Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit: Archiving state government social

media in North Carolina and beyond

North Carolina Department of Cultural ResourcesLawrence Giffin

Electronic Records Archivistlawrence.giffin@ncdcr.gov

Everything changes,nothing perishes.

–Ovid

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Playing the Long Game

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Mandates

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• In 2009, GSA negotiated federal agreements with social media sites starting with Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv and YouTube. Others followed.

• Standard service agreements often did not fit federal government requirements.

• Some of the amendments allow for capture of content, such as

Challenges of Social Media

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• Frequent updates• Dynamic content • Non-permanent• Structural changes• Password protected• Metadata

Factors to Consider

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1.Frequency

2.Comprehensiveness

3.Authenticity

4.Context

More than Meets the Eye

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Methods of Capture

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• Copy & Paste

• Screenshots

• Save As…

• Data dump

• Personal Social Media Archiving Tool

• Web Crawler

• Third-party services

What North Carolina

is doing about state government

social media

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North Carolina’s government record

10From left: Letter to Lords Proprietors to Carolina’s colonial governors, 17th century; Carolina Parakeet by Audobon, 19th century North Carolina session laws, 1817; Tweet announcing NC DOA’s Facebook presence, made by Governor’s office on September 16th, 2009.)

The program: 10,000 foot view

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The program: 1,000 foot view

Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Why archive North Carolina’s

state government social media and

online web presence?

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Legislative mandatePreserve state government information in any format and make it accessible to the citizens of North Carolina

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Appraisal & DeclarationRecords retention schedules require agencies to save social media interactions. Centralizing this activity saves time, money, and people.

Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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E-discoveryDigital information, like its analog counterpart, must remain authentic, readable, and unchanged to be entered as evidence in a court of law.Luckily, libraries and archives have been in the permanence business for a long time.And, we continue to be.

Some rights reserved. http://www.flickr.com/photos/orphum/2494150348/

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Reinterpretation & retention

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• A “daily bulletin” according to the retention schedules for local and municipal law enforcement.

• Could also become part of a case file, and as such, will need to comply with appropriate judicial retention schedules, as well.

North Carolina’s social media archiving and

access program began in 2009.

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Program inception1935, 1973, 1987. Legislative mandates2008.

- Increased focus on transparency in government, state agencies encouraged to utilize social media- Governor’s office expressed strong interest and support

2009. - Spring. First harvest Governor’s social media- Fall. Government-wide harvest of social media- DCR creates “Best Practices for Social Media Usage in North Carolina State Government” (pdf, videos) - December. Governor announces program on Twitter

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StatisticsNearly 200 North Carolina state government social media sites at least five times per year

• 139 Facebook accounts

• 92 Twitter accounts

• 31 YouTube channels

• 3 Linked-In accounts

• 21 Flickr accounts

• 53 Blogs (blogspot, wordpress)

Over fifteen million documents, 2.5 TB of social media content

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A job this bigis not without

challenges.

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Considerations for sustainability• Social media is in constant flux

• State agencies link to more than government websites

• 33 state agencies with their own management, culture, objectives

• Social media accounts come and go

• Communicating guidelines and records retention requirements not always straightforward

• Limitations on funding, staff, storage, etc.

By redghia69 for shirtwoot! (http://shirt.woot.com/derby/entry/13433/herding-cats)

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Considerations for sustainability

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DIY requirements• Funding. North Carolina works

with a vendor to harvest, store, and provide access to the data

• Staffing. Monthly harvesting, site monitoring, communications requires ~1.5 FTE

• Storage. While vendor keeps a copy of the data, a second copy must be stored on site, ideally online

• Administrative oversight. The more the better to get the word out (and keep it out)

Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Final thoughts on North Carolina’s

social media archive and access

program.

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Social media archiving and access program is

• Centrally managed to alleviate records retention concerns at the agency level

• Easily replicable with minimal funding and staffing

• First and longest running program in the nation

• Using well tested library and archives concepts in new and innovative ways to ensure records retention is safe, stable, and authentic

• 24/7 service provides outstanding access to today’s history now and in the future.

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State government has fundamentally changed. . .

. . .and, North Carolina is capturing and preserving that change, as it happens, for its citizens today and tomorrow.

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Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net