that were
completed in the last 2 years so we can get a feel for what
type of work--I assume it is getting together, say, papers for
a particular person in American history and this kind of thing.
Mr. Carlin. It is divided into two areas, generally, the
documentary side. I believe the last I can recall of last
fiscal year there were about 43 or 44 projects. The other half
is in the records management archival area and I think there
were 30 projects. The average grant is in the neighborhood of
$72,000.
The big documentary projects that take larger sums and a
variety of other projects--I think there are 43 or 44
documentary projects in operation at this point.
Mr. Horn. Without objection, that information will be put
in the record.
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Mr. Horn. Could you tell me what partnerships, if any, the
Archives has developed with the Library of Congress? Is there a
duplication of effort here?
Mr. Carlin. We have no official partnership. We have many
unofficial ones. Dr. Billington and I work very closely
together and communicate as much as our separate agendas and
challenges allow. We both recognize that in a previous time
there was some overlapping activity. As you are well aware, the
Library has a much longer history. The Archives did not come
into play until the mid-1930's. So it is understandable from
earlier donated papers that the Library would have some records
that if we had been in existence from day one would have come
to the National Archives.
We really have two very separate distinguishable missions.
We deal with records and they deal with manuscripts, use of
records, what has been done with them, personal donations, et
cetera, a broader role they have extended to the world. We are
limited and focused on Federal records, U.S. Federal records.
Dr. Billington and I have discussed the possibility, if our
schedules ever allow, sitting down and talking about some of
the records and some of the non-records that need to be shifted
back and forth for a more appropriate placing.
I do not see any duplication in terms of our day-to-day
actions.
Mr. Horn. As I understand the National Technical
Information System at the Department of Commerce was closed
down and the documents of that department went to the Library
of Congress. As part of a Federal agency, wouldn't it be more
appropriate to go to the National Archives to receive those
documents?
Mr. Carlin. First of all, for the record, the Department
has recommended closing down NTIS. It is still dependent upon
action of Congress. My staff communicate to me that action is
unlikely this year. Our interest is in the records of that
entity. I have discussed personally with both the Secretary of
Commerce and Dr. Billington and we have universal agreement
that the Federal Records Law will apply to NTIS, that those
that are scheduled permanent will come to the National Archives
and that the function--if the idea that has been put on the
table is carried out--would be one of distribution for the
Library of Congress.
Mr. Horn. Has the Archives recommended improvements for the
Presidential Records Act? Is there a need for that?
Mr. Carlin. I have under review a recommendation for the
Presidential facilities. There is the Presidential Records Act
and then one that deals with the facilities, the actual
libraries that gets into the endowment area. I do have under
review some ideas for change that at the appropriate time I
would welcome the opportunity to discuss them with you.
Mr. Horn. We would welcome that because I think the
Presidential libraries are a great institution. I know some
want to have everything deposited in Washington, but I do not.
I don't think you understand President Eisenhower unless you go
to Abilene. I think it is good to go to the Carter Library. I
have enjoyed the Lyndon Johnson Library, pharaoh-like though it
is. I have found the people very helpful in these libraries on
various types of research.
Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, in regard to your comment about
Austin, changes have been made since then, as you are well
aware of, and you have been a part of making those changes. We
have worked very hard as an agency to develop better facilities
standards so that the facilities that are built are efficient
and right for the Federal Government to accept. So some of the
problems that have occurred--through no fault of anyone,
necessarily, but just because of a lack of experience and
guidance--I think we are working to correct those. I want to
explore further ways we can develop that system so that--I
agree with you that it is an excellent system and I want to do
everything that I can to assure that it continues
appropriately.
Mr. Horn. Now on the renovation of the National Archives
building, the main one downtown, and the reencasement of the
Charters of Freedom. What is the time schedule for renovation
of the building and the reencasement of the Charters of
Freedom?
Mr. Carlin. We had resources from the Congress as well as a
foundation grant to do work on the reencasement in fiscal year
1999 and have made a lot of progress. Adrienne Thomas can
comment in much more depth.
We also had in fiscal year 1999 the money to do the design
concept for the renovation of our main building downtown.
Currently, in our 2000 budget that has been signed by the
President, we have the resources to take what we call the pre-
construction steps--final design as well as some initial
physical work on the facility to build some office, what we
call swing-space--so that we can do the renovation and keep the
main functions of the building open during the 2-year
renovation. We will be ready to start that in February of next
year. It is our goal, if continued support from the
administration and Congress comes for final renovation, that we
would begin the renovation in February 2001.
Adrienne, do you have anything else you would like to add?
Ms. Thomas. I just would say that the rotunda part of the
building, where the charters are displayed, will have to close
to the public for some period of time because we are going to
be doing some major work in that area. But the rest of the
building, in terms of research and so forth, will be open. The
closing of the rotunda does not happen until July 2001. Then we
hope to reopen approximately 2 years later. Actually, we are
looking at Constitution Day as an appropriate time for
reopening.
Mr. Horn. Everything around here takes 2 years. I noticed
the east steps of the House could be done in 2 months, not 2
years. The lady that sits on top of the dome took 2 years. And
so it goes.
Is there a magic number there?
Ms. Thomas. I think there must be.
Mr. Horn. Is there any way that the Constitution, the
Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights could be
put somewhere in the Archives?
Ms. Thomas. There is some work to be done on the charters.
They have been on display since 1952, since they were moved
from the Library of Congress to the National Archives. We began
the encasement project because the glass of the cases was
deteriorating and we were concerned about that impact on the
documents, since the documents rest directly against the glass.
We were concerned about whether or not the seals on the cases
have been maintained for that period of time, or whether the
original helium gas that had been inserted into the cases had
leaked out. We weren't sure.
Part of the process will be not only to build new state-of-
the-art encasements for the charters, but also for our very
talented conservator staff to take the documents out of the old
cases, take them off display, and do a careful assessment of
what possible conservation methods might need to be applied to
the documents.
So there is a period of time where they are off display
when we are working on them and the conservators are looking at
them.
Mr. Horn. On that point, is there a set time in the
future--let's say 100 years from now--that all of that ink
would fade no matter what you do? How assured are you that it
will not fade?
Ms. Thomas. Hundreds of years? I don't know.
