We are requesting comments on the draft of an upcoming NARA Bulletin on managing mixed-media files. NARA bulletins are designed to provide fundamental guidance to Federal agencies who must then determine the most appropriate ways to incorporate the guidance into their work.
This draft Bulletin will provide Federal agencies with guidance about the records management implications for files comprised of both paper records and electronic records stored on physical media. The Bulletin will remind agencies of the lifecycle management requirements for paper and electronic records and the need to maintain the integrity of files when records are in multiple types of media. It will also identify the risks involved if that integrity is not maintained.
This Bulletin was drafted with the assistance of subject matter experts within NARA and interviews at selected agencies that have experience creating and managing mixed-media files.
Please make your comments about the draft Bulletin and any suggestions here by June 8, 2011. We will review all the comments we receive. We plan to publish the Bulletin by the end of June. You can download the draft of the bulletin as .pdf here.
Thank you for your input!
Mixed-media components of a particular file often are separated from the onset due to differing storage and preservation requirements. This Guidance has good general guidance but I think one point needs to be stressed and restated again and again. That is that components in different places need to have lists and/or metadata pointing to other parts of the file. If there are 10 information objects of differing media in a file then each one should have a list of the 9 other objects in the file and their location. The Guidance refers to this in a general way – but perhaps should be more specific on this issue.
Susan – Thank you for your interest in and comment on our draft guidance. I will pass the comment on to the development team and they will see how they might implement your suggestion.