1. Keeping records of your website
WE Believe in Community conference
Local Government Web Network
20-21 August 2009

3. About State Records
 1,553,894 website visits
 55,948 reading room visitors
 25,554 original archives used
 42 community access points to State archives
collection across NSW
 395 kilometres of noncurrent records stored at Western
Sydney
 59.8 kilometres of standard format archives in custody
 239,876 record items discoverable
 State Records Annual Report 2007-8

5. Future Proof
 Digital records strategy for New South Wales
government
 Aims:
 improving digital recordkeeping across government
 implementing a digital archiving facility for New South
Wales government
 Products, services:
 Published guidance, standards, updates and training
 Ad hoc advice to public offices including Councils

6. What is a digital record?
Digital information captured at a specific point in time that
is kept as evidence of business activity.
Why?, Twin Peaks, 2009,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twinpeaks/3341
130550/in/photostream/

7. Some digital records are State
records
 That is, digital records that are “..made and kept, or
received and kept, by any person in the course of the
exercise of official functions in a public office, or for any
purpose of a public office, or for the use of a public
office.”
 State Records Act 1998, s.3 (1)

8. Council websites
 Many official functions of a Council are performed via the
Council website
 Much of the information on the website will satisfy the
criteria for being State records
 Digital State records must be managed in conformance
with the requirements of the Standard on digital
recordkeeping

9. Standard on digital recordkeeping
 A set of 9 minimum requirements for making and keeping
digital records, to ensure Councils have available,
authentic, meaningful evidence of their past business:
 minimum requirements for defining which records are
saved into digital recordkeeping systems & what these
systems’ minimum functionalities must be
 minimum requirements for recordkeeping metadata,
and
 minimum requirements for recordkeeping metadata
management.

10. Government 2.0 – depends on
recordkeeping!
 Government 2.0 Issues Paper cites the OECD Principles
for public sector information, including:
 5. Integrity. Maximising the integrity and availability of
information through the use of best practices in
information management. Developing and
implementing appropriate safeguards to protect
information from unauthorised modification or from
intentional or unintentional denial of authorised access
to information.
 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/27/40826024.pdf or
http://tinyurl.com/kpgova.

11. Ok so how do we do it?

12. 1. Share responsibility
Sharing, Ryancr, 2006, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanr/142455033/

13. 2. Tackle high risk business first
‘Man on wire’, 2009
http://witneyman.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/man-on-wire.jpg,

14. 3. Assess website records type/s

16. 4.Identify the recordkeeping
requirements
 Is there a business / regulatory / societal requirement for a record to
be kept?
 How often does this information change? Are all changes required as
records?
 What is the risk in not keeping this record? Or keeping some
changes but not all?
 Is the information already captured as a record elsewhere?
 Is it necessary to (also) capture the web version as a record? the
date when the page was published / taken down, by whom? the page
exactly as it looked or just its content?
 How long does the record need to be kept?

17. 5. Devise an appropriate
recordkeeping strategy
 Consider the recordkeeping requirement, including:
 The type of record needing to be kept
 The rate of change of the information
 Static / dynamic / transactional?
 The retention period
 Risk
 And determine:
 How (technically) to capture the record
 How often to keep a record
 Who is responsible
 Where to keep the record

18. Options for keeping web records
 Retain in WCMS – use ‘roll back capabilities’ - short term
value, needs to be kept exactly as viewed
 Copy / export documents or pages to an EDRMS –
necessary when records are longer term value
 RSS feed to records manager – for frequently updated
pages
 Web harvesting – good for ‘snapshots’ – but may miss
dynamic content and some pages eg. Heritrix, HTTrack
 Capture transactions at the web server – to save requests
and responses including on the fly content. For high risk
business. eg Vignette, PageVault

19. Example 1: Council meeting papers
and minutes
 Long term retention (Required as State archives)
 Possibly already captured in Council recordkeeping
system
 Council may need to demonstrate date published to meet
s.12 requirements
 Options
 Make a record of uploading of documents, point to
records already kept in recordkeeping system
 Also save web published versions to recordkeeping
system

20. Example 2: News updates
 Mixture of high and low risk information
 Important to keep a record of when item was published in
some cases
 Selective capture not easy
 Mixture of short and long term retention periods
 Options:
 RSS feed to records manager
 Automated capture of each version of the news page
as published

21. Example 3: Website transactions
 Online surveys, forms – where low risk the record may
best be made in back end systems (eg change of
address). Keep a record of the form and all changes.
 More complex transactions eg interactive maps – if high
risk there may be value in capture of interactions
(sessions), but will be high cost
 Compromise is to ensure records are kept of the
capability and contents and dates in use

22. ..and finally
 Don’t forget to ‘Future Proof’ your web records!

23. Obsolescence
Obsolescence can affect hardware, software and even the arrangement of the
data in a stored file.
Obsolescence can occur at an alarmingly fast rate.
MAGLEV Train and Rickshaw, Shanghai, Soctech, 2005,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soctech/43279549/

24. File formats may be superseded
MacDraw, FHKE, 2007, http://www.flickr.com/photos/fhke/370326408/

25. Storage medium may be
superseded
Gallery of Obsolete Formats 1, jen-the-librarian, 2007
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennieb/921595498/
Magnetic tape

26. The device
needed to
read the
medium
may no
longer be
produced
Sony Betamax, Nesster, 2009,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nesster/3714783252/

27. Software
used to
create,
manage or
access digital
content may
be
Windows 1.0: the MS-DOS executive, Renan Birck, 2007,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/renanbirck/354258596/
superseded

28. Computers themselves are being
superseded
Old computers, eurlief, 2006,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eurleif/255241547/

29. Vendors merge, emerge and fade
GONE

30. Things can fall apart
Broken computer. Miss Rogue, 2007, http://www.flickr.com/photos/missrogue/347361369/

31. Tips for long term accessibility of
your web records
 Use open formats
 Keep records in recordkeeping systems
 Comply with Standard on digital recordkeeping to
ensure adequate metadata
 Migrate with care
 Avoid removable media

32. For more information
 www.records.nsw.gov.au
 http://futureproof.records.nsw.gov.au
 Cassie Findlay
 Ph: (02) 8247 8629
 cassandra.findlay@records.nsw.gov.au