Mr. Carlin. They will be there 100 years from now. But if
you start talking 1,000 years, as my Deputy has reminded me
from time to time, eventually everything will disintegrate,
regardless what you do.
Ms. Thomas. But we are taking all sorts of steps in terms
of UV filtration and protection of the documents.
Mr. Horn. What are the new techniques? Would you put helium
back into the case?
Ms. Thomas. Actually, we are going to use argon, which is
another inert gas but has larger molecules, so it is more
difficult for it to leak out if there is any possible leakage.
Mr. Horn. Has somebody tried that with existing documents
that are not the Constitution?
Ms. Thomas. Yes.
Mr. Horn. And there has been no damage in the changeover?
Ms. Thomas. No, none at all.
Mr. Carlin. There is the signature page that we have had a
chance to work with. There is the one page that has never been
displayed, the transmittal page, which is the same age, same
paper, same everything. It will be the one that we will try
first in the new encasements.
Ms. Thomas. As a matter of fact, the conservators are today
taking the transmittal page out of the old encasement and will
start their process of reviewing the document and determining
whether anything needs to be done. The first prototype casement
is supposed to be delivered in December. So probably by the end
of January the transmittal page will be placed in its new
encasement. For the next 6 to 8 months after that, they are
going to observe the transmittal page as a test case.
Mr. Horn. What does the transmittal page say? ``Dear
Continental Congress, John Adams, change some of my words'', or
what?
Ms. Thomas. No, it is ``Here delivered is the Constitution
of the United States, signed George Washington.'' It is not
much more than that.
Mr. Carlin. It has George Washington's signature in terms
of value. But it does give us something to work with that will
be incredibly valuable long-term in terms of the meat of the
subject matter.
Mr. Horn. So the Declaration of Independence does not have
a transmittal page?
Ms. Thomas. No.
Mr. Horn. That is what I thought you were talking about.
Mr. Carlin. No, it was the transmittal page for the
Constitution.
Mr. Horn. Well, it is interesting. So you are saying we
have a refurbished view of that in 2002.
Ms. Thomas. Yes.
Mr. Horn. Now on the money, what do you use the private
money for and what do you use the governmental Federal money
for?
Mr. Carlin. What we have basically done with the Federal
money is the basic things that you would have to do to renovate
a building. We are not using private money to do any of the
mechanical work, handicapped access, et cetera. We are using
the private money to enhance the experience of those who use
the building, generally, under an educational-type direction.
The one exception that fits there is the murals that are in the
rotunda. There is no Federal money to take care of the murals.
We will raise private money to take care of them. They are
badly in need of a lot of work. In fact, the latest estimate
could be as high as $3 million just to work on the murals.
We would like to build a permanent exhibit that would put
context to those documents, to make the experience more than a
religious one for those who visit the rotunda. We will do that
with private money, paralleling the division of labor we have
with the Presidential Library System where permanent exhibits
are filled with private money. Generally, we are using the
private money to enhance the experience to make it more
valuable, to complement the tremendous support from the
Congress and the administration to do all the fundamentals, the
basics.
Mr. Horn. How much has the PEW Foundation spent on this?
Mr. Carlin. They gave us $800,000. The Congress
appropriated $4 million. Those two sums take us well into and
beyond the initial reencasement work.
Mr. Horn. That is great. PEW is a wonderful foundation.
They have done so many constructive things in the last 5 years
that relate to government. I am very impressed by them.
Mr. Carlin. I certainly concur.
Mr. Horn. Let me move now to the revolving fund and then we
will move to the next panel.
I guess when you look at the reimbursable revolving fund--
do you think that will mean you have lost significant amounts
of business from the agencies when they do not want to
participate in the revolving fund? How does that work?
Mr. Carlin. The way it will work is the agencies will make
a choice as to whether they want to continue to do business
with us, or in some cases we have an example or two that has
been in the private sector that is now going to switch to us.
But the standards and the processes will be the same. The
agency will have to certify that their records--if they choose
their own facility or a private vendor--that they meet the
standards we have established, that we will be meeting and will
be taking care of their records based on those standards.
We think also that, because they will be paying for a
service--the Federal Government for the first time--they will
look at the records in a little bit different fashion. In fact,
we will actually learn more about the records, establish a much
more in depth relationship with the agencies, and from a cost-
efficiency perspective, may together agree that some schedules
on temporary records are too long, that the retention period
should be shortened.
This obviously would be done with public comment and
careful analysis, but I am quite sure we will find examples
where 30-year temporary records--it could be 20 years--saving a
considerable amount of resources in the process.
I think on balance we will have a much more positive,
productive relationship as it relates to records because we
will have--in an indirect way--raised the value of records and
their importance.
Mr. Horn. Well, if they are going to go the private
facilities route, will anybody from the Archives check on it to
see that it meets your standards?
Mr. Carlin. The system is set up, putting the burden on the
agency, to certify us that if they choose to go to a private
vendor that that private vendor is meeting the same standards
that would be in a Federal records center. Obviously, if
someone raises an issue, question, or concern, we will check
into it. We felt it was the more efficient route, initially, to
put the burden on the Federal agencies.
Mr. Chairman, as I have shared with you, one of the big
differences we are finding in terms of standards deals with
fire and the standards that apply to protect us from loss.
Mr. Horn. That is what I am thinking of, the Santa Barbara
Museum, when it was rebuilt, has a marvelous system to prevent
any damage to the paintings by foam and so forth.
Does the Archives have that now?
Mr. Carlin. Yes. Tragically, we learned it the hard way. I
guess it would be fair to say that we did not learn it in 1921
when we lost the 1890 census. But the fire, where we lost the
top floor of military personnel records in Saint Louis--after
that we developed standards which focused on not just the
facility, but the contents, to limit the loss. We cannot
magically eliminate fires, but when the standards focus as well
on content, then you can reduce--our standard is to limit the
loss to 300 cubic feet. That is a big difference when you think
that many facilities might have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000, or
400,000 cubic feet of records. If the standards are focused on
the facility, the contents will be likely lost.
We are finding that is a significant difference between us
and the private sector, although not exclusively. We are
finding that the private sector, in many cases, with the
support of their clients, are not as concerned about the
contents as we are as the responsible agency for protecting the
records of the Federal Government.
