[House Hearing, 106 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION, AND TECHNOLOGY of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ OCTOBER 20, 1999 __________ Serial No. 106-121 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house http://www.house.gov/reform ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 64-651 CC WASHINGTON : 2000 COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. WISE, Jr., West Virginia ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania JOHN L. MICA, Florida PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DAVID M. McINTOSH, Indiana ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington, MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland MARSHALL ``MARK'' SANFORD, South DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio Carolina ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois DAN MILLER, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas JIM TURNER, Texas LEE TERRY, Nebraska THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois DOUG OSE, California ------ PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho (Independent) DAVID VITTER, Louisiana Kevin Binger, Staff Director Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director David A. Kass, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian Carla J. Martin, Chief Clerk Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois JIM TURNER, Texas THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania GREG WALDEN, Oregon MAJOR R. OWENS, New York DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York Ex Officio DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel Bonnie Heald, Director of Communications/Professional Staff Member Chip Ahlswede, Clerk David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on October 20, 1999................................. 1 Statement of: Carlin, John, Archivist of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, accompanied by, Lewis J. Bellardo, Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff; and Adrienne C. Thomas, Assistant Archivist for Administrative Services.... 5 Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; Page Putnam Miller, executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization of American Historians; Stanley Katz, vice president for research, American Historical Association; and H. Thomas Hickerson, associate university librarian for information technology, Cornell University, and president, Society of American Archivists................................................. 88 Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by: Bellardo, Lewis J., Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff, information concerning records of party conferences........ 52 Carlin, John, Archivist of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration: Information concerning grants awarded.................... 64 Prepared statement of.................................... 9 Hickerson, H. Thomas, associate university librarian for information technology, Cornell University, and president, Society of American Archivists, prepared statement of...... 112 Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of................. 3 Katz, Stanley, vice president for research, American Historical Association, prepared statement of.............. 107 Miller, Page Putnam, executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization of American Historians, prepared statement of.............. 102 Stevens, L. Nye, Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of......................................................... 90 Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 130 THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION ---------- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1999 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, Committee on Government Reform, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Horn and Turner. Staff present: Matthew Ebert, policy advisor; Bonnie Heald, director of communications and professional staff member; Chip Ahlswede, clerk; P.J. Caceres and Deborah Oppenheim, interns; Trey Henderson, minority counsel; David McMillen, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority staff assistant. Mr. Horn. This is the Committee on Government Reform's first oversight hearing on the National Archives and Records Administration since the Honorable John Carlin became the Nation's Archivist in 1995. We welcome Governor Carlin, former Governor of Kansas. He has done a great job as the Archivist and we look forward to having some of that put into the record. The National Archives and Record Administration is an independent Federal agency charged with preserving the Nation's history through its oversight and management of Federal records. The agency has 33 facilities that hold more than 4 billion pieces of paper generated by all branches of the Federal Government from 1789 up. Today we will examine one of the agency's essential responsibilities: how it determines which Government records should be preserved and which records may be destroyed. I shudder at the last remark. The National Archives assists other Federal agencies in maintaining and disposing of Government documents--electronic and paper. The agency is attempting to streamline and revise its guidelines under an 18-month business process reengineering plan and plans to survey Government agencies on their electronic records management programs. The subcommittee will examine the agency's progress on this plan today. Since President Clinton's 1995 order to declassify historic documents which are 25 years or older, the Federal Government has processed 593 million pages for declassification. The subcommittee will examine how the National Archives, as a key player, is implementing this process in meeting its declassification deadlines. In addition, we want to examine the viability of the National Archives' revolving fund. The fund, which was established last year, was set up as a mechanism for Federal departments and agencies to reimburse the National Archives for the expenses it incurs for storage of temporary records. We welcome our witnesses today. We look forward to each of their testimonies. We will proceed and yield to Mr. Turner when he comes in shortly. [The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.002 Mr. Horn. As panel one, we have Governor John Carlin, Archivist of the United States, National Archives and Records Administration, who is accompanied by Mr. Lewis Bellardo, Deputy Archivist and Chief of Staff, and Ms. Adrienne C. Thomas, Assistant Archivist for Administrative Services. I think you both know the routine here. We swear in all witnesses. Please stand and raise your right hands. If there are any staff behind you that will be giving you suggestions, please have them stand, too. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that the three witnesses and one staff member affirmed the oath. Governor, we are delighted to have you here. Please take any time you want, but we would obviously like you to summarize your fine statement. I might add that the statements automatically go in the record when we call on each witness. You do not have to read it, but we would like to have you summarize it. Then we can spend more time on dialog. STATEMENT OF JOHN CARLIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY, LEWIS J. BELLARDO, DEPUTY ARCHIVIST AND CHIEF OF STAFF; AND ADRIENNE C. THOMAS, ASSISTANT ARCHIVIST FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman and staff, I am John Carlin, Archivist of the United States. As the Chair has pointed out, I administer the National Archives and Records Administration. We are certainly grateful for this opportunity and welcome the chance to work with this very important oversight committee. I thank you for placing my full text in the record. I will summarize. I would like to touch on some of the things that might be of particular interest to you and then of course answer questions. Because our strategic plan puts our customers first in our thinking, I want to first make it clear who they are and what we provide them. Our mission, as defined in our strategic plan, is to ensure ready access to essential evidence documenting the rights and entitlements of citizens, the actions for which Federal officials are responsible, and the national experience. As you stated, we have 34 facilities across the country. They include regional archives, records services centers, and 10 Presidential libraries, where we preserve and provide access to literally millions of records--billions if you count individual pages, photographs, and recordings--ranging from our 18th century records to 100,000 late-20th century electronic files. Literally thousands of people, including genealogists, lawyers, historians, veterans, newspaper and television journalists, and government employees, annually do research in our archival facilities, and thousands of others write or call with inquiries for records or information from our records. Approximately 1 million people, many of whom are school children, annually view the Charters of Freedom in our Washington rotunda, and each year approximately 1.4 million people view exhibits in our Presidential libraries. Approximately 1.5 million veterans annually request documentation from us of their entitlement to benefits. People throughout the country this past year made more than 7 million user visits to our webpages. And the number of documents that researchers have pulled up to review from electronic editions of the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, and related publications that NARA produces now exceeds 100 million annually. In addition, as you know, Mr. Chairman, many historians, archivists, and records managers across the country are carrying out projects to preserve and publish records with the help of grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Administration, which is part of NARA. I am pleased to say that increased support from the Congress and the administration for special initiatives over the past 3 years is enabling us to serve these customers better. As a political scientist, Mr. Chairman, you will be glad to know that scholars, among other researchers, are grateful to the Congress for making it possible, in the budget just passed for fiscal year 2000, for us to hire more archivists to assist them in our research rooms, and to provide better research room equipment for their use. Researchers are grateful to Congress for enabling us to continue our progress in building an Archival Research Catalog that eventually will provide on-line descriptions of everything in our holdings so that their research can start at home. And researchers, especially genealogists, are also grateful for funds appropriated in our fiscal year 2000 budget to enable us to prepare for opening the 1930 census records. Providing public access to records, however, is only half our job. We are the National Archives and Records Administration. We provide guidance to our largest customer, the three branches of Government, including the Federal courts and more than 300 Federal agencies with thousands of locations nationwide and around the world, on documenting their activities and managing their records. We also have the responsibility to approve how long Federal records are kept in order to protect individual rights, hold Government accountable, and document the national experience. For the Congress and its legislative agencies, we preserve official records in our Center for Legislative Archives and provide access to them. Mr. Chairman, I do not have to tell an oversight committee how important it is for Government agencies to be able to locate and provide access to records quickly and adequately. When they have difficulty doing so, as in some recent cases, congressional committees feel frustrated by what, to us, is a records management problem. There have been a lot of charges and counter-charges about records availability, but I think it is true to say that the Congress, the executive branch, and NARA itself have not in the past put enough emphasis on the need for effective records management in the Government. But fortunately that is changing, and we are grateful for the support that the Congress and the administration have been giving us in recent budgets for records management improvement. With that introduction to what we do and for whom, Mr. Chairman, I would like now to turn to some specific concerns that may be of particular interest to you and your committee. As you know, we are all concerned about electronic records. They pose an unprecedented challenge because such records are vulnerable to erasure, media instability, and technological obsolescence, and because they are mushrooming in quantity and in multiple formats. But we are making progress toward meeting these challenges and averting loss. The magnitude of the problem has made us realize that NARA does not have, nor will we have, the expertise or the resources to meet these challenges on our own. Consistent with our strategic plan, we have made partnering with others our key strategy, so that our limited resources can be leveraged for maximum return. For example, we have partnered with the Department of Defense to develop a set of baseline requirements for the management of electronic records, and we subsequently endorsed this baseline as a starting point for agencies that want to begin implementing electronic recordkeeping. Also, we have formed a partnership with Government records managers and information officers, and with private sector consultants, to launch an inter-agency Fast Track Guidance Development Project. This project will identify ``best practices'' currently available to Federal recordkeepers in managing electronic records. In terms of electronic records preservation and access, we also have new hope, thanks to another partnership. Over the past quarter-century, NARA has taken into our archives approximately 100,000 files of electronic records from the U.S. Federal Government as a whole. But we estimate that the Treasury Department alone, for example, is now generating annually, in e-mail alone, nearly a million files of electronic records that we are likely to need to take into our archives. So we entered into a partnership to support work at the San Diego Supercomputer Center on an automated system to enable us to take in large quantities of Government e-mail messages in a short time, and the Center has produced a prototype that is able to preserve 2 million e-mail messages in 2 days. This could be a huge breakthrough. In the meantime, we continue to have volumes of paper records with which to deal through our records center operations for Federal agencies. We maintain a regional network of records centers in which we provide storage, retrieval, and other services on records that remain in the agencies' legal custody. With your support, Mr. Chairman--for which we are grateful--we instituted on October 1st a reimbursable program in which we offer agencies customer-oriented, fee-supported records center services. For the first time, all agencies--not just some--will reimburse us for all records center services we provide. And as part of implementing this program, records storage standards were established, which will apply to both NARA and private sector or agency facilities. We also continue to address needs of archival facilities that house the permanently valuable records in our own legal custody. Funds appropriated by the Congress are enabling us to search for the kind and quantity of space we need to replace outmoded and full-up facilities in Anchorage, AK and Atlanta, GA. And we plan to renovate our grand old original archives building here in Washington--the building that houses, among other treasures, the records of Congress. We'll upgrade its HVAC system to meet today's archival preservation standards, remedy shortcomings in electrical distribution and fire safety, meet requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and improve public spaces generally. Here again, though, we are developing partnerships by soliciting private sector contributions to supplement public funds for educational aspects of the project. The centerpiece of the renovation will be the replacement of currently deteriorating cases for the Nation's Charters of Freedom--the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They will receive state- of-the-art reencasement so that they may continue to be safely viewed in our rotunda by millions of visitors well into the new millennium. On that happy note, I conclude my oral testimony. Again, I am grateful for support from you, Mr. Chairman, this committee, and the Congress. We have far to go to reach the goals in our strategic plan, but I am more encouraged today than at any time since I became the archivist. I am beginning to see real progress toward meeting the electronic era's great challenges in providing the services that the people of a democracy need to document their entitlements, hold their Government accountable, and understand our national historical experience. Thank you very much. 