Obama ordering agencies to keep better digital records

[alp227]

Source: Wash. Post

President Obama has ordered federal agencies to make wider use of digital-based record-keeping systems in what his aides promise will be the most significant change to government archiving since Harry S. Truman’s presidency.

The White House on Monday gave agency bosses four months to draft plans to improve how they archive government records, with specific government-wide instructions to follow soon after. The goal is to make federal record-keeping cheaper, faster and easier to access for Americans eager to explore government data, deliberations and decisions.

In issuing the order, Obama said the government’s archiving system “is based on an outdated approach involving paper and filing cabinets,” adding that his order would “move the process into the digital age.”

The government’s collective electronic archives top 142 terabytes of data, which far exceeds the digital archives of the Library of Congress (254 terabytes) and the more than 20 years worth of images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (45 terabytes, enough to fill 5,800 DVDs, according to NASA.)

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ordering-agencies-to-keep-better-digital-records/2011/11/28/gIQAQyoG6N_story.html

[DCKit]

1. 142Tb is bigger than 254Tb? That's Republican math. Sheesh. nt

[IamK]

2. ????

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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