The Partner acknowledges that the Library intends to enter into cooperative agreements with other state partners which will pursue projects in furtherance of the Multi-State Government Digital Information Program goals and objectives that include:
(i) network building to establish collaborative relationships within your state and other states identified in your Project, (ii) establishment of multi-state partnerships, (iii) preservation implementation that meet key objectives described in your Project, (iv) content collection and access to provide for gathering of digital content, and (v) access to the content by the Library and Congress.
Technology and the "electronic revolution" are having an unprecedented impact on the way that governments preserve and provide access to public records. As the number of government records created and stored in computer-based information systems increases at an exponential pace, states face the formidable challenge of managing digital records with long-term legal, historical and fiscal value. These documents reflect the day-to-day business of state government, and are crucial elements of each state's history and culture.
This work plan focuses on the preservation and provision of access to records and documents from two types of state institutions: state archives and state libraries. The proposal focuses on the creation of a centralized regional repository that will leverage the existing infrastructure, hardware and software system developed at the Washington State Digital Archives.
The underlying premise of a centralized digital repository is that electronic records and documents may be accessed from any location worldwide in an online environment, eliminating the need for researchers to travel to a particular site. In order to maximize cost savings among the states, the centralized regional repository will utilize the existing Washington State Digital Archives infrastructure. The Washington State Digital Archives, a facility created to preserve and provide access to state and local electronic records and documents of enduring legal and historical significance, possesses a state-of-the-art data center, containing both system and power redundancies, and incorporates a functioning preservation framework for electronic records and documents that is based on the OAIS model. The costs of the increased resource requirements required for this joint repository will be shared among the project's participants.
Each of the states will have its own web page - based on the Washington State Digital Archives master page layout - and URL to allow uniformity with institutional branding. Each institution will also have the limited capability to customize existing searches to meet institutional needs and those of researchers. Participating state archives will each select a single records series for inclusion on the basis of their historical and legal importance. The selected records series must adhere to the Washington State Archives Digital format standard for record types already ingested, including Marriage, Land, Census, Birth and Death. These new records series will be selected from maps, photos, audio and video files, legislative records, court records, as well as scanned and searchable images of records and rare texts. Participating state libraries will focus on the preservation and ingestion of state publications.