Mr. Horn. I am glad you mentioned the Saint Louis
situation. Almost every day in our district office, we have 600
cases at any point in time and 10 might clear today and 10 more
come in. A lot of it is based on not finding the records of the
military in the Saint Louis fire.
Mr. Carlin. We have made some progress in reconstructing
records, but obviously it was a tragedy that we will pay a
price for forever.
Mr. Horn. Is there anything else you can do to make sure of
the preservation of records?
Was that an internal combustion fire at Saint Louis? Man-
made? Or what?
Mr. Carlin. I do not know if we know exactly. We definitely
know the facility was not designed to put the fire out. The
only thing that kept it from being even more of a serious
tragedy is that it was a well-constructed building so that the
fifth floor down was able to hold all the water that was being
put up there and not simply collapse the building--which would
have taken all the records.
Ms. Thomas. But it had no sprinkler system.
Mr. Horn. No foam?
Ms. Thomas. Nothing like that. No fire suppression system.
Mr. Horn. I thank you. And if you can stay a little while
longer, I would like you to participate, perhaps in panel two.
Mr. Carlin. We will stay, Mr. Chairman. I would just say in
closing, thank you very much. You, your colleagues, Congressman
Turner, staff--you are most welcome to visit anytime. I issue a
specific invitation, as we go through the reencasement--if you
would like to view or see directly what new technology is
coming, let us know and we will set it up.
Mr. Horn. One more question comes to mind, which is the
Ellis Island situation, where they are going to put on the
records of immigrants that came here and there will be computer
access. Is the Archives involved in that at all? Or is that
strictly Immigration?
Mr. Carlin. We are involved. I cannot recall exactly, but
there have been several projects--at least a couple of major
projects--up there that have competed and now it has been
sorted out. Particularly our regional office is connected in
terms of how that all is going to work out because we have--of
course, one of our most useful and valuable records are our
Immigration and Naturalization records.
Mr. Horn. Right, and your shipping records.
Mr. Carlin. Yes.
Mr. Horn. Well, let's call panel two forward. That's Mr.
Nye Stevens, the Director of Federal Management and Work Force
Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; Page Putnam Miller,
executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of
History, representing the Organization of American Historians;
Stanley Katz, vice president for research, American Historical
Association; and H. Thomas Hickerson, associate university
librarian for information technology, Cornell University, and
president, Society of American Archivists.
Please come forward and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. Were there any subordinates behind you who were
going to speak, too?
All four of the new witnesses have taken the oath.
Mr. Stevens, we always respect the GAO reports, so if you
can summarize that for us, we would be grateful.
STATEMENTS OF L. NYE STEVENS, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL MANAGEMENT AND
WORKFORCE ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; PAGE PUTNAM
MILLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE
PROMOTION OF HISTORY, REPRESENTING THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN
HISTORIANS; STANLEY KATZ, VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH, AMERICAN
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION; AND H. THOMAS HICKERSON, ASSOCIATE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, CORNELL
UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN ARCHIVISTS
Mr. Stevens. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief.
As you know, we have done a report on National Archives:
The Challenge of Electronic Records Management, sometimes
referred to as ERM. Our report shows that the Archives and the
Federal agencies face five general challenges in managing their
records in an electronic format. The first is just the sheer
volume of these records. Some agencies, by themselves are
generating each year 10 times as much e-mail as the total
amount of electronic data files that were sent to NARA over the
past quarter of a century.
The second challenge we think is definitional. Just what
constitutes an electronic record? The old definition of a
record was complicated enough, even when it presumed a
permanent format. Distinguishing and separating material with
permanent value from the temporary and ephemeral raises a
plethora of questions.
The third challenge is because agencies follow no uniform
hardware or software standards, NARA has to be capable of
accepting a wide variety of formats from the agencies, and it
has to have the capability of reading those records in a wide
variety of formats.
Preserving long-term access to these records is the fourth
challenge, and perhaps the most difficult. The average life of
a typical software product is about 2 to 5 years. NARA needs to
be able to preserve the records and notably the capability of
reading them long after the hardware and the software on which
they are based is obsolete.
Then finally, since NARA shares responsibility for records
management with Federal agencies, developing and disseminating
guidance to agencies is another long-term challenge for NARA.
The existing guidance simply has not yet caught up with the
universal deployment of personal computers. There used to be
thousands of file clerks in the Government whose job was to
identify, classify, and preserve records. Today, that duty is
much more disbursed and individual professionals with PCs are
the front-line of records management, and they need guidance in
how to carry out those duties and responsibilities.
No one really knows the state of the agencies' adaptation
to the needs of managing their records in an electronic
environment. Our limited work at a few of them show that some
agencies are waiting for more specific guidance from NARA and
others are moving forward on their own. The Defense Department
has perhaps done the most. NARA has endorsed the DOD software
standard as a tool that other agencies can use as a model until
the final policy is developed by NARA.
In doing our work, we were struck by the absence of
Government-wide information on the records management
capabilities and programs of Federal agencies outside the NARA
orbit--this is the issue that you have alluded to--because NARA
had intended to do a baseline assessment survey to collect this
kind of data on all agencies by the end of this fiscal year and
the information was to be collected on the infrastructure of
the records management activity, on internal guidance, on
training, on implementation of the schedule process--a number
of areas.
However, as you know, NARA has decided to postpone this
effort to concentrate on the business process reengineering--
the BPR you have talked about. We believe that the information
they would get from this baseline survey would really be a
necessary ingredient to doing the BPR in as sophisticated and
comprehensive a way as it needs to be done. We think that
conducting the survey now could provide valuable input to the
business process reengineering itself. It could help fulfill
one of NARA's own strategic goals to stay abreast of the
technologies in the agencies. And it would put NARA and the
rest of the Government in a better position in later years to
assess the results of the business process reengineering and to
put the agencies themselves as--we simply just don't know yet
right now what other agencies are doing.
I would just like to conclude, Mr. Chairman, with a single
observation that your initiative in holding this hearing is
welcome and is far-sighted. Since NARA became an independent
agency in 1985, neither Congress, nor the President, nor OMB,
nor GAO for that matter, has placed a high priority on
oversight of NARA's functions. The challenges I just mentioned
in preserving our documentary heritage for the use of future
generations really are profound and Congress is going to have
to be a part of any solution to them.
I conclude and will respond to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stevens follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We thank you very much on that.
