4/26/2004
National Archives and Records Administration
5
About NARA
The Challenges
•Scope – The Entire Federal Government
•Variety – Different Types of Records
•Complexity – Records in Different Formats
•Volume – Enormous Amounts of Records
•Obsolescence – Constantly Changing Technology
The challenges facing NARA with electronic records include scope, variety, complexity, volume and obsolescence.

For Scope, NARA has the responsibility for accepting records from all the Federal agencies as well as Congress and the courts.  The variety of records that we anticipate include office automation,  (email), image, video and audio formats.  Complexity such as decision support systems or GIS, applets and interactive World Wide Web pages, volume in both files and bytes, with current examples of Clinton email files, State Department diplomatic cables, office military personnel files, which are images files, and the 2000 Census.

And then there is obsolescence, the rapidly changing natures of systems used to create records