Electronic Records @ SLAC

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Format - General Comments

The SLAC AHRO received notification through DOE Records Management that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has  phased out acceptance of paper format records *as of 6/30/2024.*  From that date forward, NARA is only accepting permanent-retention records, and only  in digital format.

Note: This format change requirement will not have any effect on the required retention periods for records created by SLAC: the existing retention requirements will remain the same as they are now, unless changed via separate agreement between NARA and the DOE.

NARA founded FERMI (Federal Electronic Records Management Initiative) to assist agencies in making the transition to entirely digital records management practices.

SLAC offices which still retire inactive paper records have been notified of this pending change.

Digitizing  Records

SLAC units contemplating digitization projects should be aware of and adhere to the following regulations and guidance:

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E-Mail

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has implemented the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Capstone Approach to Email records scheduling and disposition. 

The implementation of Capstone at SLAC is pending contract negotiation. Until further notice, email at SLAC may be disposed when no longer needed for current business, UNLESS a legal hold is in place. 

Email used for SLAC business on a non-official or personal account must be copied to a SLAC email account within 20 calendar days of creation or receipt.

Migration

Migration of data and information from obsolete software, hardware or storage media is never a trivial undertaking. Ideally, plans for the continuing preservation of historically important electronic data and information should be made in consultation with the Archives as soon as the data or information has been identified as having archival or historic value.  

See: SLAC Lifecycle Management for IT Hardware, Software and Services policy.

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Storage Issues for Electronic/Digital Records

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Longevity of stored electronic/digital data is necessarily dependent upon three factors:

  • software longevity
  • hardware longevity
  • storage medium longevity

The life-span of any stored electronic information is only as long as the life-span of the shortest-lived of its three constituent components. Research projects like the one in which the SLAC AHRO previously participated have been working to address and mitigate the problems caused by software, hardware and storage medium obsolescence.

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Websites

The SLAC AHRO archived the first U.S. website as a special collection. See the Early Web Exhibit.

AHRO actively archives Communications Office news posted on intranet websites as weekly digests (per DOE Administrative Records Schedule 14 Informational Services Records and Schedule 21 Audiovisual Records), and SLAC websites are harvested by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Websites of SLAC's DOE Level I experimental programs have been harvested locally on an annual basis.

In general, web-related records management-related responsibilities are diffused throughout the laboratory to the programs that create web content or other offices managing the website, per NARA policy, as interpreted by the SLAC Web Site Records Control Schedule (PDF).

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