We will hear from all the witnesses and then open it up to
questions.
At this point, we will have our next presenter, which is
Page Putnam Miller, the executive director, National Committee
for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization of
American Historians.
Ms. Miller. Thank you very much, Representative Horn.
I have been following the National Archives for almost 20
years and have attended almost every hearing that has been held
in Congress dealing with the Archives. I can attest that there
have been no oversight hearings that are broadly geared to the
operation of the Archives. There have been some hearings when
there has been a fire, or when there have been questions about
a particular program. We are so appreciative of your holding
this hearing and of your commitment, as has previously been
said, to giving attention to this very important agency.
I am representing today the Organization of American
Historians, which is basically made up of history professors
who teach at the college and university level. So I want to
address my comments today to issues of research and to access
of records. If records are not used, you wonder why they should
be preserved and kept.
One of the keys to using records are good finding aids. To
put this in perspective, if you put all the records for the
National Archives for Archives I and II--not the Presidential
libraries or the records center--on a shelf, that shelf would
extend 650 miles. You can imagine how difficult it is for a
researcher to know where to go to find records without good
finding aids.
Our dream for the National Archives and part of the
Archives' strategic plan--and you mentioned it earlier--is to
have a series level description of all the holdings by 2007. A
series is generally records that are similar in characteristic.
For instance, it may be the correspondence of an Under
Secretary for an office for a certain period of time. But you
need some description of what is in this series. A series may
be many, many boxes of records. So the series level
description--which is sometimes called the reference quality
description--is so important to us.
But at present about 30 percent of the holdings of the
National Archives do not have a series level description. This
is a backlog that has developed. It goes back to the 1950's and
1960's. There has been a long backlog of basic description. So
when Archivist John Carlin was talking about populating the
archival catalog, the on-line catalog, he is talking about
entering the descriptions of these series of records.
Our concern is that you have a big enough problem in
scanning in descriptions that are on paper to put into the
computerized series, but what about the records for which no
description has ever been written that is of research quality?
The Archives has a locator file that provides very basic
intellectual control of records, but this is not research
quality.
So haveing good finding aids is one of our major concerns.
It is our thought--and you began to get at this when you asked
about requests from OMB--that the Archives has at present
included information on 10 percent of the records into this
computerized finding aid and to get to 100 percent in just 7
years, when you have a 30 percent backlog in basic description,
there is going to need to be a real infusion of staff time.
This is archival staff that have expertise in records that
would be needed.
So we have concerns about the state of that finding aid. To
have the finding aid on-line would mean that researchers across
the country would know whether it is worth their while to make
the trip to Washington. So that is so important.
Another aspect of access that I would like to mention is
declassification. We are pleased that the Executive order has
resulted in so many agencies declassifying records and
transferring them to the National Archives. We know that in
fiscal year 1997 there were 204 million records transferred. In
fiscal year 1998 there were 193 million records. But when these
records are declassified by an agency and sent to the National
Archives, for a researcher to have access to them--and this is
my issue, access to the records for researchers--the Archives
has to process them. And to process them, they need to open
each box, take out the record that still needs to be
classified, put these in a secure area, put a marker in that
file to show that a record has been removed, and then they need
to prepare the description and develop the finding aid.
So as successful as the Executive order is in having
records declassified and transferred, we as users will not have
access to these until they are processed. The Archives has put
in the strategic plan for the year 2000 processing 75 million
records which is a significant amount. But in that pipeline
there are 200 million records. So here again we are concerned
about the backlog that will be building up. As agencies do
their work on the Executive order there will be more required
for the National Archives.
We love to hear these figures about agencies declassifying
records, but we know that as researchers we still will not see
those records until the Archives has been able to process them.
And that is another very labor-intensive task that concerns us.
A final point I would like to make on access deals with the
National Historical Publications and Records Commission. I am
glad that you have been able to spend some time today talking
about the NHPRC because that is the part of the National
Archives that deals with non-Federal records. Certainly for
historians, we are interested in Federal records, but also non-
Federal records. The NHPRC has had a wonderful record over the
years of leveraging private funds, 50 percent generally from
private sources, and matching that and letting the donors of
the private funds know that these are very good projects.
I would like to note that in 1976 the appropriation for
NHPRC for grants was $4 million. That was a long time ago, over
20 years ago. Now they are up to $6 million. But this small
agency that does this important work has really fallen so far
behind from 1976 in being able to keep up with inflation and do
the work. I would followup on the point that Archivist Carlin
made regarding the grant applications.
NHPRC staff works very differently from the NEH staff on
working with applicants. NHPRC's staff are very knowledgeable.
They have specialists in different areas like electronic
records and research. In working with the applicants, if they
know that according to their guidelines, and according to the
amount of money there is, there is really no money for that
project, they will convey that to the applicants. I do not
think the number of applications is necessarily an indication
of the appropriation level because we know from the state of
State archives and the archives across the country that there
is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done. We would
like to encourage increased funding for NHPRC and a hard look
at that small agency and what it is able to do.
In closing, I would just say that the access issues are
very varied. It is not just the delivery of materials to
researchers in the research room but the describing of records,
the processing of records that have been declassified, and then
through grants to NHPRC made available for research. So we are
hopeful that the Archives can have some increased staff to deal
with these very severe backlogs.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Miller follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Thank you. You have made some good suggestions.
We now have Dr. Stanley Katz, vice president for research,
American Historical Association.
Mr. Katz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to be here. I can be very brief, I think.
I would also like to begin by thanking you and the
subcommittee for undertaking these hearings. They are
enormously important to all of us who are concerned about the
National Archives. I would additionally like to thank Governor
Carlin and his staff. They have an almost impossible task, a
huge number of records, technological problems that now exist,
declassification--it is a daunting challenge. Over the last few
years, since Governor Carlin has been there, there have been
noticeable improvements at the Archives and we are very
grateful for that.
The one thing I wanted to address myself to is the question
of the revolving fund, the reimbursable fund. Governor Carlin
has spoken to that earlier and we think we do understand the
general intention and value the intention of the Archives in
this new project. We can understand why it comes about. It
seems attractive as a way to relieve the budget of the National
Archives. But we have concerns about whether it could really
work in the way that the Archives hopes it will work.
