Kimo Crossman wrote:
>The SOTF shall have a retention policy of at least 100 years for all
digital documents - likely by that time storage will be so cheap there
will no longer be any need for a retention policy.

Kimo, who will ensure document integrity and preservation in this
scenario? Google? Are all of the documents truly permanent, based on
their content/function? How will you handle disposition? What assurance
do you have that the Google function you refer to will survive 100
years, or even the technology associated with it? Who will handle
migration, approximately every 10-20 years? Do you have a formal
agreement with Google to meet public records obligations? Whose
responsibility is it to meet public records obligations? If Google is
the sole holder of the information without any formal agreement, have
you alienated the records from appropriate and responsible public
records keepers? What volume do you expect, and is full text indexing
sufficient? What about metadata - are you meeting any kind of standard
(such as Dublin Core)?

These are some questions aimed at ensuring that a public record with a
100 year retention will continue to be available for the assigned
retention period. Even if SOTF is not a public entity, most are still
valid in terms of long term preservation. When you assign a long term
retention to a record, you significantly increase its maintenance costs,
assuming you are serious about the retention requirement. I have my
doubts that a sole reliance on Google for archival storage will suffice.

Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution and Stores
(FREDS)
1620 S.E. 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
Phone: (503)988-3741
Fax: (503)988-3754
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