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We thank you, Mr. Carlin. Do either of your other staff members wish to add anything to that? Mr. Carlin. Not at this point. Mr. Horn. Let me turn first to our ranking member on the subcommittee, a very hard-working member from Texas, Mr. Turner. I am going to start the questioning with him. We are going to alternate between him and myself and anyone else that shows up 5 minutes at a time. So we can get a lot of subjects out on the table. Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Governor. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the visit we had the other day. I am impressed, Governor, with the enthusiasm with which you have undertaken your job. I think it has meant a lot to all of us to have you in that position. There is one issue I wanted to ask you to comment on. I know there has been some concern from the Census Bureau about the preservation of the original forms. I know the plans, I think, are to make only copies or the computer records being ones that you archive rather than the original forms. Could you tell us a little bit about why that decision has been made? What are the pros and cons? I know it is something that the Census Bureau has expressed some concern about. Mr. Carlin. Historically, this has been the pattern. Only up until the 2000 census, the original documents--there was a microfilm copy and it was the microfilm copy that was the preservation copy, the access copy, the copy by which we distributed across the country to all our facilities and made available for rent. Once we had the microfilm copied, then the original questionnaires were always destroyed. That has been the pattern from the very beginning. What is new and unique this year is that we are shifting to a new medium. For the first time, instead of microfilm, we are talking about electronic medium. What is left at issue, in my mind, is really two very significant things. One, we have not yet scheduled with the Census Bureau those electronic documents--the systems, et cetera. The existing schedule for the questionnaires that are temporary is in place, but communicated with that schedule--if they will be destroyed--is that they cannot be destroyed until they have made a copy on an appropriate medium. In this case, in the year 2000 it will be electronic. We have that work left with the Census Bureau to get that scheduling done. The second thing I would assure you is that I am not signing those schedules until I am confident that this new first-time use of electronic systems, electronic technology, that we in fact have the information so that we can provide access--or obviously somebody else, 72 years later down the road--to those records. In that sense, it is very different. It is very sensitive and it is the first time. I can assure you that we will be very, very careful before we sign the schedules for those records, which would then allow the destruction-- which we have always done. It has been the patter from the very beginning that the voluminous volume of originals are not practical to be kept as long as there has been made a copy--and of course to this time, it has been microfilm. Mr. Turner. So for the first time we will not microfilm, but there will be a computer file. Mr. Carlin. That is correct. They are being produced in electronic form. So access to them 72 years down the road will be very different. As I talked to my staff yesterday, thinking about some of the subjects we might discuss, one of the things we readily agreed was that it would be somebody else's problem to convert those microfilm reading rooms to electronic many decades down the road. But our responsibility is to make sure we have captured and secured that information--those census records--so that we cannot just preserve but provide access at the appropriate time. Mr. Turner. Specifically, what type of concerns have been expressed by the Census Bureau? Are they worried that these new computer records will not be as accessible as they were under the microfilm system? Mr. Carlin. I am not aware that they have expressed any concerns along that line. I am aware that my staff has worked very closely with them on the procedures, the development of the process--starting as early as 1995--beginning the discussion and communication back and forth. I think the concern is more on our side in making sure that the scheduling gets done and making sure we are confident that the technology that we have been a part of describing and developing in fact can do the job. Mr. Turner. Thank you. Mr. Horn. Let me pick up on Mr. Turner's question. I was on the visiting committee once for the Stanford University libraries. One of the librarians came in and had 30 books there and started to snap them in half. We all just about fainted. But that is the problem with the acidic paper. To what degree do you have that problem in the preservation of records and the wear and tear on paper since the 1830's? Mr. Carlin. This is a good followup question because that is again where microfilm plays a significant role and where we try to focus our energies on the limited resources we have for microfilming additional records, that is, microfilming those records that are used most frequently so that the access the researcher gets is through microfilm, not the original. Obviously, this is a small portion of our holdings, but we focus on that for preservation purposes. Mr. Horn. What do we know about magnets and other things that can upset an electronic data system? Suppose you had it all wiped out after this? Where is the record? Mr. Carlin. Well, if you are relating this to the past question, we are talking about a very nervous archivist in terms of making sure that we are confident in what we have. I am going to yield to my Deputy in a moment, who has a little more direct expertise in this area. But that is why I want to make sure we get it. I do not know if the plan is to have a back-up preservation copy--I assume there is. That is the traditional way. But you are correct. As I stated in my opening remarks, one of the challenges of electronic records is that they are so easy to disrupt, so easy to erase. Lew. Mr. Bellardo. The standard procedure that we have for electronic media would be to have an offsite back-up copy, which I guess we would call our preservation copy. Mr. Horn. Where do you store that? In a cave somewhere? Mr. Bellardo. Well, we currently---- Mr. Horn. I am not being facetious. Get it away from effects that could be on them electronically. Mr. Bellardo. That is the case for microfilm security copies. We do have them actually in underground storage. The magnetic media are stored--unless there has been some recent change--in the Washington area, but offsite, therefore, we have the ability to generate another copy. The other concern that the Archivist expressed is to be sure that the format that these materials would be coming to us--that we would be able over time to preserve that and to also provide access to it. We are working through those format questions with the Census Bureau. Mr. Carlin. The technology we will receive it on will be migrated several times before ultimate access. We cannot even imagine what technology might be like 75 years down the road, but we can assume it will be several generations--many, many generations--removed from what we experience today. So one of our issues is to make sure that we can migrate that information to a technology that would be in use at the time access becomes available. Mr. Horn. The census records, you say, have been destroyed from past censuses? Mr. Carlin. The originals are destroyed once they are copied onto microfilm. Mr. Horn. Did the person who was polled in that census--did they fill out a separate form saying 1860? 1870? 1910? What was the form? Mr. Carlin. The patterns have varied over the years, but it is my understanding that we have always microfilmed the original. Mr. Bellardo. Basically, what happened was the enumerator would walk down the street and question the individuals and they would make notations on the form. They would occasionally encounter people who did not want to be interviewed or whatever. But other than that, they did their best. You can actually track the street they were on and the addresses and so forth of the people they were talking to. But generally speaking, it was not a form that people filled out themselves. I think the most recent census I participated in I actually got a mail-in form, filled it out, and sent it back in. Mr. Horn. Let's say a President in 1860 and a President in the year 2000--it would seem to me to be very interesting to keep that document--the original. So what do you do with that? You burn Abraham Lincoln's interview and you burn William Jefferson Clinton's about-to-be interview? Mr. Bellardo. I think what has happened in the past is that at the time the microfilm was transmitted to us those records were in fact destroyed after the quality was checked. In the case of Clinton--of course, in the case of Lincoln, it would not have been in his handwriting. It would have been the enumerators handwriting. In the case of Clinton, presumably, if he has a mail-in form and mails it in, then it would in fact be in his hand. Mr. Horn. There are a lot of people, as you know, interested in genealogy. You have the Mormon church, the Church of Latter Day Saints. They have great genealogy records. It seems to me that I would rather put these in State libraries-- if it is a State--or someplace. Or make some money off it, to be blunt about it. We have everybody in their library who hangs up commissions by this or that President or confederate bonds or whatever it is. It seems to me there might be an interest in genealogy if one had one's ancestors records before they are burned. I would like nothing more than to have the records of my great grandfather from Ireland in the 1840's in Washington, DC. There is a possibility there to make money for the archives in a trust fund, or an endowment, or whatever. Has that been thought of? Mr. Bellardo. If I can return to the historical census, we have really been talking about the population schedules. The non-population schedules, which were also done during the 19th century--some of those survived in hard copy and actually some of those are deposited in State libraries or archives or the equivalent of that. We have some of them at the National Archives as well. In terms of the 2000 census, we have not thought about that at this point. Mr. Carlin. You have given us something to think about, Mr. Chairman. I would tell you, we have not been pressed by the genealogists on that subject as much as making sure that we get the information so it can be made available. The originals--we will take a look at that. Mr. Horn. I have a real problem with microfilm--I will tell you--and to microfilm readers. The ones in the Library of Congress are a disgrace and they know my opinion on it. Maybe we will have to put a line item in their next budget to make sure that they get some decent microfilm readers. But I am going through about 50 years of records on microfilm in newspapers. I did that in research as a graduate student and other books and so forth. But it seems to me they are a horrible thing and there must be a better way to invent a decent microfilm reader where you can get focus and not have things blacked out on the page and all the rest of it. It depends on how the person held the object before they snapped the microfilm button. That bothers me that records are just smudged and all the rest of it. In this case, it is the California State library and I am using the Library of Congress equipment to read it. But it bothers me. So what do we do to improve that service? Mr. Carlin. Thanks to the support of Congress, starting in the year 2000, we have a sum of money to replace on a sane basis our microfilm readers in all our facilities across the country. Assuming we can find quality microfilm readers, we will not be talking about broken-down, ancient, poor-serving microfilm readers. Mr. Horn. Let me move to another subject. I am not done with that, but in a report we might have something to say on it. What would you say, Mr. Carlin, is the greatest challenge you face as Archivist? Mr. Carlin. I think the most significant challenge I face and that we at NARA face is the set of issues involving electronic records. Mr. Horn. Are you issuing guidance to Federal agencies on these? How does that work? Is there another agency in the Government who is looking at the overall electronic use of records--just for operations, let alone archival purposes? Mr. Carlin. We are accepting the responsibility we have to work with agencies to provide them guidance. As I indicated in my testimony, we have established a group of our own experts, plus experts from Federal agencies, as well as outside experts to begin the process. In fact, very soon, the first set of advice going to agencies will be up on the web. Clearly, we feel--not just because of our responsibility for those records scheduled permanent, but for all records, temporary as well that have an incredible value for a particular period of time--that we have a responsibility to work with the agencies. Our partnership with the Department of Defense to establish standards was an effort to start to provide guidance to the private sector to produce software that met certain standards that would be conducive to agency use today and our use as well as theirs down the road for future access. Mr. Horn. Do you feel that industry is responding in terms of what you are seeking in the software? Mr. Carlin. They appear to be very interested in what we are producing. They obviously know the Federal Government is a large customer and they want to make sure they are providing something the Federal Government will buy. I think there is no problem here. The challenge is to make sure--as we have indicated--to DOD we are saying, This is one way to go. We are not saying it is the only way to the private sector or agencies. Mr. Horn. The National Archives' fiscal year 1999 performance plan indicated that the business process reengineering plan would be complete in 1999. However, fiscal year 2000 performance plan notes that the reengineering plan is scheduled for completion in the year 2000. What is the cause for the delay? Mr. Carlin. We are talking about the business process reengineering of the scheduling and appraisal of our operation, I assume, if I heard you correctly. The reason this is delayed is--first of all, we put this in our original strategic plan as a key challenge we needed to address. We set the time table which we thought was realistic. Then we faced a lawsuit, for one example, that took a great deal of our time and energy. With our limited staff and resources, we had no choice but to focus and suddenly make it a priority. That was one point that caused it to slip. The second thing that caused it to slip is that the