The simple argument is that we are concerned whether it is
consistent with what we take to be general inclination of human
nature. We think that there will be a temptation on the part of
agencies working within or without the rules to reduce the
number of materials they actually have to pay for in order to
store. It seems reasonable to expect that a rational actor
would look for such strategies.
And while we do appreciate that there are going to be
undertakings required by the agencies that they or private
vendors will comply with NARA's standards, we are not sure that
there is any adequate way of enforcing those guidelines.
Indeed, we think that the problem of the Archives for a long
time has been that Congress has never given it very effective
enforcement mechanisms. This is another area that is not the
fault of the Archives, but is the fault of the legal structure
under which they work.
We value Governor Carlin's commitment to effective records
management and to the maintenance of records storage standards.
But it is this question of enforcement that we worry about. So
we hope that in the quarterly reports you are requiring now
some thought can be given to the kinds of information you could
request that would enable both NARA and the oversight committee
to make some judgments about what is actually going on.
For instance, it would be useful to have the estimates of
both NARA and the agencies as to how many cubic feet of
materials they actually have. It would be very good, from our
point of view, to have the baseline study to know what is
actually out there--or as nearly as possible what is out there.
I am sure there are other things. I am not an archivist
myself. I am sure there is other technical information that
could be provided and we hope that you would look into that.
Our concern is that records be neither destroyed nor neglected
for fear that agency budgets will suffer.
I would like to close by simply saying that I think there
are some interesting examples out there of what has happened in
other countries. I visited New Zealand 5 or 6 years ago. At the
time they had privatized their government. I spent a day at
their national archives. The archivist was very concerned--
every agency was going on a pay-your-own-way basis--and she
said, ``We don't have much to sell.'' I think NARA is in that
situation here.
I hope that in trying to make it possible for NARA to use
the moneys it does have better, that we are not going to
endanger Federal records.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Katz follows:]
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Mr. Horn. You are quite welcome.
We face a situation here where we have a 15-minute vote
followed by a 5-minute vote. So before we hear Mr. Hickerson--
it is going to take at least 20 minutes to 30 minutes--if you
don't mind, we will try to reassemble here at 12:40 or so,
which would give you a chance to eat a swift lunch in the
gourmet Rayburn cafeteria, which is right below us on the
basement floor.
I regret that we have several votes over there, so we must
recess this now and be back at roughly 12:40, I think.
[Recess.]
Mr. Horn. We will hear Mr. Hickerson, then we will have a
dialog.
Mr. Hickerson. Thank you very much, Congressman Horn.
First I want to say what an honor it is for me to be able
to participate in these hearings on the critical issues and the
success of the National Archives and Records Administration.
While, as you have alluded to, in the United States the
responsibility of maintaining the archival record is broadly
distributed among State and municipal archives, university,
corporate, and religious repositories, research libraries, and
historical societies and museums, no institution other than the
National Archives is so central and fundamental to the rights
of every citizen and to the process of democratic governance.
So it is a pleasure for me to be able to participate here.
My professional background includes 30 years of active
involvement in archival practice as well as my extensive
leadership in the archival profession, including my current
services as president of the Society of American Archivists,
and also my extensive service at Cornell University both in the
area of archival and rare book and digital collection
management and in information technology management generally.
I am also here as a citizen of the United States.
I could say a great deal about the profession, but I will
jump to those issues that you specifically asked me to address,
which are electronic records and the application of new
technologies.
I must start out by saying that I think Governor Carlin has
done a great deal for the improvement of the National Archives'
program during his time administering this program. I, however,
am not quite as optimistic regarding the state of electronic
records today. I think we do have a crisis. I refer to it as
the Y2K that will not go away next year or the next or the
next.
In 1990, the House Committee on Government Operations
issued a report called ``Taking a Byte Out of History: The
Archival Preservation of Federal Computer Records''. In that
report, they outlined the many difficulties inherent in the
selection, maintenance, and use of records in electronic form.
Unfortunately, while that report offered a very perceptive
picture of the crisis of the moment, it was not an action-
oriented document. No new research was funded. No new programs
were put in place. So we do not yet have a scaleable working
model of a system for realistically addressing these issues.
Although NARA has not solved this issue, there are a whole
lot of us that have failed. First off, the technology industry
has not helped us in this area. It has not been in their best
interest to stress the impermanence of digital records. So it
is not surprising that they have not been out there on the
front line. They periodically call attention to the media and
the permanence of that media, but as Mr. Stevens alluded to,
that is not the primary issue in being able to maintain access
to records over time.
There is relatively little Government-funded research
addressing this issue. Specific examples include the $24
million that the National Science Foundation and other agencies
gave out 4 years ago in the National Digital Library
Initiative, phase one process. None of the six funded projects
explicitly addressed the preservation of those electronic
records. In the latest round for DLI-2, the National Endowment
for the Humanities and the Library of Congress played a more
active role in the process and stressed those issues, but
nonetheless, out of 33 funded projects there were only two that
explicitly focus on long-term access and preservation.
I would like to read the comments William Ferris made in
talking about the Cornell project. He said, ``NEH, the National
Science Foundation, and other Federal agencies have begun the
process by funding a pioneering, $2.3 million preservation
project at Cornell University. This project will develop a
standard way of organizing computerized collections, preventing
data loss in these collections by alerting managers to the
periodic need to upgrade ageing CD-ROMs and tapes, and making
the collections fully accessible on the Internet. All Americans
will benefit because the project will ensure that computerized
materials important for the study of America will be preserved
and accessible for generations to come.''
While I appreciate Bill Ferris' kind and generous words of
confidence, Cornell's project will not save the day. It will
only contribute to a process that needs many other
participants. Additionally he described it as a ``pioneering''
project. That is true, but it should not be. We are all behind
the curve on this issue. We are probably as much as a decade
behind where we should be at this point in time.
Nor in the corporate sector has a great deal of progress
been made in spite of the obvious permeation of this need
across the entire spectrum of corporate and business operation.
I think one of the reasons for that is that corporate
archivists have often been responsible for paper records, but
systems professionals have been the ones responsible for
electronic records. They have not had an archival perspective
on their job. The result has been that when we moved to an
environment in which almost all records are generated in
electronic form--or a large segment thereof--we do not have an
archival perspective or incorporate archival value into the
process.
