City of Seattle Office of the City Clerk

Open Government = AccessChallenges and Opportunities with Digital Records

Why do we keep records?

Accountability to the Citizens of Seattle

Institutional value: rights and obligations of the City

Specific legal requirements Historical value: policy, culture,

environment, infrastructure, personnel...

Ways of SeeingPreservation

Looking back: Curation of historical records

Looking forward: Documenting the present for the future

The Long Tail Concept new to the business world,not to Clerks and Archivists

The 80/20 Rule A traditional business model

The Long Tail

The Long Tail

The Long Tail

The Long Tail

Who Uses the Records We Keep?

City DepartmentsPrivate CitizensNeighborhood and community

groupsThe MediaEnvironmental researchersStudents and FacultyLegal Firms and Title CompaniesAuthorsLabor UnionsBusinesses

And What are People Looking for?Engineering Records and Photographs

Records of Elected Officials

Utility records

Legal records

Parks records

And more….

And more…

Opportunities with Digital Records Increased and enhanced access Open Data uses Sharing catalogs regionally/nationally Can help with preservation

Challenges with Digital Records Volume of records Management (indexing, description,

creation/maintenance of databases and repositories, migration of formats)

Preservation (obsolete formats, deterioration)

Data integrity Same or more work as with paper/analog:

identification, description, preservation, access

Growing expectations for use and access

Planning for Change

A change model that won’t work

Planning for technological change Anticipating format and software

changes Being poised to take advantage of

innovations to improve access Responding to changing user needs

and expectations Prioritizing work consistent with our

mission, our long-term goals, and within our resources

How we ensure and increase access over time: Open Formats

Online Databases and Exhibits Open Data Digitization of paper/analog records Digital Assets Preservation Team Capture of archival electronic records

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Open Formats Open standards Sustainable data (software

independent) Non-proprietary Widest accessibility, usable by PDA’s ADA compliant Easily migrated to other formats

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Online Databases and Exhibits >650,000 database records online Links to >200,000 electronic

documents Over 1,400,000 database hits in 2009

(excluding automatic crawlers/robots) Online Archives exhibits on popular

topics ~260,000 hits to Archives Web

exhibits in 2009

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Open Data Share Archives Records with Library

of Congress national union catalog Share Archives Records with

Northwest Digital Archives Will be providing legislative data in

XML format for City’s new Open Data site

SMA Flickr site (>340,000 hits on photos and videos)

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Digitization of paper/analog records Increasing access to high-use records

Converting records that are in obsolete, proprietary, and/or deteriorating format

Creating a digital copy as a security backup

Ease of access (example: film, negatives, audio)

Protecting analog original

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Digitization of paper/analog records Film

Video Audio Legislation Significant City publications Historical photographs (75,000

scanned negatives and prints online) Historical maps

Most popular film of 2009! Norway Day

“How will you Rate in ‘58 on the ‘Live Better Electrically’ Selling

scale?”

Video

Still Images

How we ensure and increase access over time: Digital Assets Preservation Team Clerk, Archives, Records Management, and

IT Identification, capture, management,

preservation, disaster recovery, and access

Adhering to professional guidelines and best practices (Library of Congress, San Diego Supercomputing Center, Cornell, etc.)

Based on week-long Digital Preservation Training

How we ensure and increase access over time:

Capture of electronic archival records

Starting with Legislative Department records and select record series from other departments

Importing records into a digital repository

Searchable by staff for reference and Public Disclosure

Using Photo Archives as model for ingest

DAPT Progress: Set up Digital Repository Server

“Legend,” 6 TB Defined scope of records, structure Migrated records Policies for access, capturing

checksums for files, backup Using DRRS for backup in addition to

incremental Setting up second stand-alone server

for access copies Test use of Dspace for access

Technical goals: Continue with digitization of select

analog records for preservation and access

Retrospective scanning of legislation currently on fiche

Develop XML-based database system to replace legacy system

Expand scope of Digital Repository (WWW pages, database snapshots, open data sets, additional departments—ultimately Citywide)

Provide online access to records in Digital Repository

Policy goals (in the works!): Social Media Policy for Elected

Officials and their staff Texting Policy for Legislative

Department Ongoing Email Management and

other Electronic Records Management Training

Agreement with IT on policy for City Web sites to capture and convert for preservation

Agreement with Seattle Channel on accessioning video into SMA

City of Seattle Office of the City Clerk

Open Government = Access to Records