more we looked at the subject, the more we realized that initially there were major policy issues that needed to be addressed first before we even started the traditional BPR. I would like to have my Deputy, who is working on this in terms of what we are really doing today, take a moment to share where we are headed on this very important task. Mr. Horn. Fine. And as you know, we will have the GAO on the next panel. If you can stay, we will get a dialog on that report. Mr. Carlin. OK. Mr. Horn. Mr. Bellardo. Mr. Bellardo. As we have been dealing with the GRS-20 guidance and bulletins and have heard back from agencies, one thing that has become clear to us is that the world is changing very rapidly in terms of how agencies are doing their work. In order to get a real sense of what the problems are that need to be addressed in a reinvention project relating to appraisal, scheduling, front-end, what our role should be, what the agency's role should be--we need to have a better picture of the way records are being created today, the role of the various players within the agencies--the IGs, the internal auditors, the general counsel's office, records managers, and so forth--and then how those records are being used. We do know that there are developments with the web and how people are using information, how they are accessing it, and how they need it presented to them. We are interested in both the public as well as agency users of information. On top of that, we think we need more information about how the records are actually being disposed of in the agencies. This is an area where the dialog has been with the GAO folks. But we are not setting aside this reinvention effort. In the coming few months, we are going to be gathering information in the areas I have just talked about, feed that information to the policy review, and out of that build our as-is model and our to-be model in terms of how we feel we can be more effective in the agency scheduling and appraisal processes. Mr. Horn. In July, when the General Accounting Office issued the report stating that the National Archives could learn from its planned baseline survey of Government-wide agency records management and could incorporate positive changes in their business process and reengineering plan, why did the Archives disagree with the GAO recommendation to move forward with the baseline survey? Mr. Carlin. Let me just say in general, from my point of view I do not think we have a disagreement. The initial baseline was heavily focused on just standard data elements, not the kind of information my Deputy feels very strongly that we need to know to do this right. So in terms of communication, we stopped that part of it because we felt it was foolish to gather all that information if eventually the system was going to be changed and it would have to be done again. But from a practical point of view, what GAO was saying I think we are now doing. We think it is very important to know what is going on, to gather information. It is just that the original plan was very narrow and focused on detail rather than the kind of general knowledge that we needed that would only come from a different approach. Mr. Bellardo. I would like to first say that it is an excellent report. We were very much interested in it. I think if there is a failing here, it is perhaps in our ability to communicate what the original baseline was projected to be. It was basically projected to be a review of how agencies are following our existing policies and procedures and so forth. What we are now about looking at is whether those policies are working and whether we need to look at other policies and other kinds of procedures. I think that is probably underlying the suggestions that are being made in the GAO report. So I do not think we are really in disagreement as to where we need to be. It is just that in order to comment on the recommendation that we should do the original baseline as we outlined it, we feel as though that would not have helped us in the reengineering process. Mr. Horn. My understanding is that the fiscal year 2000 performance plan aims to convert 10 percent of existing record series descriptions or finding aids to an on-line archival research catalog. Is that the way---- Mr. Carlin. That is the direction I would want to check to confirm. I would say in general that as an agency we are very supportive of GPRA and the targets--the performance aspect. We are very committed to our strategic plan. We were committed to that plan before, so all of this has worked very well together. But we did learn very early--although in general, in most areas we are achieving our goals--because we did not in many cases have good baseline information, we will be adjusting those goals to a more realistic set of targets as the 2000 is finalized as well as the 2001 developed. Mr. Horn. Do you think you can hit the 100 percent mark by 2007? That is what presumably 10 percent means when you start in the year 2000. Is that a realistic timeframe? Mr. Carlin. We think it is realistic if we can secure, by one means or another, the resources to achieve that goal. Mr. Horn. What do you need? Is it the hardware, the software, or both? Mr. Carlin. In this particular case, talking about the research catalog, it is just the challenge of populating. We have the resources to put the catalog together. That will be done very shortly--in terms of months, not years. But then it will be the challenge of populating it, getting everything in there, and that will be labor-intensive. Mr. Horn. Have you asked for those resources in recent budgets? If so, has OMB cut you or supported you? Mr. Carlin. We have not specifically asked for resources to populate to OMB, so they have not--we have been supported for the resources we felt we needed through the 2000 budget to do because the focus through 2000, for the most part, is to complete the system, to get it up, operational, and running. Then the challenge ahead is populating, which we think can heavily be focused on existing resources, but we do not know at this point how far that will take us and whether in future years to be complete in 2007 we will have to add additional resources. Mr. Horn. Agencies often rely heavily on websites to convey information to the public. To what extent does the Archives consider materials on websites as permanent records and what guidance are you issuing to agencies for their preservation? Mr. Carlin. I am going to let my Deputy comment specifically on how we schedule web records. We see the web as an incredible opportunity to take our resources to people that never have the opportunity to visit one of our facilities. We also see it as an incredible opportunity to communicate more efficiently with our biggest customer, the Federal Government and all the agencies we deal with in terms of guidance we provide. Our hope is, in the coming years we will greatly expand how we use the web to communicate back and forth to make the processes that work through the life cycle of the record much more efficient. But on the scheduling issue, I want to yield to my Deputy. Mr. Bellardo. First, a word about guidance. We have been working and have an internal draft for records management guidance for agencies relating to websites. We are not happy with that draft at this point. One of the things we hope to be working on with this fast track team is the web guidance. We would hope that one of the projects they take up would be to refine the web guidance and really make it a tool that could be useful to agencies. In terms of the scheduling aspect, what we are saying to agencies is that if you do not have a separate record file of the document that you are putting on the website, then these must be treated as records and must be scheduled. On that basis, we would do an appraisal and then make a determination as to which of those we will accept for accessioning. From a practical standpoint, we are going to have to be looking in the future at creative ways--if I can use the word-- to harvest that information in cooperation with the agencies because much of it, I suspect, will be very ephemeral if we do not act in a very proactive way. Mr. Horn. To what degree do we know, in the Presidential libraries, the degree to which we have electronic records? Have they been destroyed? We think of the Ollie North situation where he can go through and wipe out a lot of the electronic records. What can we do to get the material into the Presidential libraries without a lot of ``throwing a few tapes overboard''? Mr. Carlin. There are a lot of things we can do. Obviously, the Presidential libraries--the Presidential records are more electronic to date than Federal records. So it has sort of led the challenge in dealing with electronic records going back two or three administrations. The No. 1 thing we can do, Mr. Chairman, for the future, is to be much more aggressive as an agency and successful in working with a new administration from day one. The problems to this point have come from not knowing what should be done, to not being there with succeeding administrations to really assist them. It is our goal to be very aggressive with the new administration in the transition period following the 2000 election so that--particularly with electronic records, but not exclusively--we can provide the guidance, make sure the systems are set up. As you are well aware, the bulk of Presidential records are permanent. It is a very different situation. We do not do the traditional scheduling. We start out with the assumption that they are permanent and go from there. So we are talking about a large volume of electronic records in various formats that are being preserved today for Reagan and Bush, for example, but in a difficult and expensive way. If we can get there up front and get it done right, we can save money and provide access much faster. Mr. Horn. We put legislation in to provide for an orientation of Presidential appointees and nominees, regardless of who is President in 2000 and regardless of whether it is between the election and taking the oath of office because there is a continual number of appointees. I think it would be good--and I will have staff note it--that we also get into the archives role of that. You are absolutely correct. Cabinet secretaries ought to be brought up to speed. I remember in the Eisenhower administration we had three wonderful mail clerks in the secretary's room and those records were absolutely immaculate when they were turned over to the Eisenhower Library. I think that would be very helpful. I see we have a vote on. I will have to recess this so Mr. Turner and I can keep faith with our constituency, whatever that is over there. Mr. Carlin. We would not want that to be interfered with. Mr. Horn. So we will be in recess for about 10 to 15 minutes. [Recess.] Mr. Horn. What can you tell me on records about the legislative branch and the degree to which you are getting them? Mr. Carlin. As you are aware, we are the custodian of the legislative records. I will let Lew comment in depth, but it is my feeling that Mike Gillette and his operation have established a very good relationship with both House and Senate and not only are we getting the records, but access is not only based on a schedule but congressional support for access. That support has significantly improved on the access side of things in the last few years. Mr. Bellardo. I am a previous head of the Center for Legislative Archives, and even at that point in the late 1980's and early 1990's we had a good rapport. I think Mike has been even more aggressive in working with the historical offices and with the committee staffs and so forth. The sense that we have is that there is a very regular process of transferring materials. As you know, it is committee records and not the records of the individual Members' offices. Those are basically their records and they usually donate them to a university back home. We are also doing some work on the Senate side as they are developing a new electronic records system in the Senate. We have staff who are involved in working with Senate staffers on that. I believe that cooperation is moving forward as well. Mr. Carlin. I would also add, Mr. Chairman, your new clerk is exceptionally well-grounded on records issues. We look forward to a very good relationship with him. Mr. Horn. Thank you. Mike Gillette has done a terrific job, no question about it. I particularly enjoyed seeing what he had done for the schools of this country in terms of real-looking documents. You would think they were the originals in terms of Thomas Jefferson, women's suffrage, and this sort of thing. Besides the committee records, to what degree are you able to get the party records, such as the Democratic Caucus in the House and the Republican Conference in the House? I would love to see the notes Bobby Baker in the Senate kept on who got what position and what committee and this kind of thing. They could put a 50-year limit on it, but it would be great historical evidence that frankly you do not have right now. I do not know what they do with those, whether they dump them in the ash can or what. Mr. Bellardo. No, I do not think they do. I think we need to get back with you with more accurate information, but it is my understanding that there has been significant progress on the caucus records. Whether or not we have actually accessioned them at this point I am not sure. That is what we will need to get back to you on. [The information referred to follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.036 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.037 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.038 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.039 Mr. Horn. I will give you another example that you might get them collecting, then. When I first came here, I started collecting each flyer that is used on the floor to pass or to not pass a bill. No one has ever done it. I have 6 years and I am going to keep it. [Laughter.] Somebody around this place--once I am not here--should be doing that because it is fascinating in terms of what they say is in that bill versus what is in the bill. I can put a lot of---- Mr. Carlin. We will make sure we pass that one along. Mr. Horn. It would be a fascinating little comparison. We were talking about websites. You project that in fiscal year 2000 the Archives will process and release 75 million pages of agency records for access. What portion of the total amount of records are backlogged and need processing of that 75 million? Is that a realistic schedule? Mr. Carlin. Are we talking about classified records? Mr. Horn. Mostly, yes, it is classified records. Mr. Carlin. How much progress we make is obviously impacted by additional responsibilities we are given. We estimate, for example, the Lott amendment, which will require us to go back and revisit page by page a lot of records that have already been declassified and in fact are out on the shelf. The latest estimate that has been given to me is some 200 million pages that will have to be gone through page by page which will slow us down in terms of how much we can get done under the challenge of declassifying records that have never been declassified. As you are well aware, we are heavily dependent upon the agencies to provide us guidance. If they provide us guidance, we can do the work. If they do not provide us guidance, then all we can do is try to facilitate, encourage, support, assist, fix up a nice room for them, provide them support, bring the records, encourage them to come down to do the work. What really gets challenging is where you have multiple equities in one record where you can get the Air Force to declassify it but the Army hasn't. So until all the equities have been resolved, you do not have an open record. Mr. Horn. On that point, somebody told me a couple of years ago that we still have some World War I records that have not been declassified. Is that true? Mr. Carlin. Yes. And my Deputy would like to comment on