I can see a 500,000-person sub-industry developing around
this very issue in the next 10 years.
So this does suggest that in spite of real headway NARA is
making at this point in time--particularly through the San
Diego Supercomputer Project--that we are just now beginning. I
wish we had been here in 1992 instead of 1999.
I would like to add one other comment on technological
issues but let me jump back and say just one thing on the 2000
census issue. For me, this is an indication that the
preservation of records is not just a technology issue. The
issue is: How will the users be able to use that information?
So we have social, technological, and economic issues combined
in the decisions we are making today. We have to have some
working models in place that actually provide usable records
for the user for us to guide us in making the technological
decisions.
I apologize for the digression, but I think it is an
important one.
I will conclude my comments by saying that I think that
more of the information from the National Archives that is in
existing paper and image form should be made available
digitally. I know that at this point in time Governor Carlin
has chosen to focus a good deal of resources on the electronic
records issue. However, I think the American public and the
global public expects to have access to significant portions of
the archival record in the classrooms, in the lecture halls, in
the libraries, offices, homes, and in the wireless generation,
every place.
This relates to your reference to cooperation with the
Library of Congress. Perhaps in this process, the National
Archives might work in explicit cooperation with the Library of
Congress or with university repositories or State repositories,
using common systems for distributing access to digital
information.
I have extended beyond my time, I suspect, so I will wrap
up by saying that I greatly appreciated the cooperation that
Governor Carlin has initiated with the leadership of the
Society of American Archivists. We have never had such an
effective and synergistic relationship. I personally thank him
a good deal for that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hickerson follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you. That is a very worthwhile
presentation.
Governor, you have heard the testimony here. Is there
anything you would like to say to some of these questions that
have been raised? I am particularly interested in what your
person power projections are in terms of getting the
descriptors that Ms. Miller mentioned and the degree to which
scanning technology can help you in getting the right
descriptors.
Mr. Carlin. As I said earlier in regards to populating the
catalog and carrying out what Ms. Miller is very interested
in--as well as us--I cannot say today what that might mean from
a resource perspective. I always believe in maximizing existing
resources first rather than making the first task coming to you
and asking for more. We have done a lot of work and have a lot
of people work in this area in what is referred to as the old
way. We are converting to a new way.
We have just hired three data standards experts staff to
come on and help us. We want to really improve our descriptive
standards in such a way that there is uniformity. As you go
electronic, you no longer can have differences. So there is a
lot of basic work that needs to be done before we would be in a
position to say that we need more help.
I can assure you--just as I did when I was sworn in as
Archivist--I would not hesitate to come and ask for help when I
felt like it was legitimately needed.
On the second issue you raised, as far as scanning, we have
taken a different approach than the Library of Congress. Our
focus has been to scan and digitize a cross-section of very
valuable, often requested records. The current project, which
we completed in the early part of this calendar year, scanned
and digitized and put up about 125,000 documents.
We intend to then focus, as we are now, on the catalog,
which would be a total comprehensive catalog. We would then
link to these digitized examples so that researchers could see
at least a sample of what they might be able to work with if
they were to work directly with the records. As far as
expanding beyond that, our philosophy is that given focused
interest on highly used records, that we will explore further
scanning digitization if we can also find the resources--or
know where the resources are going to be--to maintain that
effort.
Our experience, as well as looking at other research, tells
us that the initial cost of going through the process of
selecting, scanning, digitizing, and putting up on the Internet
an existing non-digital record--but getting it in the digital
form--the cost of maintaining that will almost duplicate the
initial cost every 10 years. That is a scary challenge, which
has led us to decide that if we are going to put more up, we
are going to have the maintenance endowed up front.
If someone comes with an idea of private support, it will
not be just to do the first effort, but to maintain it. I know
from experience the excitement of getting up some wonderful
collection, which may raise private dollars, when you talk
about maintaining that collection, there will not be quite the
excitement because there will not be a press release or a news
conference announcing that we got the resource to keep it up.
So we have taken a more conservative approach out of fear that
we could get to the point where we wouldn't be able to sustain
what we put up.
Now born digital is a whole different ball game. But what
we are really talking about here is the non-born digital that
requires extensive work and expense over time to accommodate
what is--I agree 100 percent--there is a great deal of interest
and demand out there. But I also want to respond in a realistic
and appropriate way and not get ourselves into a commitment we
cannot sustain.
Mr. Horn. Any reaction by members of the panel?
Mr. Hickerson. I have said this in conversation with John
Carlin. I think that an agency with the role of the National
Archives cannot afford not to make material available via
digital networks. I agree that it is an expensive process.
However, I think we really have to accept that the 21st century
is a very different world than the 20th was and that there will
be an expectation that such materials--or certain small
portions, perhaps statistically small portions of them--will be
made available. And there is such potential for remarkable use
out there in that form. I think it is one of those things that
you cannot afford not to do.
I think the transition--and I can speak to Cornell
University's transition in moving from a library of 6 million
books and 40,000 cubic feet of records to a repository also
including 2,000 electronic resources and 2 million images
accessible in networked fashion--moving the money as well as
the conceptual thinking of the staff and the institutional
mandate--to incorporate a very different view of the way people
use information today is a traumatic effort.
Mr. Horn. We have to educate the user as well as the
Archivist?
Mr. Hickerson. Yes, indeed.
Mr. Horn. On the user and the need for the Archivist, what
is your impression--since you are president of the Society of
American Archivists--as to how we educate and train archivists?
Is it simply going to library school and then getting what the
doctors might call a residency in a good archive or the
National Archives? And do we have people coming along to fill
the bill in this area?
Mr. Hickerson. I do not think we have enough people coming
along to fill the bill. I had a discussion the day before
yesterday with the executive director of the Council on Library
and Information Resources about forming a panel to look at the
development of a new generation of archivists and librarians
and what kind of educational components will have to develop to
meet that need.
There are now masters in archival science programs as well
as library science programs that have archival concentrations.
My sense is that in terms of the need that we may have over the
next 10 to 20 years--and certainly a lot of the career surveys
agree with me on this--is that we will not produce enough
people via that avenue. The Society continues as it has since
the 1980's--conducting workshops on electronic records. Many of
those workshops were staffed by people from NARA. But we have
just created a distance learning workshop on electronic
records. It has been so oversubscribed that we are already
booking people for next year.
