Despite their instructions, almost half (46 percent) of federal agency records and information management professionals do not believe that the presidential directive for digital records are realistic and obtainable. This came just days before the end of 2013.

The presidential directive requires agencies to identify all permanent records in existence for more than 30 years, as well as report on progress toward managing those records in electronic format.  This interesting news comes from eWeek in their article, “Federal IT Workers Struggle to Meet Digital Record Deadline.” The same professionals mentioned above acknowledged the benefits that the directive will deliver once completed.

Considering the vast amount of data available, both digital and non-digital, the benefits to going digital are beyond access and findability.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.