A Milestone for NARA's Electronic Records Archives

John W. Carlin

After years of research and planning among our staff and with our partners in and out of government, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has reached a milestone in our effort to build a permanent archives for the federal government’s electronic records. Late last year, we issued a formal Request for Proposals (RFP) to private companies for the design of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA). The bids were due on January 28, and we are now evaluating them.

The ERA, as I have mentioned before in this column, is a top priority for us. It will preserve and make accessible the records of our digital government to anyone, anywhere, anytime—well into the future. And it will do so long after the hardware and software used to create the records has been replaced.

Without an ERA, the electronic records of government—the history of our country and our citizens—could be lost forever. For these reasons, the creation of the ERA is a major goal in our Strategic Plan. The ERA is not only important for us, but for developers and users of information technology around the world. It is especially important for smaller archives, state governments, colleges and universities, libraries, and private companies that also must preserve electronic records far into the future. With this in mind, we will make the ERA technology scalable so that smaller versions or components of it can be used by institutions other than NARA.

The awarding of a design contract for our ERA will come after years of study and research among our own staff and with our partners in government, higher education, and public and private research facilities across the country.

How did we get here?

Five years have passed since we began talking about an ERA with experts at the Supercomputer Center at the University of California at San Diego. By August 2000, we realized that an ERA was possible. We needed to insure, however, that the products required to build the ERA would be available when we needed them. As a result, we enlisted several research and technology centers as partners, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, National Center for Supercomputer Applications at the University of Illinois, the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University, and the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Science and Technology.

The most important thing we learned from our research was that the ERA needed to be immune from obsolescence. The experts in San Diego showed us how a system can evolve over time and how pieces of the system—hardware and software—can be replaced without affecting the accessibility to or the integrity of the electronic records within.

During the past year, we held a number of information sessions with prospective vendors for the ERA, and learned as much about the market—what is available now and what is coming in hardware and software in the future—as the vendors have about our plans for the ERA. We also sent teams around the country to meet with prospective users of the ERA in order to learn about their desires and concerns.

Most major information technology companies in the federal marketplace are interested in this contract and have already made major investments in preparing to compete for it. Before the formal request for bids went out, we solicited written comments and had three rounds of one-on-one, confidential meetings with these companies. They helped to make sure we clearly communicated our goals and assisted in the development of a contractual approach that will work for both the government and industry. We also learned that many of the companies had already devoted a lot of effort to learn about archival principles and practices. Some companies, for example, created advisory boards that included archivists and records managers. Others formed reading groups where employees discussed archival literature. Additionally, those companies laid plans for building an ERA. We estimate, in fact, that in the aggregate, IT firms spent from $28 million to $40 million just preparing to bid.

Where do we go from here?

In summer 2004, we will award up to two design contracts and give those two companies, or teams of companies, eleven months to come up with a design for the ERA. Next, we will pick one company to build the ERA. The first increment of the operational ERA is scheduled to be on line in 2007, with four more increments in each of the following years.

The National Archives is building something very unique with the ERA. As the nation’s record keeper, we know only too well that the times require it since records are no longer kept primarily on paper. The ERA will be the repository for the continued story of America and its people, and as we prepare for it, we are changing the way records are managed at the federal level. We are laying the groundwork to continue our primary job of providing “ready access to essential evidence” for generations to come.