So I do not have a good answer to your question except to
acknowledge that we really have to do some things differently.
Mr. Horn. Let's get back a minute to the scanning devices
that can be used.
Where are we in the evolution of computing and what kind of
scanning devices would be helpful? Does the National Archives
now have them?
Mr. Hickerson. As Governor Carlin notes--and I do not want
to answer every question----
Mr. Horn. No, we are moving around.
Mr. Hickerson. It can be an expensive process. At Cornell
we have experimented with some fairly high-speed flat bed
scanning where you just put it down and the machine
automatically adjusts to the conversion requirements. You can
move it through at a fairly fast rate. On the other hand, we
also do art work in which we use a digital camera that in full
scale production runs about 70 documents a day, 70 pieces of
art work.
So it varies greatly. The technology has improved and the
costs are coming down significantly from where they were.
On the other hand, we have the same preservation problems
regarding these digital images that we do for the born digital
records in that we do need to have migration paths for this
information also.
At Cornell, we have sought to develop a larger vendor
industry by doing less of the work in-house and putting out
very specific standards, projects, and we hope--as we did with
high-level preservation microfilming--to generate a small
industry around the need to do this scanning. We have had some
very significant success in lowering the per image cost as a
result of those efforts.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Stevens, are any of the people in GAO looking
at the technical side of what might happen in an archive, be it
State or Federal?
Mr. Stevens. No, they are not, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Miller. On the question of cost, I wanted to add that
historians like to look at a whole series of records. So when
we do research, we would want to look at a whole box.
Frequently, when the scanning occurs, it is only of selecting
particular documents. Then that alerts historians so that they
are aware of those selected documents and then historians want
to go to the archives to see all the records in the box
surrounding that particular record.
But the National Archives estimated--I heard this at one of
their presentations last week--that it costs about $15 per page
to digitize, select, index, and handle all that is needed for
every page. If you go back to that image I used of a shelf of
650 miles, and if you think of 2,000 pages in a foot, I figured
that at $15 per page, that is $102 trillion to scan the
holdings of the Archives. That is totally out of the question.
And even if the price comes down from $15 to $1, you are still
talking about almost several trillion.
So I think the volume of records in the Archives is so
enormous that the scanning will be for very select documents
and will probably be used in teaching, but not by college
professors who are doing research, who will really need to see
a whole collection. We are still putting our priority on the
finding aids. Just to have a comprehensive catalog of finding
aids on-line would be a wonderful first step.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Hickerson, is the high-speed computer at
Cornell willing to tie into the National Archives and run a
deck of those letters through and scan and do that? What kind
of incentive would it take to get you to do that?
Mr. Hickerson. I think there really are opportunities for
cooperative projects. I certainly agree with Page Miller that
the expenses of a comprehensive conversion are far beyond
anything I could imagine.
But there are diverse opportunities to bring materials
together from multiple repositories in digital form that cannot
be seen at any one repository together and these are projects
in which we would work with the National Archives--I know in
the case of records of Japanese-American relocation camps, both
Cornell and the National Archives and UCLA have significant
holdings. Wouldn't it be wonderful--and these are very heavily
used items if those could be united in a virtual collection in
a way that no single user could access them at their physical
locations?
We would be very open to such projects. We have contractual
relationships with the Library of Congress to make material
converted at Cornell available through American Memory and
would be pleased to look at similar partnerships with the
National Archives.
Mr. Horn. Dr. Katz, you had a comment?
Mr. Katz. I was actually going to followup on this.
I think we all agree that is inconceivable to get the whole
corpus up at any time, but it doesn't need to be because not
all documents are created equal. There are ways of selecting
and choices can be made. I think what has just been said is the
key, and that is collaboration. Too often--and I think it has
been true of LC in the past--individual institutional decisions
have been made on what to digitize. But what we need to do with
limited resources is to build coalitions--public-private
coalitions--to make some determinations, depending on the
ultimate use of those collections. There have been some
attempts at that. The Digital Library Federation now is one, a
private sector mechanism to do that.
That is where I think cooperation with NARA is going to be
absolutely essential because it is inconceivable to do the
whole thing.
Mr. Horn. Let me just get to a couple of things that have
come out in the testimony.
The year 2000 performance plan, as we noted earlier,
projected that the National Archives will convert 10 percent of
existing records, series descriptions, or finding aids to an
on-line archival research catalog. What we asked earlier was,
Do you believe this is a realistic goal? Do you believe that
the target for 100 percent completion by 2007 is a realistic
timeframe?
Obviously, I think the Archivist thinks it is.
Mr. Carlin. I think the 2007--I certainly do not intend to
give away that goal. The 2000 goal, as this year proceeds, may
look less and less realistic as we try to finalize that first
step. But the value of that catalog is heavily dependent upon
getting it fully populated. We are well aware of that and see
it as a huge achievement that we have to focus on. It is
important to researchers and important to the mission we have.
Mr. Horn. Is there a real need for training your current
archival staff because they really might not have been involved
that much in technology? To what degree do you face that
situation?
Mr. Carlin. There will be the need to train so that we are
proceeding in a way that is efficient, uniform, that fits the
specific data elements that need to go in, et cetera. That is
why we are trying to bring some agency-wide focus to this, not
letting it be done all over the agency in whatever way is
customary for them to deal with it, but to make it uniform. It
is one of the lessons you learn quickly in the electronic age.
You must have standards. That machine cannot quite negotiate
two different approaches to the same task.
We are working very hard to get those standards established
and working very hard, as a followup to that, to make sure that
we train the staff across the agency while doing the populating
description work.
Mr. Horn. What else could we do in terms of private
corporations? It seems to me in business archives there would
be a market out there in scanning business archives--especially
when they get sued--to go through their papers with key word
indices to see where these papers are and so forth. Is there
any hope of collaboration with American business in some of
this?
Mr. Carlin. Yes, there is. In fact, there is existing today
a considerable amount of collaboration. The focus to this point
has been primarily with the pharmaceutical industry, which has
some of the same concerns we have in terms of long-term
preservation of this new medium because of their liabilities,
their focus on patents, and so forth with the products they
produce and market.
So they are a player at the table in one of our major
research projects today. They have been. That project started
about 18 months ago.
