Local Government Records Advisory Council
(LGRAC)
Present: David Vehaun, Municipal Clerk/Finance Director, City of Rock Hill; Matthew Thomas Townsend, Archives and Records Officer, Charleston County School District; Gregory P. Carter, Records Bureau Supervisor, City of Aiken; Sandra S. Estridge, Probate Judge, Lancaster County; Gary Cannon, Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Municipal Association of SC; Joyce McDonald, Clerk of Court, Kershaw County (and SC SHRAB member); Mary S. Schroeder, Deputy Director, SC Court Administration; Sherron L. Skipper, Municipal Clerk, City of Hartsville; Barbara Wasson, Clerk of Court, Laurens County; Kathleen K. Williams, Assistant Director, SC Association of Counties; and, Roy H. Tryon, State Archivist, Richard Harris, Records Services Manager, and Bill Henry, Electronic Records Branch Manager, SC Department of Archives and History.
Absent: James H. Rozier, Jr., Supervisor, Berkeley County; G. Frank Broom, Jr., City Manager, City of Camden; J. Milton Pope, Assistant Administrator, Richland County; Patsy G. Knight, Treasurer, Dorchester County; and Chuck Watkins, Records Manager, Anderson County.
The meeting began at 10:50am
Welcome
Roy Tryon welcomed the group, noting that not only had the group not met
since June 2004 but also that it had been difficult to arrange for a mutually
agreeable date for the current meeting.
Review of June 30, 2004 meeting
Mr. Tryon reviewed the discussion at the last Council meeting as it dealt
with the Archives’ budget situation, records management training at Councils of
Government, the Archives policy on the sale of local government records on eBay,
and other matters.
Report on Archives’ Activities for SC Local Governments
Richard Harris reported on Archives program activities since the last
Council meeting:
When we met last year in June, the Local Records Services staff had completed the basic records management training hosted by the Councils of Government around the state. At that meeting Tom Legge of our Electronic Records program reported on specialized training he would be conducting through the COGs on digital imaging and electronic records. John Mackintosh, the Local Records Services supervisor, worked with the COGs to arrange for their hosting these sessions. This training began in September and wrapped up this spring at the following COG locations:Appalachian (Greenville); Upper Savannah (Greenwood); Lower Savannah (Aiken); Santee-Lynches (Sumter); Lowcountry (Point South); Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester (Charleston); Catawba (Rock Hill); and Central Midlands (History Center).
Staff continued to take advantage of opportunities to present records management information to local government personnel through speaking at professional organizations. John Mackintosh spoke at the Probate Judge’s Association annual meeting in Spartanburg and at Court Administration’s training for new clerks of court and registers of deeds. John and Richie Wiggers, one of the Local Records analysts, made presentations at the Municipal Clerks and Treasurers Institute, hosted that group for a session here at the History Center and provided tours of our facility. Richie Wiggers presented a session on basic records management at the South Carolina School Business Officials conference. Bryan McKown, with our State Government Records Services unit, presented a session on basic records management for state agency and local government personnel at the South Carolina Public Records Association Coastal Region. Richie Wiggers, did a session on disaster preparedness for the South Carolina Public Records Association Upstate Region.
On April 5th the Archives and Records Management Division presented a workshop here at the History Center for state agency and local government personnel. Around 160 people registered for this workshop and response was so good that we had to cut of registrations about a week before the day of the conference. We offered seven sessions that repeated four times throughout the day. We also had tours of this facility as well as tours of the State Records Center on Laurel Street downtown. Sessions included: Inventorying and Scheduling Records for Local Governments; Inventorying and Scheduling Records for State Agencies; Digital Imaging; Microfilm Practices; Electronic Records Management; Disaster Planning; Records Storage
During FY 2003-2004 Richie Wiggers and Carolyn Smith, our two Local Records analysts, spent ten days in Orangeburg County helping local personnel go through records to identify non-permanent records that could be destroyed through implementing records retention schedules. Nearly 2,000 cubic feet of records were destroyed. This fiscal year the analysts had several more visits to Orangeburg County to provide further assistance. Orangeburg County officials have followed through on this project and remodeled a facility for a records center and now have a very nice place to store their inactive records. This year Carolyn and Richie have worked in Dillon and Hampton counties to address records in poor storage situations. Approximately 400 cubic feet of records were destroyed in Dillon County. Hampton County has not yet followed through on the destruction of records.
This fiscal year we made several transfers of local government records to the History Center for permanent retention. Work in the Dillon County storage area resulted in not only the destruction of non-permanent records, but we transferred around 40 cubic feet of records from various offices to our custody. Other transfers of permanent records this year were from the Greenville County Clerk of Court; Kershaw County Treasurer; and the Jasper County Clerk of Court.
