Case example of archiving e-records

Case examples make the issue of ERM come alive. An article by Dr Michael Wettengel, from the German Federal Archives, provides a fascinating case example highlighting the problems of e-record preservation. When Germany was unified, archivists faced the mammoth task of merging the former East German Central State archives with the West German Federal Archives. The e-records presented a number of significant problems, many of these the common issues for digital preservation.

Many, previously East German, agencies/institutions were dissolved or privatised. Others passed directly on to the equivalent Federal organisations – these records were easier to deal with as they fell immediately into the archivists hands. If an agency was dissolved the records and data documentation were often lost, or dispersed or went with the staff who left for other jobs. Only archives in these circumstances that were immediately locked at least ‘preserved’ what records and documentation there was. Privatised agencies regarded their records as commercial assets and often sold them or required the Federal Archive to pay fees to access and preserve them. When the archivists looked at the e-records themselves the following problems were encountered: records that had been maintained by large data processing centres using old-fashioned main frame technology; records that lacked documentation on data structures so they were effectively unreadable; storage media that had deteriorated to become unreadable or only partially readable. The job of the archivists became that of a detective, tracking down any type of documentation that could held them interpret the data structures. And finding staff from the old data processing centres who would act as consultants and pass on their knowledge of how the records were produced.

After a lot of hard work, much of the missing data documentation for the East German e-records was reconstructed. However, because of the specific hardware that was originally used to produce them, long term preservation of these records still present problems. Access is also a problem as many of the data files are now stored as flat files for long term preservation. So one of the Federal Archive’s tasks is producing ‘research copies’ that provide for user-friendly access.

Though German reunification presented a unique e-record preservation task that required immediate and emergency action, there are still warnings from this case example applicable to other countries and other organisations. Do you think we have the digital preservation problem sorted? Or do we have ‘archived’ e-records that were produced with out of data hardware and software, lacking data documentation, and stored on deteriorating media? Have we created a problem that sooner or later will confront us with a task that may require the same Herculean efforts of the Federal archivists? How much/what progress has been made in digital preservation since this article was written?

Some of the article’s conclusions make interesting reading:

"new situation helped to bring about a change in German archivist's attitudes towards electronic records … the necessity for a stronger commitment in that field." (p.11)

"creating organisations were not the best custodians of machine-readable archives … in a world where state and society are in constant transition, it makes sense to have archivists engaged in electronic records management and taking records of permanent value into their custody." (p.11)

“A lot of what is important for future archivists and researchers of data holdings will always be in private notebooks, or in the brains of systems administrators and records creators." (p.16)

Article:
Wettengel M (2000). Archiving the united Germany: 1. German reunification and electronic records: the example of East Germany’s ‘Kaderdatenspeicher’. Records Management Bulletin, (95):11-16