Mr. Horn. I am interested in the technical side. I do not
know if we have enough experts here on that, but how is that
coming? Let's face it, the more you get out, the more the price
per unit goes down. Where are we working on this? Cornell?
Stanford? Berkeley? Are they all involved?
Mr. Hickerson. There are many universities involved in
applicable research. Some of the important work focuses on the
security, accuracy, authenticity, and reliability of systems,
which applies broadly both to our defense capacity as well as
other areas such as NASA's mandate.
So a lot of diverse research is in progress. I am hopeful
that we will turn seriously to the issue of preservation of
electronic records in the research sector. This has previously
not been seen as sexy or cutting edge research because it is
not moving on beyond the next new technology; it is looking
back.
But I think we have moved to a point of awareness and soon
we will see resources redirected--and it does apply to business
just as much as it does to Government, and certainly to
university administrations and everywhere else. I do expect
that the technology industry will turn to this issue and devote
a good deal of attention to it.
Just a quick anecdote, I was speaking with a computer
science professor--a respected individual named Ken Birman--and
we were talking about this issue in a seminar setting. He said
rather impassively, ``I think that technically and economically
and organizationally we will get this solved by about 2015, and
probably everything between 1995 and 2015 we will lose most of
it. But that is a reasonable loss for a transformation of this
size.''
I said, ``Ken, I don't think society has given any
indication it would find this a reasonable loss, but I can't
guarantee you it won't happen.''
So I think we will reach the point of successful
management, but we need to reach it a little faster than we are
moving right now.
Mr. Horn. What do we know about the security of these
records in a digital age and how they can be damaged? We all
take our disks out at night so we don't have to redo everything
we have done during the day. But beyond that, when you have
documents that can be, I am sure, marred in some way by
somebody that wants to make mischief--either a disgruntled
employee or whatever it is, it happens in doctor's offices and
hospitals when they want to get even--so we have all those
dangers. How can we protect against it on vital records?
Mr. Hickerson. As I said, a lot of research DARPA is
funding concerns security issues for systems. But whether that
applies to every individual user out there and when those tools
will come into common availability--I certainly cannot speak to
that. I see this as a crisis because we have made this
transition to a largely electronic world without building very
much of the human infrastructure that really guarantees its
usability.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Stevens, given your report, the National
Archives' fiscal year 1999 performance plan indicates that the
business process reengineering plan would be complete in 1999.
However, the 2000 performance plan notes that the business
process reengineering plan is scheduled for completion in 2000.
What is involved in a business process reengineering effort in
terms of the GAO? What do you feel on that?
Mr. Stevens. There are many aspects to it, Mr. Chairman,
and the archivist has described a number of them. I tend to
separate it in two components. One is the internal and the
other is the external.
Internally, obviously the National Archives and Records
Administration has agreed they will have work to do to figure
out how it is going to interact with agencies. That means
looking at the paper flow, policies, guidance, training, and
that sort of thing. And that is not a misplaced emphasis.
What struck us when looking at electronic records
management as an issue as opposed to NARA as an agency was just
how little information is available about what is going on in
the places in the Government that really have primary line
responsibility for managing electronic records at this point in
time, and that is the agencies themselves. We were surprised at
how little NARA really knew about that as well. They had
recognized this issue in past years and I think quite sensibly
had laid on the baseline where-are-we-now survey. We felt that
the information coming out of that would be very valuable--not
just for NARA's own purposes in framing its policies, guidance,
paper flow, business process in general--but also for the
agencies themselves and noted that in their strategic plan
keeping up with the agencies was an integral element.
So we were sorry not to see that information come
available, at least for a couple more years. It is a matter of
timing. I think they would agree that this needs to be done. We
would like to see it done a little sooner, partly because our
focus is a little more Government-wide, a little more issue-
oriented, and theirs is more agency-based.
Mr. Horn. Do you think the National Archives' estimate that
the process will take 18 months to 24 months is reasonable?
Mr. Stevens. Given our experience in other agencies that
are going through the Government Performance and Results Act,
reexamination of their functions and processes, I would say
that is certainly reasonable, maybe even optimistic. It is a
complicated job for people to reexamine fundamentally what they
are doing and how they are doing it.
Mr. Horn. One of the things this subcommittee will be
doing, once we get through this Y2K bit and have maybe a
hearing on the retrospect of what went right or wrong, will be
to look agency-by-agency--and obviously we want the General
Accounting Office's help on this--to look at upgrading their
computing capacity, because that has been one of the problems.
Some agencies are three, four, or five generations behind. The
Congress really needs to face up to that and move ahead on it.
It seems to me that you can build into this the archival
end at the other end of the process, and we ought to be
thinking about that.
Mr. Stevens. You should be able to do that. Right now, we
just do not know what is happening. My suspicion is that
nothing much is, but we cannot prove that.
Mr. Horn. I think we will give the GAO 6 months to do one
of its wonderful reports as a lead-off witness. So maybe we can
work that out as to the questions that need to be asked. We
welcome from all of you, also, What questions do we have to
raise if we are going to make a rational decision in the
executive branch, OMB, the President, and the Congress? That is
where I am headed in terms of getting this Government up to
speed in this technological age.
Any comments any of you would like to make?
We are going to wind this up, but we thank you for starving
to death through the lunch hour.
Anything else anybody would like to say for the good of the
order?
If not, just write us a note and we will put it in the
record at this point, or if you do not want it in the record,
you just want it for guidance for us, that is fine, too. We
would love to have it.
You are all wonderful people and we appreciate what you are
doing. Governor, you are running a great institution there.
Future generations will appreciate it, I hope, just as much as
current generations. I thank you and your staff for coming.
With that, I have the staff list as to who helped on this.
J. Russell George, the chief counsel, is not here. He is over
at the Pentagon going through their Y2K things. Matthew Ebert,
to my left and your right, is the policy advisor who put this
hearing together. Bonnie Heald, director of communications,
professional staff member; Chip Ahlswede, the faithful clerk;
and we have two great interns here, P.J. Caceres and Deborah
Oppenheim. On the minority staff we have Trey Henderson,
counsel; Jean Gosa, minority staff assistant.
And we have Mel Jones, who is probably as glad as we are
that this session is over. Thank you, Mel, for reporting these
proceedings.
With that, we are adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 1:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
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