this. We also have the formula for disappearing ink classified. Although I never ate the right cereal, my Deputy might share his experience. Mr. Bellardo. I understand that there are such formulas available to those who eat the right breakfast cereals. But I do not know if we can go into further detail than that. The information is---- Mr. Carlin. My Deputy is much more sensitive to CIA restrictions than the Archivist. [Laughter.] Mr. Horn. But who has control over those World War I records? Mr. Carlin. The agencies that still maintain an equity in those records. If they had provided us guidance, they would be open. But they have not. So by law they have total control. President Clinton's Executive order--a more aggressive order than previous Executive orders--put a deadline. But now there has been and will be a postponement of that deadline and the new administration ultimately will deal with whether that deadline will in fact be real or not. But it did put some teeth in and the massive amount of declassification that has been done in the last 3 years is directly related to the strong orders that were issued in that particular Executive order. Mr. Horn. The Executive order cannot trump a law, so do we need a law to say that all the records relating to World War I should be released? Mr. Carlin. We would certainly be interested in any legislation that would encourage access. We are as sensitive as anyone to inappropriate declassification. There have been multiple discussions in the last few years--as you are well aware, Mr. Chairman--on ways to take lessons from Executive orders and put it into the law. There has not been much progress to this point. You have been involved and supportive of--Nazi war crimes records have a particular emphasis right now. We are making progress in that area and a lot of records are being opened that would not have been opened without that leadership. But a more across-the-board systematic approach would be the most conducive for efficiently dealing with declassifying records in a way that is appropriate. Mr. Horn. Should there be a special commission of outsiders and insiders to do that? Or do we just say, Do it, and forget about it? Who has the records on World War I? Where are they? Mr. Carlin. To those agencies that would be responsible, it would--from our perspective, we would like to have generic across-the-board guidance that would lead to action rather than a special committee that would pick and choose. It is less efficient and we feel ultimately will not serve the best interest. But we would certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss what legislation might be able to provide and followup on the successes and the lessons we have learned from Executive orders. Mr. Horn. Does the Archives have the papers from World War I that have not been declassified? Is it under your custody? Mr. Carlin. Under our custody to store them, but we do not have the authority to declassify them ourselves. Mr. Horn. But you have the records? Or does the Department of Defense have it? Mr. Bellardo. We have basically a half dozen documents that are still classified from World War I. We have many other records from World War I that are not classified. But I do not believe that we can with absolutely certainty state that there are no classified records in an agency's physical custody from that period. We do not know, so I cannot answer you. Mr. Horn. Have we ever asked the question of them? It seems to me, in response to a congressional committee, the Archives ought to be able to ask the Department of Defense, the military historians over there, what are the holdings and where they are held. Mr. Carlin. I think that is absolutely appropriate and one of our long-term intentions in changing the culture of NARA to where, in terms of our relationship with agencies, we are much more proactive, we are partners with them. One of the issues in terms of our scheduling reappraisal is the issue of inventorying the records that exist. It is one of the first steps an agency needs to take to make sure all the records are scheduled. Yes, I think it would be very appropriate for us to work with agencies to get out on the table and make sure that we have a better opportunity to address records that have been held that we are not even aware of. Mr. Horn. Could you explain for the record the Kyl and Lott amendments and what impact they can have on the Archives and your resources? Mr. Carlin. The Kyl amendment was focused on existing classified records in the pipeline, records that have not been declassified. But instead of the traditional way, through guidance and decisions, using more of a bulk approach, the Kyl amendment focused on a page-by-page review. When you are talking about millions and millions of pages of records, the resource issue changes rather significantly when you go from a more bulk approach to page-by-page. We have tried--and are in the process of working out on the Kyl amendment--a set of procedures which really were assigned to us as part of that legislation that we sit down and work with. The focus with the Department of Energy, for the most part, is that we develop ways to identify where logical focus ought to be for the page-by-page and reduce the quantity that must be looked at page-by-page. I think ultimately we will be successful with that. The Lott amendment takes the next step, you might say, in going toward page-by-page review of already declassified records, records that are out on the shelf, records that have been in the public arena. There again, we are trying to take a look at ways we can narrow that universe so that we can have some kind of consensus on where it is possible, most likely, that a mistake might have been made, where records that should not have been declassified in fact are out on the shelf. It obviously requires an even more significant burden and certainly puts on the table a set of records that we had assumed were now open and beyond the challenge of declassification. Mr. Horn. What led to this? Was there something that bothered somebody around here? Mr. Carlin. What led to this was the concern of premature release of records, of information in terms of nuclear energy that were being shared overseas. Some of the scandals that have been the focus of the last couple of years have caused Members of Congress--and from that perspective, rightfully so--to question and be concerned. Out of that came these two concepts to--on behalf of making sure that records that shouldn't be out there are not out there. Mr. Horn. Generally, that judgment would be made, I presume, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Or would it? Or would it be made by the defense group within the Department of Energy? Mr. Carlin. Now it is a matter of going back to these entities and working with them. Initially, particularly on records that are already declassified, they would have been declassified either by the entity--the agency themselves--or through guidance they provided to us for us to do the work. So it is a matter of going back and rechecking work that has already been done. In the case of the Kyl amendment, it is a more intense focus on what has already been done, but done in a broader, more general way than the page-by-page. Mr. Horn. Are we talking about hiring a number of nuclear physicists for the Archives who could understand what is in those documents? Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, that is why in most cases--in this specific example--we will not receive guidance to do it on our own, but we will be working with the agencies. I think it would be inappropriate for us to come to Congress and ask for the resources to have expertise in all the technologies. When we get into a technology, an area of science like nuclear energy, that is where we should work with the scientists. But it is our responsibility to push the envelope and try to bring them to the table so that in an appropriate way these records are dealt with and open to the public. Mr. Horn. I am told that it is possibly 513 million records that might be subject to the Lott amendment? Mr. Carlin. That is correct. We are hoping to--through discussions and negotiations--lower that to about 200 million. Mr. Horn. And would it be a sampling? Or page-by-page review? Or how detailed will it be? Mr. Carlin. It is my understanding that it is to be page- by-page. Mr. Horn. Your appropriations committee will be interested in that. Mr. Carlin. And we intend to keep them in the loop on this issue. Mr. Horn. Let's move to State archives issues for awhile. You and I have chatted about this and the possibilities of partnerships. We have some very fine State archives in this country. What is the relationship between the National Archives and the State archives? What could be deposited within those libraries to save you space for some things that pertain to the history of that State? Mr. Carlin. We partner in a variety of ways, Mr. Chairman. As you are very personally aware, one of the areas is through the National Historical Publications Records Commission, our grant-writing entity, where we provide grants to State and local units to assist them in archival records management challenges. The benefit there is multiple--not just to the entity that receives the grant--but the other State and local entities that can benefit from what was learned with the carrying out of that grant. A lot of times there are examples where they have done demonstration work that has been beneficial to us because our work is basically the same. So NHPRC is an incredible entity for us to partner with State and local. But it is really broader than that because we share not only similar responsibilities. As I have indicated to you, I am very much aware, as a former Governor, that much of what is done at the State and local level is done with Federal money. But once the responsibility shifts to the State and local unit--once the money has been delivered--the records that are created are State and local records. So I have taken a real interest in a variety of ways of making sure we work together. When we worked on the standards of the storage of records, Lew and I worked very closely with inputs from the States and across the country because they were interested in those standards. When we have tried to deal with some of the electronic guidance challenges--they have similar challenges-- we have likewise tried to partner with them to make the most of the combined resources that we can bring to the table. In terms of there being a site for the storage of records, we do have what we call an affiliated archives system. Compared to what you might be alluding to, it is very modest. But we have examples of Federal records, archival records, permanent records that are stored in a non-Federal facility for various unique reasons--usually a specific collection rather than a more broader, general purpose. We do try, in terms of the direction you are headed, to make sure--where it is good archival practice--to have records of a particular interest to an area that those records are deposited in a regional archive rather than a Washington archival facility. Mr. Horn. I think there is a lot to that. You know the Smithsonian is now loaning a number of artifacts from its collection to university museums, city museums, and that has been very helpful in broadening the opportunity for people to look at a particular period of art, or whatever it is. Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, we are doing something somewhat similar, but not in a massive way. We do loan particular records of significance to a particular area for a time, assuming preservation security issues can be agreed upon. Mr. Horn. What do we know at the national level about the state of various State archives? Is there an accrediting group to tell us which States are prepared to handle the turning over of records which pertain to those States? Mr. Carlin. The bulk of what we know comes through our work with NHPRC and the State advisory groups that are set up. There have been, over the years, a number of projects where the results have provided us some information. As I indicated to you in a conversation we had last week, we do not have a program right now where we go out and analyze in depth, State by State. I think it could be justified because, as I said earlier, there is a lot at stake in terms of--purely from a congressional point of view on accountability for the programs you pass--being able to document what is really happening with those programs, you need State and local records to make that accountability really work. Mr. Horn. The gentleman from Texas? Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor, I wanted to inquire into this issue of archiving e-mail records. I was interested in your statement about the ability of the San Diego Supercomputer Center to basically preserve 2 million e-mail messages in 2 days time. Yet I understand there are questions about--once you preserve the records--whether you have the computer system that can then go read those records. What is the status? And what is the Archives' position on preservation of e-mail records by the various agencies? And how are we going to accomplish that? Mr. Carlin. First of all, I think it is very important to understand that the medium on which something is presented, contained, or printed does not determine whether it is a record. A record is a record, whether it is on an electronic system, textual, microfilm, whatever. So the same applications apply. The unique challenges are there, certainly in terms of e-mail. One of the principal issues we are dealing with with the San Diego Supercomputer Lab is to address what you are really raising here. Until we have the capacity to not only take in, preserve, and provide access in an electronic system, we cannot really have the capacity in that way to deal with e-mail. Now, in many cases where agencies do not have the electronic recordkeeping system--which is the bulk of them--they print out paper. That was part of the discussion with the lawsuit we got involved in and some of the aspects of that. But ultimately we want a system by which we can take those e-mail records in electronically, preserve them, and make them accessible electronically. Do you want to add anything? Mr. Bellardo. Just one of the aspects of this we are working on this year. We have a prototype that is being built for the reference end of this set of systems. By the end of this year, we believe that prototype testing will be complete, which was basically to determine--once you have it preserved-- how you can make it available for people to use in an on-line environment. We are very hopeful that this prototype will work well and that that would feed to the larger project that would involve all the processes we would have to do to bring the materials in, to preserve them, to put them in a neutral environment or hardware/software independent environment, and then to make them available. We are excited about this prototype and are looking forward to seeing how this works out. Mr. Turner. Since agencies and Presidents have been using e-mail, how much of it have we preserved? How much do we have access to? And once you capture it, is it in a form that will last? Or are there some problems with it deteriorating over time? Mr. Carlin. In the case of Presidential records, that is one of the issues I alluded to earlier indirectly when I said that we must get there at the beginning of an administration to get the system set up right. We have gone to extraordinary means to be able to recapture and ensure documentation that was created in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. I think in the end we are going to be successful and we will be able to say that we have those records and be able to provide access to them. But it was not done efficiently and certainly not without great cost. The bulk of the agencies are printing out e-mail that are Federal records in paper and we would be dealing with them, for the most part, in the regular way. Mr. Turner. That must be a very inefficient way of trying to preserve those records. Mr. Carlin. Absolutely. But until we have systems set up to be able to preserve and provide access long-term, it is the short-term transition procedure that we must continue to use. One of the decisions out of the lawsuit was in this area and policy-wise we made the decision--separate from the lawsuit--that all program records should be scheduled, including the electronic copies of records. That is one of the issues we are working on to carry out ultimately, how we do that with agencies to make sure that even the electronic copy-- there is an opportunity for the public to comment on how long it should be kept. If the recordkeeping copy is the textual one and it is a permanent one, it will be the permanent. But the decision is that the electronic copy--there should at least be on program records a review of how long it is kept because it might in the short-run be very valuable for a period of time. Mr. Turner. Are the e-mail records of past Presidents available at the Presidential libraries today? Mr. Carlin. They will be, as the law provides and processing has taken place, yes. Mr. Turner. In hard copy? Or is it available in some accessible form on the computer? Mr. Carlin. I think there will be some electronic access, yes. Mr. Bellardo. Until we have a full system in place, we will be basically using simple viewers for people to be able to view the messages. The next step beyond that would be moving this prototype to an operational pilot and then a full-blown reference system. That is a few years out. The first step would be simply to be able to view them as opposed to having very sophisticated searching capabilities and so forth. But that is being built. It is certainly the case for Reagan, Bush, and Clinton--their records will be in electronic form and not just on paper. In fact, we have just worked out an agreement with the Office of Administration relating to the transfer of formats and processes by which we will get the Clinton e-mail. You can see why we are so excited about this prototype. We want it to work. Mr. Turner. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. Let me pursue a few closing questions here on this panel and then we will have the GAO and others come forward. Just for the record, what is the current funding level of the National Historical Publication and Records Commission? Mr. Carlin. For the basic program, it is $6 million. Mr. Horn. Has that changed at all over time? Mr. Carlin. The current fiscal year will be the second year at the $6 million level. It has gone from $4 million to $5 million to $5.5 million to $6 million. Mr. Horn. How much money could we use there? Mr. Carlin. I think it depends a lot on whether the program is reevaluated and redesigned. There is some interest across the country among State archivists at taking a bigger picture look at particularly their records management challenges in the State and local areas. At this point, based on applications that come in, we are able to fund almost all of the quality projects. We seldom turn down. In fairness, a lot of the not so acceptable are screened out before they even come to the NHPRC. So if you were to look at the total universe in terms of ideas being proposed, we would not be funding almost 100 percent. But of the ideas that come through the screening process of the advisory committees, the current level takes care of the funding. That does not mean it takes care of all the need. But the way the current program is designed, it takes care of those who apply. Mr. Horn. Could you just file, for the record, the number of projects that are underway now and the ones that were completed in the last 2 years so we can get a feel for what type of work--I assume it is getting together, say, papers for a particular person in American history and this kind of thing. Mr. Carlin. It is divided into two areas, generally, the documentary side. I believe the last I can recall of last fiscal year there were about 43 or 44 projects. The other half is in the records management archival area and I think there were 30 projects. The average grant is in the neighborhood of $72,000. The big documentary projects that take larger sums and a variety of other projects--I think there are 43 or 44 documentary projects in operation at this point. Mr. Horn. Without objection, that information will be put in the record. [The information referred to follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.040 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.041 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.042 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.043 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.044 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.045 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.046 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.047 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.048 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.049 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.050 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.051 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.052 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.053 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.054 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.055 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.056 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.057 Mr. Horn. Could you tell me what partnerships, if any, the Archives has developed with the Library of Congress? Is there a duplication of effort here? Mr. Carlin. We have no official partnership. We have many unofficial ones. Dr. Billington and I work very closely together and communicate as much as our separate agendas and challenges allow. We both recognize that in a previous time there was some overlapping activity. As you are well aware, the Library has a much longer history. The Archives did not come into play until the mid-1930's. So it is understandable from earlier donated papers that the Library would have some records that if we had been in existence from day one would have come to the National Archives. We really have two very separate distinguishable missions. We deal with records and they deal with manuscripts, use of records, what has been done with them, personal donations, et cetera, a broader role they have extended to the world. We are limited and focused on Federal records, U.S. Federal records. Dr. Billington and I have discussed the possibility, if our schedules ever allow, sitting down and talking about some of the records and some of the non-records that need to be shifted back and forth for a more appropriate placing. I do not see any duplication in terms of our day-to-day actions. Mr. Horn. As I understand the National Technical Information System at the Department of Commerce was closed down and the documents of that department went to the Library of Congress. As part of a Federal agency, wouldn't it be more appropriate to go to the National Archives to receive those documents? Mr. Carlin. First of all, for the record, the Department has recommended closing down NTIS. It is still dependent upon action of Congress. My staff communicate to me that action is unlikely this year. Our interest is in the records of that entity. I have discussed personally with both the Secretary of Commerce and Dr. Billington and we have universal agreement that the Federal Records Law will apply to NTIS, that those that are scheduled permanent will come to the National Archives and that the function--if the idea that has been put on the table is carried out--would be one of distribution for the Library of Congress. Mr. Horn. Has the Archives recommended improvements for the Presidential Records Act? Is there a need for that? Mr. Carlin. I have under review a recommendation for the Presidential facilities. There is the Presidential Records Act and then one that deals with the facilities, the actual libraries that gets into the endowment area. I do have under review some ideas for change that at the appropriate time I would welcome the opportunity to discuss them with you. Mr. Horn. We would welcome that because I think the Presidential libraries are a great institution. I know some want to have everything deposited in Washington, but I do not. I don't think you understand President Eisenhower unless you go to Abilene. I think it is good to go to the Carter Library. I have enjoyed the Lyndon Johnson Library, pharaoh-like though it is. I have found the people very helpful in these libraries on various types of research. Mr. Carlin. Mr. Chairman, in regard to your comment about Austin, changes have been made since then, as you are well aware of, and you have been a part of making those changes. We have worked very hard as an agency to develop better facilities standards so that the facilities that are built are efficient and right for the Federal Government to accept. So some of the problems that have occurred--through no fault of anyone, necessarily, but just because of a lack of experience and guidance--I think we are working to correct those. I want to explore further ways we can develop that system so that--I agree with you that it is an excellent system and I want to do everything that I can to assure that it continues appropriately. Mr. Horn. Now on the renovation of the National Archives building, the main one downtown, and the reencasement of the Charters of Freedom. What is the time schedule for renovation of the building and the reencasement of the Charters of Freedom? Mr. Carlin. We had resources from the Congress as well as a foundation grant to do work on the reencasement in fiscal year 1999 and have made a lot of progress. Adrienne Thomas can comment in much more depth. We also had in fiscal year 1999 the money to do the design concept for the renovation of our main building downtown. Currently, in our 2000 budget that has been signed by the President, we have the resources to take what we call the pre- construction steps--final design as well as some initial physical work on the facility to build some office, what we call swing-space--so that we can do the renovation and keep the main functions of the building open during the 2-year renovation. We will be ready to start that in February of next year. It is our goal, if continued support from the administration and Congress comes for final renovation, that we would begin the renovation in February 2001. Adrienne, do you have anything else you would like to add? Ms. Thomas. I just would say that the rotunda part of the building, where the charters are displayed, will have to close to the public for some period of time because we are going to be doing some major work in that area. But the rest of the building, in terms of research and so forth, will be open. The closing of the rotunda does not happen until July 2001. Then we hope to reopen approximately 2 years later. Actually, we are looking at Constitution Day as an appropriate time for reopening. Mr. Horn. Everything around here takes 2 years. I noticed the east steps of the House could be done in 2 months, not 2 years. The lady that sits on top of the dome took 2 years. And so it goes. Is there a magic number there? Ms. Thomas. I think there must be. Mr. Horn. Is there any way that the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights could be put somewhere in the Archives? Ms. Thomas. There is some work to be done on the charters. They have been on display since 1952, since they were moved from the Library of Congress to the National Archives. We began the encasement project because the glass of the cases was deteriorating and we were concerned about that impact on the documents, since the documents rest directly against the glass. We were concerned about whether or not the seals on the cases have been maintained for that period of time, or whether the original helium gas that had been inserted into the cases had leaked out. We weren't sure. Part of the process will be not only to build new state-of- the-art encasements for the charters, but also for our very talented conservator staff to take the documents out of the old cases, take them off display, and do a careful assessment of what possible conservation methods might need to be applied to the documents. So there is a period of time where they are off display when we are working on them and the conservators are looking at them. Mr. Horn. On that point, is there a set time in the future--let's say 100 years from now--that all of that ink would fade no matter what you do? How assured are you that it will not fade? Ms. Thomas. Hundreds of years? I don't know. Mr. Carlin. They will be there 100 years from now. But if you start talking 1,000 years, as my Deputy has reminded me from time to time, eventually everything will disintegrate, regardless what you do. Ms. Thomas. But we are taking all sorts of steps in terms of UV filtration and protection of the documents. Mr. Horn. What are the new techniques? Would you put helium back into the case? Ms. Thomas. Actually, we are going to use argon, which is another inert gas but has larger molecules, so it is more difficult for it to leak out if there is any possible leakage. Mr. Horn. Has somebody tried that with existing documents that are not the Constitution? Ms. Thomas. Yes. Mr. Horn. And there has been no damage in the changeover? Ms. Thomas. No, none at all. Mr. Carlin. There is the signature page that we have had a chance to work with. There is the one page that has never been displayed, the transmittal page, which is the same age, same paper, same everything. It will be the one that we will try first in the new encasements. Ms. Thomas. As a matter of fact, the conservators are today taking the transmittal page out of the old encasement and will start their process of reviewing the document and determining whether anything needs to be done. The first prototype casement is supposed to be delivered in December. So probably by the end of January the transmittal page will be placed in its new encasement. For the next 6 to 8 months after that, they are going to observe the transmittal page as a test case. Mr. Horn. What does the transmittal page say? ``Dear Continental Congress, John Adams, change some of my words'', or what? Ms. Thomas. No, it is ``Here delivered is the Constitution of the United States, signed George Washington.'' It is not much more than that. Mr. Carlin. It has George Washington's signature in terms of value. But it does give us something to work with that will be incredibly valuable long-term in terms of the meat of the subject matter. Mr. Horn. So the Declaration of Independence does not have a transmittal page? Ms. Thomas. No. Mr. Horn. That is what I thought you were talking about. Mr. Carlin. No, it was the transmittal page for the Constitution. Mr. Horn. Well, it is interesting. So you are saying we have a refurbished view of that in 2002. Ms. Thomas. Yes. Mr. Horn. Now on the money, what do you use the private money for and what do you use the governmental Federal money for? Mr. Carlin. What we have basically done with the Federal money is the basic things that you would have to do to renovate a building. We are not using private money to do any of the mechanical work, handicapped access, et cetera. We are using the private money to enhance the experience of those who use the building, generally, under an educational-type direction. The one exception that fits there is the murals that are in the rotunda. There is no Federal money to take care of the murals. We will raise private money to take care of them. They are badly in need of a lot of work. In fact, the latest estimate could be as high as $3 million just to work on the murals. We would like to build a permanent exhibit that would put context to those documents, to make the experience more than a religious one for those who visit the rotunda. We will do that with private money, paralleling the division of labor we have with the