From the Washington Post:
President Obama on Monday ordered agencies to make wider use of digital-based record-keeping systems in what aides promise will be the most significant change to government archiving since Harry S. Truman’s presidency.
“The current federal records management system is based on an outdated approach involving paper and filing cabinets,” Obama said in a statement announcing the orders. “Today’s action will move the process into the digital age so the American public can have access to clear and accurate information about the decisions and actions of the federal government.”
The government’s electronic archives top 142 terabytes of data, or 14,200 gigabytes. By comparison, the Library of Congress has accumulated 254 terabytes of data and more than 20 years’ worth of images captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope account for more than 45 terabytes, enough to fill 5,800 DVDs.
Read the Complete Washington Post Report
See Also: Full Text: Presidential Memorandum — Managing Government Record
See Also: We Can’t Wait: President Signs Memorandum to Modernize Management of Government Records (via White House)
The official news release
See Also: OMB Watch Praises Presidential Memo on Modernizing Records Management
The federal government employs over 2.7 million people who produce an average of over 475 million pages of information each year. The executive branch of the federal government consists of 15 cabinet-level agencies (with over 75 sub-agencies), 30 independent agencies, and at least 29 boards, commissions, and committees, and familiarity with and use of digital technologies varies dramatically across agencies.
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