For several years now the Archives has had Genealogical Society of Utah volunteers stationed here at the History Center microfilming historical records. This film work has focused on estate and marriage records from Probate offices around the state. John Mackintosh has worked with individual Judges to secure their permission to bring the records here for filming. Our Local Records analysts have assisted in going out to the offices to transfer the records here for filming and assisted in returning the records once filming was complete. Since July 2004, records have been brought in for filming from Fairfield County (estates, 1869-1915), Marlboro County (estates, 1902-1915), McCormick County (marriage licenses, 1917-1950), Oconee County (estates, 1900-1915; marriage licenses, 1911-1950), and Orangeburg County (marriage licenses, 1911-1950).
These are some of the highlights of services to local governments this fiscal year. In addition, staff have made numerous on-site visits to meet with local government personnel on various records management issues.
Considerable discussion ensued about protecting private/personal information from unauthorized access, microfilming and digital imaging, and other matters. Sandra Estridge mentioned that she was about to embark on a digital imaging project and would greatly appreciate a visit by Archives staff to advise her on it and on storage for paper records. Mr. Harris said that he would arrange for a staff visit.
Electronic Records Program Developments
Mr. Tryon introduced Bill Henry and mentioned that Mr. Henry administers a
federal grant project that, though it is directed toward state agencies, has
applicability and usefulness for South Carolina’s local governments. Mr. Henry
provided the following briefing to the Council about the Archives’ development
of an electronic records program and the impact of two federal grants:
Update on electronic records program.
Last update provided to the LGRAC at November 2002 meeting. At that time we
were in the middle of the two-year electronic records training and awareness
grant project funded by NHPRC and had just received word that another ER grant
proposal had been funded. This is a three-year project designed to provide our
staff with more actual experience working with electronic records through more
direct involvement with government agencies on electronic records management
issues.
Background on our electronic records program.
The program’s been under development for several years now, with a number of
initiatives designed to help us begin to deal with the some of the challenges
posed by information technology and electronic recordkeeping. As is the case
with many other archival institutions, one of the greatest challenges we face
here is how to preserve and provide for long-term access to important digital
records and information, so that they will remain usable over time. As
government organizations continue to automate important business processes and
functions, new strategies are needed to ensure that the evidence of those
activities can remain accessible for as long as needed or required.
Two-part vision for the State Archives electronic records program: The first part involves having processes in place to capture, preserve, and provide for long-term access to archival electronic records. The second part concerns our ability to provide guidance to agencies and local governments in managing their electronic records of both long-term and short-term value.
The Electronic Records Branch has undertaken a number of projects and activities during the past few years to provide general guidance to both state agencies and local governments. We have produced a number of publications and developed some limited training to meet some immediate needs, and to respond to requests for guidance on issues such as e-mail management, digital imaging, and managing public records on web sites, among others. 2002 and 2003 - electronic records training and awareness program. Series of three conference presentations and six workshops conducted by nationally known experts in electronic records issues. Provided both basic and advanced training for our staff as well as the staffs of other agencies and local governments. As the final activity of that project, we produced a set of three audio-narrated PowerPoint presentations based on the workshop series, and made them available on our web site. Also have videotapes of all sessions available for loan and copying.
During the last year of the training and awareness project we formulated plans for two initiatives that we hoped could be merged if the second one was successful. The first initiative resulted from the extensive departmental budget cuts that had begun a couple of years earlier. We realized that we were going to have to concentrate more on our core mission of identifying and securing archival records, and forego or alter activities that did not contribute to that mission. We redesigned our archival appraisal and records scheduling practices to focus on identifying permanently valuable records and Developed a functional approach based on work done in Australia and later adapted by the Alabama Department of Archives and History. By concentrating on identifying the small percentage of archival records on the front end of the process, we’ll be able to deal more efficiently with the vast majority of temporary records, both electronic and non-electronic. We selected the State Department of Social Services as the first agency where we would test these new practices. At about the same time, we developed the electronic records program grant proposal to NHPRC.
Electronic records program development grant project
The grant proposal was our second initiative and, upon receiving this grant
funding, we were able to merge it with the DSS project. The grant project has
two major goals:
Formulate practical policies and methodologies that state agencies can use in managing their electronic records and systems, and Test custodial and non-custodial approaches and methods for providing long-term preservation of and access to South Carolina’s archival electronic records.