Presidential Library System where permanent exhibits are filled with private money. Generally, we are using the private money to enhance the experience to make it more valuable, to complement the tremendous support from the Congress and the administration to do all the fundamentals, the basics. Mr. Horn. How much has the PEW Foundation spent on this? Mr. Carlin. They gave us $800,000. The Congress appropriated $4 million. Those two sums take us well into and beyond the initial reencasement work. Mr. Horn. That is great. PEW is a wonderful foundation. They have done so many constructive things in the last 5 years that relate to government. I am very impressed by them. Mr. Carlin. I certainly concur. Mr. Horn. Let me move now to the revolving fund and then we will move to the next panel. I guess when you look at the reimbursable revolving fund-- do you think that will mean you have lost significant amounts of business from the agencies when they do not want to participate in the revolving fund? How does that work? Mr. Carlin. The way it will work is the agencies will make a choice as to whether they want to continue to do business with us, or in some cases we have an example or two that has been in the private sector that is now going to switch to us. But the standards and the processes will be the same. The agency will have to certify that their records--if they choose their own facility or a private vendor--that they meet the standards we have established, that we will be meeting and will be taking care of their records based on those standards. We think also that, because they will be paying for a service--the Federal Government for the first time--they will look at the records in a little bit different fashion. In fact, we will actually learn more about the records, establish a much more in depth relationship with the agencies, and from a cost- efficiency perspective, may together agree that some schedules on temporary records are too long, that the retention period should be shortened. This obviously would be done with public comment and careful analysis, but I am quite sure we will find examples where 30-year temporary records--it could be 20 years--saving a considerable amount of resources in the process. I think on balance we will have a much more positive, productive relationship as it relates to records because we will have--in an indirect way--raised the value of records and their importance. Mr. Horn. Well, if they are going to go the private facilities route, will anybody from the Archives check on it to see that it meets your standards? Mr. Carlin. The system is set up, putting the burden on the agency, to certify us that if they choose to go to a private vendor that that private vendor is meeting the same standards that would be in a Federal records center. Obviously, if someone raises an issue, question, or concern, we will check into it. We felt it was the more efficient route, initially, to put the burden on the Federal agencies. Mr. Chairman, as I have shared with you, one of the big differences we are finding in terms of standards deals with fire and the standards that apply to protect us from loss. Mr. Horn. That is what I am thinking of, the Santa Barbara Museum, when it was rebuilt, has a marvelous system to prevent any damage to the paintings by foam and so forth. Does the Archives have that now? Mr. Carlin. Yes. Tragically, we learned it the hard way. I guess it would be fair to say that we did not learn it in 1921 when we lost the 1890 census. But the fire, where we lost the top floor of military personnel records in Saint Louis--after that we developed standards which focused on not just the facility, but the contents, to limit the loss. We cannot magically eliminate fires, but when the standards focus as well on content, then you can reduce--our standard is to limit the loss to 300 cubic feet. That is a big difference when you think that many facilities might have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000, or 400,000 cubic feet of records. If the standards are focused on the facility, the contents will be likely lost. We are finding that is a significant difference between us and the private sector, although not exclusively. We are finding that the private sector, in many cases, with the support of their clients, are not as concerned about the contents as we are as the responsible agency for protecting the records of the Federal Government. Mr. Horn. I am glad you mentioned the Saint Louis situation. Almost every day in our district office, we have 600 cases at any point in time and 10 might clear today and 10 more come in. A lot of it is based on not finding the records of the military in the Saint Louis fire. Mr. Carlin. We have made some progress in reconstructing records, but obviously it was a tragedy that we will pay a price for forever. Mr. Horn. Is there anything else you can do to make sure of the preservation of records? Was that an internal combustion fire at Saint Louis? Man- made? Or what? Mr. Carlin. I do not know if we know exactly. We definitely know the facility was not designed to put the fire out. The only thing that kept it from being even more of a serious tragedy is that it was a well-constructed building so that the fifth floor down was able to hold all the water that was being put up there and not simply collapse the building--which would have taken all the records. Ms. Thomas. But it had no sprinkler system. Mr. Horn. No foam? Ms. Thomas. Nothing like that. No fire suppression system. Mr. Horn. I thank you. And if you can stay a little while longer, I would like you to participate, perhaps in panel two. Mr. Carlin. We will stay, Mr. Chairman. I would just say in closing, thank you very much. You, your colleagues, Congressman Turner, staff--you are most welcome to visit anytime. I issue a specific invitation, as we go through the reencasement--if you would like to view or see directly what new technology is coming, let us know and we will set it up. Mr. Horn. One more question comes to mind, which is the Ellis Island situation, where they are going to put on the records of immigrants that came here and there will be computer access. Is the Archives involved in that at all? Or is that strictly Immigration? Mr. Carlin. We are involved. I cannot recall exactly, but there have been several projects--at least a couple of major projects--up there that have competed and now it has been sorted out. Particularly our regional office is connected in terms of how that all is going to work out because we have--of course, one of our most useful and valuable records are our Immigration and Naturalization records. Mr. Horn. Right, and your shipping records. Mr. Carlin. Yes. Mr. Horn. Well, let's call panel two forward. That's Mr. Nye Stevens, the Director of Federal Management and Work Force Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office; Page Putnam Miller, executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization of American Historians; Stanley Katz, vice president for research, American Historical Association; and H. Thomas Hickerson, associate university librarian for information technology, Cornell University, and president, Society of American Archivists. Please come forward and raise your right hands. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. Horn. Were there any subordinates behind you who were going to speak, too? All four of the new witnesses have taken the oath. Mr. Stevens, we always respect the GAO reports, so if you can summarize that for us, we would be grateful. STATEMENTS OF L. NYE STEVENS, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL MANAGEMENT AND WORKFORCE ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; PAGE PUTNAM MILLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE PROMOTION OF HISTORY, REPRESENTING THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS; STANLEY KATZ, VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH, AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION; AND H. THOMAS HICKERSON, ASSOCIATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN ARCHIVISTS Mr. Stevens. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. As you know, we have done a report on National Archives: The Challenge of Electronic Records Management, sometimes referred to as ERM. Our report shows that the Archives and the Federal agencies face five general challenges in managing their records in an electronic format. The first is just the sheer volume of these records. Some agencies, by themselves are generating each year 10 times as much e-mail as the total amount of electronic data files that were sent to NARA over the past quarter of a century. The second challenge we think is definitional. Just what constitutes an electronic record? The old definition of a record was complicated enough, even when it presumed a permanent format. Distinguishing and separating material with permanent value from the temporary and ephemeral raises a plethora of questions. The third challenge is because agencies follow no uniform hardware or software standards, NARA has to be capable of accepting a wide variety of formats from the agencies, and it has to have the capability of reading those records in a wide variety of formats. Preserving long-term access to these records is the fourth challenge, and perhaps the most difficult. The average life of a typical software product is about 2 to 5 years. NARA needs to be able to preserve the records and notably the capability of reading them long after the hardware and the software on which they are based is obsolete. Then finally, since NARA shares responsibility for records management with Federal agencies, developing and disseminating guidance to agencies is another long-term challenge for NARA. The existing guidance simply has not yet caught up with the universal deployment of personal computers. There used to be thousands of file clerks in the Government whose job was to identify, classify, and preserve records. Today, that duty is much more disbursed and individual professionals with PCs are the front-line of records management, and they need guidance in how to carry out those duties and responsibilities. No one really knows the state of the agencies' adaptation to the needs of managing their records in an electronic environment. Our limited work at a few of them show that some agencies are waiting for more specific guidance from NARA and others are moving forward on their own. The Defense Department has perhaps done the most. NARA has endorsed the DOD software standard as a tool that other agencies can use as a model until the final policy is developed by NARA. In doing our work, we were struck by the absence of Government-wide information on the records management capabilities and programs of Federal agencies outside the NARA orbit--this is the issue that you have alluded to--because NARA had intended to do a baseline assessment survey to collect this kind of data on all agencies by the end of this fiscal year and the information was to be collected on the infrastructure of the records management activity, on internal guidance, on training, on implementation of the schedule process--a number of areas. However, as you know, NARA has decided to postpone this effort to concentrate on the business process reengineering-- the BPR you have talked about. We believe that the information they would get from this baseline survey would really be a necessary ingredient to doing the BPR in as sophisticated and comprehensive a way as it needs to be done. We think that conducting the survey now could provide valuable input to the business process reengineering itself. It could help fulfill one of NARA's own strategic goals to stay abreast of the technologies in the agencies. And it would put NARA and the rest of the Government in a better position in later years to assess the results of the business process reengineering and to put the agencies themselves as--we simply just don't know yet right now what other agencies are doing. I would just like to conclude, Mr. Chairman, with a single observation that your initiative in holding this hearing is welcome and is far-sighted. Since NARA became an independent agency in 1985, neither Congress, nor the President, nor OMB, nor GAO for that matter, has placed a high priority on oversight of NARA's functions. The challenges I just mentioned in preserving our documentary heritage for the use of future generations really are profound and Congress is going to have to be a part of any solution to them. I conclude and will respond to any questions you may have. [The prepared statement of Mr. Stevens follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.058 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.059 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.060 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.061 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.062 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.063 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.064 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.065 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.066 Mr. Horn. We thank you very much on that. We will hear from all the witnesses and then open it up to questions. At this point, we will have our next presenter, which is Page Putnam Miller, the executive director, National Committee for the Promotion of History, representing the Organization of American Historians. Ms. Miller. Thank you very much, Representative Horn. I have been following the National Archives for almost 20 years and have attended almost every hearing that has been held in Congress dealing with the Archives. I can attest that there have been no oversight hearings that are broadly geared to the operation of the Archives. There have been some hearings when there has been a fire, or when there have been questions about a particular program. We are so appreciative of your holding this hearing and of your commitment, as has previously been said, to giving attention to this very important agency. I am representing today the Organization of American Historians, which is basically made up of history professors who teach at the college and university level. So I want to address my comments today to issues of research and to access of records. If records are not used, you wonder why they should be preserved and kept. One of the keys to using records are good finding aids. To put this in perspective, if you put all the records for the National Archives for Archives I and II--not the Presidential libraries or the records center--on a shelf, that shelf would extend 650 miles. You can imagine how difficult it is for a researcher to know where to go to find records without good finding aids. Our dream for the National Archives and part of the Archives' strategic plan--and you mentioned it earlier--is to have a series level description of all the holdings by 2007. A series is generally records that are similar in characteristic. For instance, it may be the correspondence of an Under Secretary for an office for a certain period of time. But you need some description of what is in this series. A series may be many, many boxes of records. So the series level description--which is sometimes called the reference quality description--is so important to us. But at present about 30 percent of the holdings of the National Archives do not have a series level description. This is a backlog that has developed. It goes back to the 1950's and 1960's. There has been a long backlog of basic description. So when Archivist John Carlin was talking about populating the archival catalog, the on-line catalog, he is talking about entering the descriptions of these series of records. Our concern is that you have a big enough problem in scanning in descriptions that are on paper to put into the computerized series, but what about the records for which no description has ever been written that is of research quality? The Archives has a locator file that provides very basic intellectual control of records, but