Rising to the Challenge.

Are records professionals up to the

task?

Hans Hofman

International Conference on Digital Archival

Resources

Beijing, 6-7 June 2015

Overview

• Context

• Some views on recordkeeping

• Challenging developments

• Implications for recordkeeping

• What is needed?

• SummaryHofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

The need for change has been expressed by many

Re-assessing the state of the recordkeeping

profession in relation to the accelerating

and revolutionary developments in the

digital world

Catching up with reality…..

Views about recordkeeping

• A blog about implementing systems (James Lappin, September 2014)

– Technologies such as EDRMS insufficient

– Capture only fraction of records, and do not provide adequate access

• A discussion at the RK Roundtable (Sydney, 2012)

– Archival methods outdated

• An article about the future of Canadian Archives (Laura Millar, 2014)

– Are existing organisational structures and business models still the best way to

provide archival services?

• Review of a digital preservation project, Pericles (2014)

– In fact, re-inventing recordkeeping (‘sheer curation’)

• The list could go on… Many others have been raising concerns …

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

… the observations they are making are based on a reality that is already outdated…

… it is being supplanted by an even more complex reality…

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

As a consequence…

… they argue that organizations are losing their capacity (if they had any at all!) to manage their information and records.

To make matters worse...

The accelerating impact of technology change

• Digital technologies are changing our world fundamentally and at an

increasing speed– Moving towards an “internet of things” (IoT)– Making things ‘smart’– Global and supranational networking across jurisdictions– The increasing significance and influence of virtual communities

• facebook, google+, LinkedIn, …

• New business models

– Examples: Uber, airbnb,

– Defying existing legal frameworks

• ‘Exponential technology’: “the increasing ability of these technologies to

amplify the performance of each other in unexpected ways that disrupt

traditional boundaries.” (‘From exponential technologies to exponential innovation’, report

2013)

– Enables ‘exponential innovation’...

• Exponential growth of data and informationHofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

The world is entering a new era:

change is accelerating, becoming

more complex with new

dimensions, and becoming the de

facto state of the world we live in

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

What is being done to address the

recordkeeping challenges being

presented in this era of

accelerating change?

Addressing the recordkeeping challenges, a few examples

• RK roundtable in Australia: discussion platform on

current challenges in recordkeeping

• InterPARES 4: iTrust

• ICA: expert groups and initiative with UNESCO and

IRMT about sustainability of cultural heritage/

information

• ISO: developing and reviewing RK standards

– Currently revising the core standard, ISO 15489

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Will this be enough?

These initiatives have great objectives and their

efforts are leading to promising results.

But….

… The translation of new concepts into recordkeeping

practices has been slow…… possibly because:

•the results are too theoretical or too abstract

•the transfer of knowledge is too little and not customized

to what is needed

•the efforts are too isolated, and not coordinated

•the concepts and ideas need more experimentationHofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Possible Result …

• The gap between what is needed and what can be offered

by the recordkeeping profession is growing !

• The risk?

– Ignored, or worse, forgotten as a discipline

– Taken over/by-passed by others (already happening)

• Re-inventing recordkeeping

– Narrowed down to the cultural-heritage domain

• To put it otherwise (and to be provocative)…

– Where others are driving racing cars, the recordkeeping

profession is still using horse and cart

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

What can/should we do? • Need to understand the nature and characteristics of the changes

taking place and how these impact recordkeeping

• Need to assess/reconfirm our principles and objectives

• Need for leadership

• Need to join forces (as a profession) with others– Build partnerships

• Including relationships with other disciplines, such as IM, business managers and business analysts, data

management, privacy people, system developers, information security, …..

– May be establish a recordkeeping ‘skunkworks’?

• Bringing together a small group of bright people in a supporting environment, free of organizational

procedures…

• Go bold and cross the imaginary boundaries of our profession and barriers of our

thinking !• This has been said already 25 years ago, but it is still valid and even more so .…

• Look into new and promising technologies,

– such as blockchain technology (developed for bitcoin and increasingly used for other

purposes)

• Enabling decentralized consensus networks

• Examples: notary function (e.g. Bitnotar), storage of archival data (Permacoin)

– Conduct experiments and explore the possibilities for recordkeepingHofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Summary• Technologies are developing at an accelerated

pace and as a consequence the world and

society are changing faster than ever

• Data and information play a crucial role in this

context as do issues like reliability, usability,

tracebility, appraisal, access, …

• … So, recordkeeping principles still matter !

• However, the RK community is lagging behind

and trying to win the last war..…!

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Summary

• So, increasing sense of urgency to

join forces and to ‘ride the tiger’ !

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Thank you for your attention !

hhofman60@gmail.com

谢谢你的关注 !

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015

Some References

• About Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, see http://singularityhub.com/2015/02/05/book-review-peter-diamandiss-bold-a-reminder-of-how-entrepreneurs-will-control-the-worlds-fate/

• For exponential technology, see e.g. http://singularityhub.com/2015/03/02/disrupting-yourself/

• For blockchain technology, see http://speculativematerialism.com/2015/03/02/hey-kids-do-you-like-rhizomes/

• Recordkeeping and blockchain technology, see http://rkroundtable.org/2015/01/23/decentralised-and-inviolate-the-blockchain-and-its-uses-for-

digital-archives/

• New business models, see http://mashable.com/2014/06/16/unique-

business-models/

Hofman, Rising to the Challenge, Beijing 2015