Although much of the grant project’s focus is directed towards working with state government records, several of the project deliverables have been designed for use by both state agencies and local governments. The project has three major phases: The first phase is with DSS and was designed to address some electronic records management issues and to adapt and test some tools for evaluating the trustworthiness of electronic records and provide some guidelines for their management. The second phase will involve taking what we have learned at DSS and applying it to a couple of additional agencies – Judicial Department and Lottery Commission. The third and final phase of the project will address the issues of long-term preservation and access. Will select a couple of systems or records from the agencies we worked with in the first two phases and experiment with custodial and non-custodial roles in preserving and providing access to them over time. Three of the project deliverables should be of interest to local government. Trustworthy Information Systems Handbook(TIS), Electronic Records Management Guidelines, and Functional Analysis and Records Retention Schedule for DSS.
The TIS was completed last year. Now working with some IT staff at the Department of Social Services to test it out in that agency. TIS Handbook contains lists of criteria for determining an information system’s accountability and ability to produce reliable and authentic information and records. Can be used with legacy systems, when updating or planning for new systems, and even for non-electronic records systems. DSS IT staff are using it for a digital imaging system they are implementing to determine if the system can maintain documents with the level of reliability they need.
Just finished work on the second major product, the ERM Guidelines. Incorporated the TIS Handbook into the Guidelines as one of the sections. Guidelines have 11 other sections, plus an introduction and glossary. All the guidelines have been published on our web site, except Electronic and Digital Signatures. The various sections can be consulted, used, and read in any order, although we do recommend reading "Records Management in an Electronic Environment" first before moving on to the other sections. That section helps to place the others in context. It also introduces some important concepts and best practices that are reinforced in the subsequent sections.
Topics and subject areas covered by the Guidelines: File Naming - discusses the importance of including a file naming policy in electronic records management strategy. It provides examples of how this can be done. File Formats - reviews descriptions of common formats and provides a summary of the issues related to converting or migrating files from one format to another. Digital Media - reviews digital storage options for electronic records, including the various magnetic and optical products that are available. Digital Media Storage Facilities and Procedures - provides information about physical storage space options and access procedures. E-mail Management - deals with the record status of e-mail and other issues involved in extending records management controls to e-mail messages and attachments. Web Content Management - explains how to develop a policy for managing web content that will mesh with your electronic records management strategy. Electronic and Digital Signatures - explains the difference between electronic and digital signatures and the legal considerations surrounding their use. Digital Imaging - introduces the issues and legal considerations related to digital imaging and reviews recommendations for implementing digital imaging projects. Electronic Document Management Systems - introduces the electronic records issues that may arise when integrating and managing records within an electronic document management system (EDMS).
Significant and unexpected development concerning two guidelines (Digital Imaging and EDMS). Both have recently been incorporated into the state Government Enterprise Architecture standard for Electronic Document Management Systems. Resulted from our participation on a subcommittee of the state’s Enterprise Technology Architecture Oversight Committee (AOC). SGRAC member Kemble Oliver works with the AOC and with the subcommittee on Enterprise Applications. He recommended that the Archives nominate a representative to serve on this subcommittee, and I did so.
One of the applications is Electronic Document Management Systems and we began working on a standard for it last year. We spent a lot of time surveying state agencies to gather information on EDMS and imaging systems that were already in place, and a lot of time discussing various approaches for developing a standard. We reviewed current research materials and looked at what other states were doing. In the end, we decided that we would not be able to recommend specific vendors or software products as standards. There were too many variables in the specific functions that various agencies needed and too many different systems already in place that were working well. We concluded that the most workable approach for South Carolina was to either develop new or adopt some existing guidelines or standards that would provide basic direction to agencies without prescribing specific solutions or products.
First considered an existing standard from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) but found out that the second version of that standard was in the middle of the review and approval process and wouldn’t be available for a number of months. The timing was good because our grant project team here at the Archives had just completed work on the guidelines for Digital Imaging and EDMS, and the guidelines were partially based on the AIIM standard.
The subcommittee reviewed our guidelines and decided to incorporate them into the proposed state standard for EDMS. We presented our proposal to the full AOC in March of this year, they approved it, and placed it into effect in April. This was pretty significant for the Archives and for the grant project because, as state standards, the guidelines will have a far greater impact than we could have hoped for otherwise. The state’s IT Procurement Office is presently working with our subcommittee to develop a state contract for EDMS that will include the criteria from the standard.
We are presently finishing the last project deliverable for the DSS phase of the grant project, which is the Functional Analysis and Records Retention Schedule. This represents a new approach for appraising and scheduling agency records for retention and disposition. The model for this product is the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s Functional Analysis and Records Disposition Authority, although we have modified some parts of it to reflect the legal and operating environment here.
Centerpiece of the document is the retention schedule. Also includes sections describing the historical context, descriptions of the agency programs and functions, an analysis of the recordkeeping systems in place, the organizational structure, a list of requirements for using the schedule, and some general recommendations.
The retention schedule groups agency records by function, rather than by organizational structure. Within each function, the records are identified as either permanent or temporary, with the permanent records listed first, followed by the temporary records.
The entire document will be posted to the Archives web site and, once approved, can be accessed and used by all agency staff.
As part of the project, we designed new streamlined process that the agency can use to easily update and add records to the schedule in the future. Rather than having to go through the inventory process, agency staff will be able to submit a short form electronically, listing the information to be changed or added and we’ll be able to process and approve it quickly. Although we are presently testing this process only in state agencies, it can be easily adapted to local government. Alabama has been doing this for several years and they have a number of these on their web site for both state and local government.
We would like to get some feedback on the ERM Guidelines from local government. There is a form on-line that can be used.
Local Government Records Microfilming
Mr. Tryon discussed the Archives arrangements with the Genealogical Society
of Utah (GSU) to microfilm local government records. This is the only "free’
microfilming of historical records that the Archives is able to do, as the
department’s microfilm operation must generate funds for ongoing Archives
operations. The Archives makes all arrangements with the local governments and
picks up the records for microfilming at the Archives and returns the records to
the county after filming. The GSU provides full-time volunteer staff to do the
document preparation and microfilming of the records from the counties, and
handles all microfilm processing and duplication. The Archives receives a
storage copy of the resulting film and strikes copies for use in the Archives’
Research Room. Mr. Tryon mentioned that the GSU has sought
an agreement with the Archives that would allow it to sell copies of the records
in microform or other media, but that he has informed them that the SC counties
are the "records custodian" of the filmed records, not the Archives, and that
any approval would have to be sought from the counties.
The GSU is completing the last of the eligible estate files (to 1915) and
marriage records (to 1950) in the counties. Only one probate office as declined
to participate. After completing the filming of Orangeburg County marriage
records in the next few months, the Archives and the GSU will turn to the
filming of judgment rolls to the GSU 1900 cut-off date. Mr. Tryon said that he
would keep the Council apprised of developments.
Report on the Regrant Program
Attention turned to the regrant project administered by the Archives for the
SC State Historical Records Advisory Board (SC SHRAB). Mr. Tryon noted that the
SC SHRAB is the sponsoring body of the LGRAC and that the SC SHRAB member
liaison is Joyce McDonald.
Mr. Harris briefed the Council on the regrant project: Applications for those applying for funds in the first cycle of the regrant project were due in August. Most of the applications received were from private repositories but we did receive applications requesting funds for three local government projects. Our staff reviewed the applications and prepared summaries of each project. In October three members of the State Historical Records Advisory Board met to review the grant applications and make funding recommendations to the full board. Of the three local government projects, one was recommended for funding. Edgefield County requested $10,000.00, the maximum grant amount. Edgefield County requested funding to deal with about thirty cubic feet of historical documents that had recently been discovered. Some of the documents were from the 1770 up to around 1900 and included estate papers, criminal case files, coroner’s inquisition papers, plats. Edgefield requested funds to hire a current part-time staffer to identify, arrange, and index these records under the guidance of a consultant.
In December, the SHRAB met and agreed to fund the Edgefield project at the full amount requested. The $10,000.00 grant required the county to put up a 50% cash match and 25% in-kind match. John Mackintosh has made several visits to Edgefield to monitor the progress of the project.
In March, John Mackintosh held a workshop for local government personnel possibly interested in applying for a grant in the second funding cycle. He had one attendee but John visited several potential local government offices who expressed interest in possibly applying. Applications for a second funding cycle were due by the 17th of this month. We received applications from two local governments for this second funding cycle--another application from Edgefield and one from Hampton County. We are currently reviewing these applications. In late July the SHRAB preliminary review committee will meet to make their funding recommendations with the full SHRAB to meet and make final funding decisions in August or September.
Archives Planning & SC Local Governments
Mr. Tryon said that the Archives and the SC SHRAB would be doing coordinated
planning in the next year or so and that a significant aspect of the activity
would be on local government records. There will be more on this matter at the
fall meeting and Council members would likely be asked to participate in focus
and issue group deliberations in the spring.
Brainstorming
Mr. Tryon asked the Council members to discuss and offer some suggestions on
the question: How can the Archives better focus its resources to serve SC local
governments?
Among the recommendations were:
Next Meeting
Fall, 2005
The meeting adjourned at 1:15pm
Prepared by:
Roy H. Tryon