this is not research quality. So haveing good finding aids is one of our major concerns. It is our thought--and you began to get at this when you asked about requests from OMB--that the Archives has at present included information on 10 percent of the records into this computerized finding aid and to get to 100 percent in just 7 years, when you have a 30 percent backlog in basic description, there is going to need to be a real infusion of staff time. This is archival staff that have expertise in records that would be needed. So we have concerns about the state of that finding aid. To have the finding aid on-line would mean that researchers across the country would know whether it is worth their while to make the trip to Washington. So that is so important. Another aspect of access that I would like to mention is declassification. We are pleased that the Executive order has resulted in so many agencies declassifying records and transferring them to the National Archives. We know that in fiscal year 1997 there were 204 million records transferred. In fiscal year 1998 there were 193 million records. But when these records are declassified by an agency and sent to the National Archives, for a researcher to have access to them--and this is my issue, access to the records for researchers--the Archives has to process them. And to process them, they need to open each box, take out the record that still needs to be classified, put these in a secure area, put a marker in that file to show that a record has been removed, and then they need to prepare the description and develop the finding aid. So as successful as the Executive order is in having records declassified and transferred, we as users will not have access to these until they are processed. The Archives has put in the strategic plan for the year 2000 processing 75 million records which is a significant amount. But in that pipeline there are 200 million records. So here again we are concerned about the backlog that will be building up. As agencies do their work on the Executive order there will be more required for the National Archives. We love to hear these figures about agencies declassifying records, but we know that as researchers we still will not see those records until the Archives has been able to process them. And that is another very labor-intensive task that concerns us. A final point I would like to make on access deals with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. I am glad that you have been able to spend some time today talking about the NHPRC because that is the part of the National Archives that deals with non-Federal records. Certainly for historians, we are interested in Federal records, but also non- Federal records. The NHPRC has had a wonderful record over the years of leveraging private funds, 50 percent generally from private sources, and matching that and letting the donors of the private funds know that these are very good projects. I would like to note that in 1976 the appropriation for NHPRC for grants was $4 million. That was a long time ago, over 20 years ago. Now they are up to $6 million. But this small agency that does this important work has really fallen so far behind from 1976 in being able to keep up with inflation and do the work. I would followup on the point that Archivist Carlin made regarding the grant applications. NHPRC staff works very differently from the NEH staff on working with applicants. NHPRC's staff are very knowledgeable. They have specialists in different areas like electronic records and research. In working with the applicants, if they know that according to their guidelines, and according to the amount of money there is, there is really no money for that project, they will convey that to the applicants. I do not think the number of applications is necessarily an indication of the appropriation level because we know from the state of State archives and the archives across the country that there is an enormous amount of work that needs to be done. We would like to encourage increased funding for NHPRC and a hard look at that small agency and what it is able to do. In closing, I would just say that the access issues are very varied. It is not just the delivery of materials to researchers in the research room but the describing of records, the processing of records that have been declassified, and then through grants to NHPRC made available for research. So we are hopeful that the Archives can have some increased staff to deal with these very severe backlogs. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Ms. Miller follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.067 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.068 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.069 Mr. Horn. Thank you. You have made some good suggestions. We now have Dr. Stanley Katz, vice president for research, American Historical Association. Mr. Katz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here. I can be very brief, I think. I would also like to begin by thanking you and the subcommittee for undertaking these hearings. They are enormously important to all of us who are concerned about the National Archives. I would additionally like to thank Governor Carlin and his staff. They have an almost impossible task, a huge number of records, technological problems that now exist, declassification--it is a daunting challenge. Over the last few years, since Governor Carlin has been there, there have been noticeable improvements at the Archives and we are very grateful for that. The one thing I wanted to address myself to is the question of the revolving fund, the reimbursable fund. Governor Carlin has spoken to that earlier and we think we do understand the general intention and value the intention of the Archives in this new project. We can understand why it comes about. It seems attractive as a way to relieve the budget of the National Archives. But we have concerns about whether it could really work in the way that the Archives hopes it will work. The simple argument is that we are concerned whether it is consistent with what we take to be general inclination of human nature. We think that there will be a temptation on the part of agencies working within or without the rules to reduce the number of materials they actually have to pay for in order to store. It seems reasonable to expect that a rational actor would look for such strategies. And while we do appreciate that there are going to be undertakings required by the agencies that they or private vendors will comply with NARA's standards, we are not sure that there is any adequate way of enforcing those guidelines. Indeed, we think that the problem of the Archives for a long time has been that Congress has never given it very effective enforcement mechanisms. This is another area that is not the fault of the Archives, but is the fault of the legal structure under which they work. We value Governor Carlin's commitment to effective records management and to the maintenance of records storage standards. But it is this question of enforcement that we worry about. So we hope that in the quarterly reports you are requiring now some thought can be given to the kinds of information you could request that would enable both NARA and the oversight committee to make some judgments about what is actually going on. For instance, it would be useful to have the estimates of both NARA and the agencies as to how many cubic feet of materials they actually have. It would be very good, from our point of view, to have the baseline study to know what is actually out there--or as nearly as possible what is out there. I am sure there are other things. I am not an archivist myself. I am sure there is other technical information that could be provided and we hope that you would look into that. Our concern is that records be neither destroyed nor neglected for fear that agency budgets will suffer. I would like to close by simply saying that I think there are some interesting examples out there of what has happened in other countries. I visited New Zealand 5 or 6 years ago. At the time they had privatized their government. I spent a day at their national archives. The archivist was very concerned-- every agency was going on a pay-your-own-way basis--and she said, ``We don't have much to sell.'' I think NARA is in that situation here. I hope that in trying to make it possible for NARA to use the moneys it does have better, that we are not going to endanger Federal records. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Mr. Katz follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.070 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.071 Mr. Horn. You are quite welcome. We face a situation here where we have a 15-minute vote followed by a 5-minute vote. So before we hear Mr. Hickerson-- it is going to take at least 20 minutes to 30 minutes--if you don't mind, we will try to reassemble here at 12:40 or so, which would give you a chance to eat a swift lunch in the gourmet Rayburn cafeteria, which is right below us on the basement floor. I regret that we have several votes over there, so we must recess this now and be back at roughly 12:40, I think. [Recess.] Mr. Horn. We will hear Mr. Hickerson, then we will have a dialog. Mr. Hickerson. Thank you very much, Congressman Horn. First I want to say what an honor it is for me to be able to participate in these hearings on the critical issues and the success of the National Archives and Records Administration. While, as you have alluded to, in the United States the responsibility of maintaining the archival record is broadly distributed among State and municipal archives, university, corporate, and religious repositories, research libraries, and historical societies and museums, no institution other than the National Archives is so central and fundamental to the rights of every citizen and to the process of democratic governance. So it is a pleasure for me to be able to participate here. My professional background includes 30 years of active involvement in archival practice as well as my extensive leadership in the archival profession, including my current services as president of the Society of American Archivists, and also my extensive service at Cornell University both in the area of archival and rare book and digital collection management and in information technology management generally. I am also here as a citizen of the United States. I could say a great deal about the profession, but I will jump to those issues that you specifically asked me to address, which are electronic records and the application of new technologies. I must start out by saying that I think Governor Carlin has done a great deal for the improvement of the National Archives' program during his time administering this program. I, however, am not quite as optimistic regarding the state of electronic records today. I think we do have a crisis. I refer to it as the Y2K that will not go away next year or the next or the next. In 1990, the House Committee on Government Operations issued a report called ``Taking a Byte Out of History: The Archival Preservation of Federal Computer Records''. In that report, they outlined the many difficulties inherent in the selection, maintenance, and use of records in electronic form. Unfortunately, while that report offered a very perceptive picture of the crisis of the moment, it was not an action- oriented document. No new research was funded. No new programs were put in place. So we do not yet have a scaleable working model of a system for realistically addressing these issues. Although NARA has not solved this issue, there are a whole lot of us that have failed. First off, the technology industry has not helped us in this area. It has not been in their best interest to stress the impermanence of digital records. So it is not surprising that they have not been out there on the front line. They periodically call attention to the media and the permanence of that media, but as Mr. Stevens alluded to, that is not the primary issue in being able to maintain access to records over time. There is relatively little Government-funded research addressing this issue. Specific examples include the $24 million that the National Science Foundation and other agencies gave out 4 years ago in the National Digital Library Initiative, phase one process. None of the six funded projects explicitly addressed the preservation of those electronic records. In the latest round for DLI-2, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress played a more active role in the process and stressed those issues, but nonetheless, out of 33 funded projects there were only two that explicitly focus on long-term access and preservation. I would like to read the comments William Ferris made in talking about the Cornell project. He said, ``NEH, the National Science Foundation, and other Federal agencies have begun the process by funding a pioneering, $2.3 million preservation project at Cornell University. This project will develop a standard way of organizing computerized collections, preventing data loss in these collections by alerting managers to the periodic need to upgrade ageing CD-ROMs and tapes, and making the collections fully accessible on the Internet. All Americans will benefit because the project will ensure that computerized materials important for the study of America will be preserved and accessible for generations to come.'' While I appreciate Bill Ferris' kind and generous words of confidence, Cornell's project will not save the day. It will only contribute to a process that needs many other participants. Additionally he described it as a ``pioneering'' project. That is true, but it should not be. We are all behind the curve on this issue. We are probably as much as a decade behind where we should be at this point in time. Nor in the corporate sector has a great deal of progress been made in spite of the obvious permeation of this need across the entire spectrum of corporate and business operation. I think one of the reasons for that is that corporate archivists have often been responsible for paper records, but systems professionals have been the ones responsible for electronic records. They have not had an archival perspective on their job. The result has been that when we moved to an environment in which almost all records are generated in electronic form--or a large segment thereof--we do not have an archival perspective or incorporate archival value into the process. I can see a 500,000-person sub-industry developing around this very issue in the next 10 years. So this does suggest that in spite of real headway NARA is making at this point in time--particularly through the San Diego Supercomputer Project--that we are just now beginning. I wish we had been here in 1992 instead of 1999. I would like to add one other comment on technological issues but let me jump back and say just one thing on the 2000 census issue. For me, this is an indication that the preservation of records is not just a technology issue. The issue is: How will the users be able to use that information? So we have social, technological, and economic issues combined in the decisions we are making today. We have to have some working models in place that actually provide usable records for the user for us to guide us in making the technological decisions. I apologize for the digression, but I think it is an important one. I will conclude my comments by saying that I think that more of the information from the National Archives that is in existing paper and image form should be made available digitally. I know that at this point in time Governor Carlin has chosen to focus a good deal of resources on the electronic records issue. However, I think the American public and the global public expects to have access to significant portions of the archival record in the classrooms, in the lecture halls, in the libraries, offices, homes, and in the wireless generation, every place. This relates to your reference to cooperation with the Library of Congress. Perhaps in this process, the National Archives might work in explicit cooperation with the Library of Congress or with university repositories or State repositories, using common systems for distributing access to digital information. I have extended beyond my time, I suspect, so I will wrap up by saying that I greatly appreciated the cooperation that Governor Carlin has initiated with the leadership of the Society of American Archivists. We have never had such an effective and synergistic relationship. I personally thank him a good deal for that. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Mr. Hickerson follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.072 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.073 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.074 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.075 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.076 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.077 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.078 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.079 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.080 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.081 Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you. That is a very worthwhile presentation. Governor, you have heard the testimony here. Is there anything you would like to say to some of these questions that have been raised? I am particularly interested in what your person power projections are in terms of getting the descriptors that Ms. Miller mentioned and the degree to which scanning technology can help you in getting the right descriptors. Mr. Carlin. As I said earlier in regards to populating the catalog and carrying out what Ms. Miller is very interested in--as well as us--I cannot say today what that might mean from a resource perspective. I always believe in maximizing existing resources first rather than making the first task coming to you and asking for more. We have done a lot of work and have a lot of people work in this area in what is referred to as the old way. We are converting to a new way. We have just hired three data standards experts staff to come on and help us. We want to really improve our descriptive standards in such a way that there is uniformity. As you go electronic, you no longer can have differences. So there is a lot of basic work that needs to be done before we would be in a position to say that we need more help. I can assure you--just as I did when I was sworn in as Archivist--I would not hesitate to come and ask for help when I felt like it was legitimately needed. On the second issue you raised, as far as scanning, we have taken a different approach than the Library of Congress. Our focus has been to scan and digitize a cross-section of very valuable, often requested records. The current project, which we completed in the early part of this calendar year, scanned and digitized and put up about 125,000 documents. We intend to then focus, as we are now, on the catalog, which would be a total comprehensive catalog. We would then link to these digitized examples so that researchers could see at least a sample of what they might be able to work with if they were to work directly with the records. As far as expanding beyond that, our philosophy is that given focused interest on highly used records, that we will explore further scanning digitization if we can also find the resources--or know where the resources are going to be--to maintain that effort. Our experience, as well as looking at other research, tells us that the initial cost of going through the process of selecting, scanning, digitizing, and putting up on the Internet an existing non-digital record--but getting it in the digital form--the cost of maintaining that will almost duplicate the initial cost every 10 years. That is a scary challenge, which has led us to decide that if we are going to put more up, we are going to have the maintenance endowed up front. If someone comes with an idea of private support, it will not be just to do the first effort, but to maintain it. I know from experience the excitement of getting up some wonderful collection, which may raise private dollars, when you talk about maintaining that collection, there will not be quite the excitement because there will not be a press release or a news conference announcing that we got the resource to keep it up. So we have taken a more conservative approach out of fear that we could get to the point where we wouldn't be able to sustain what we put up. Now born digital is a whole different ball game. But what we are really talking about here is the non-born digital that requires extensive work and expense over time to accommodate what is--I agree 100 percent--there is a great deal of interest and demand out there. But I also want to respond in a realistic and appropriate way and not get ourselves into a commitment we cannot sustain. Mr. Horn. Any reaction by members of the panel? Mr. Hickerson. I have said this in conversation with John Carlin. I think that an agency with the role of the National Archives cannot afford not to make material available via digital networks. I agree that it is an expensive process. However, I think we really have to accept that the 21st century is a very different world than the 20th was and that there will be an expectation that such materials--or certain small portions, perhaps statistically small portions of them--will be made available. And there is such potential for remarkable use out there in that form. I think it is one of those things that you cannot afford not to do. I think the transition--and I can speak to Cornell University's transition in moving from a library of 6 million books and 40,000 cubic feet of records to a repository also including 2,000 electronic resources and 2 million images accessible in networked fashion--moving the money as well as the conceptual thinking of the staff and the institutional mandate--to incorporate a very different view of the way people use information today is a traumatic effort. Mr. Horn. We have to educate the user as well as the Archivist? Mr. Hickerson. Yes, indeed. Mr. Horn. On the user and the need for the Archivist, what is your impression--since you are president of the Society of American Archivists--as to how we educate and train archivists? Is it simply going to library school and then getting what the doctors might call a residency in a good archive or the National Archives? And do we have people coming along to fill the bill in this area? Mr. Hickerson. I do not think we have enough people coming along to fill the bill. I had a discussion the day before yesterday with the executive director of the Council on Library and Information Resources about forming a panel to look at the development of a new generation of archivists and librarians and what kind of educational components will have to develop to meet that need. There are now masters in archival science programs as well as library science programs that have archival concentrations. My sense is that in terms of the need that we may have over the next 10 to 20 years--and certainly a lot of the career surveys agree with me on this--is that we will not produce enough people via that avenue. The Society continues as it has since the 1980's--conducting workshops on electronic records. Many of those workshops were staffed by people from NARA. But we have just created a distance learning workshop on electronic records. It has been so oversubscribed that we are already booking people for next year. So I do not have a good answer to your question except to acknowledge that we really have to do some things differently. Mr. Horn. Let's get back a minute to the scanning devices that can be used. Where are we in the evolution of computing and what kind of scanning devices would be helpful? Does the National Archives now have them? Mr. Hickerson. As Governor Carlin notes--and I do not want to answer every question---- Mr. Horn. No, we are moving around. Mr. Hickerson. It can be an expensive process. At Cornell we have experimented with some fairly high-speed flat bed scanning where you just put it down and the machine automatically adjusts to the conversion requirements. You can move it through at a fairly fast rate. On the other hand, we also do art work in which we use a digital camera that in full scale production runs about 70 documents a day, 70 pieces of art work. So it varies greatly. The technology has improved and the costs are coming down significantly from where they were. On the other hand, we have the same preservation problems regarding these digital images that we do for the born digital records in that we do need to have migration paths for this information also. At Cornell, we have sought to develop a larger vendor industry by doing less of the work in-house and putting out very specific standards, projects, and we hope--as we did with high-level preservation microfilming--to generate a small industry around the need to do this scanning. We have had some very significant success in lowering the per image cost as a result of those efforts. Mr. Horn. Mr. Stevens, are any of the people in GAO looking at the technical side of what might happen in an archive, be it State or Federal? Mr. Stevens. No, they are not, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Miller. On the question of cost, I wanted to add that historians like to look at a whole series of records. So when we do research, we would want to look at a whole box. Frequently, when the scanning occurs, it is only of selecting particular documents. Then that alerts historians so that they are aware of those selected documents and then historians want to go to the archives to see all the records in the box surrounding that particular record. But the National Archives estimated--I heard this at one of their presentations last week--that it costs about $15 per page to digitize, select, index, and handle all that is needed for every page. If you go back to that image I used of a shelf of 650 miles, and if you think of 2,000 pages in a foot, I figured that at $15 per page, that is $102 trillion to scan the holdings of the Archives. That is totally out of the question. And even if the price comes down from $15 to $1, you are still talking about almost several trillion. So I think the volume of records in the Archives is so enormous that the scanning will be for very select documents and will probably be used in teaching, but not by college professors who are doing research, who will really need to see a whole collection. We are still putting our priority on the finding aids. Just to have a comprehensive catalog of finding aids on-line would be a wonderful first step. Mr. Horn. Mr. Hickerson, is the high-speed computer at Cornell willing to tie into the National Archives and run a deck of those letters through and scan and do that? What kind of incentive would it take to get you to do that? Mr. Hickerson. I think there really are opportunities for cooperative projects. I certainly agree with Page Miller that the expenses of a comprehensive conversion are far beyond anything I could imagine. But there are diverse opportunities to bring materials together from multiple repositories in digital form that cannot be seen at any one repository together and these are projects in which we would work with the National Archives--I know in the case of records of Japanese-American relocation camps, both Cornell and the National Archives and UCLA have significant holdings. Wouldn't it be wonderful--and these are very heavily used items if those could be united in a virtual collection in a way that no single user could access them at their physical locations? We would be very open to such projects. We have contractual relationships with the Library of Congress to make material converted at Cornell available through American Memory and would be pleased to look at similar partnerships with the National Archives. Mr. Horn. Dr. Katz, you had a comment? Mr. Katz. I was actually going to followup on this. I think we all agree that is inconceivable to get the whole corpus up at any time, but it doesn't need to be because not all documents are created equal. There are ways of selecting and choices can be made. I think what has just been said is the key, and that is collaboration. Too often--and I think it has been true of LC in the past--individual institutional decisions have been made on what to digitize. But what we need to do with limited resources is to build coalitions--public-private coalitions--to make some determinations, depending on the ultimate use of those collections. There have been some attempts at that. The Digital Library Federation now is one, a private sector mechanism to do that. That is where I think cooperation with NARA is going to be absolutely essential because it is inconceivable to do the whole thing. Mr. Horn. Let me just get to a couple of things that have come out in the testimony. The year 2000 performance plan, as we noted earlier, projected that the National Archives will convert 10 percent of existing records, series descriptions, or finding aids to an on-line archival research catalog. What we asked earlier was, Do you believe this is a realistic goal? Do you believe that the target for 100 percent completion by 2007 is a realistic timeframe? Obviously, I think the Archivist thinks it is. Mr. Carlin. I think the 2007--I certainly do not intend to give away that goal. The 2000 goal, as this year proceeds, may look less and less realistic as we try to finalize that first step. But the value of that catalog is heavily dependent upon getting it fully populated. We are well aware of that and see it as a huge achievement that we have to focus on. It is important to researchers and important to the mission we have. Mr. Horn. Is there a real need for training your current archival staff because they really might not have been involved that much in technology? To what degree do you face that situation? Mr. Carlin. There will be the need to train so that we are proceeding in a way that is efficient, uniform, that fits the specific data elements that need to go in, et cetera. That is why we are trying to bring some agency-wide focus to this, not letting it be done all over the agency in whatever way is customary for them to deal with it, but to make it uniform. It is one of the lessons you learn quickly in the electronic age. You must have standards. That machine cannot quite negotiate two different approaches to the same task. We are working very hard to get those standards established and working very hard, as a followup to that, to make sure that we train the staff across the agency while doing the populating description work. Mr. Horn. What else could we do in terms of private corporations? It seems to me in business archives there would be a market out there in scanning business archives--especially when they get sued--to go through their papers with key word indices to see where these papers are and so forth. Is there any hope of collaboration with American business in some of this? Mr. Carlin. Yes, there is. In fact, there is existing today a considerable amount of collaboration. The focus to this point has been primarily with the pharmaceutical industry, which has some of the same concerns we have in terms of long-term preservation of this new medium because of their liabilities, their focus on patents, and so forth with the products they produce and market. So they are a player at the table in one of our major research projects today. They have been. That project started about 18 months ago. Mr. Horn. I am interested in the technical side. I do not know if we have enough experts here on that, but how is that coming? Let's face it, the more you get out, the more the price per unit goes down. Where are we working on this? Cornell? Stanford? Berkeley? Are they all involved? Mr. Hickerson. There are many universities involved in applicable research. Some of the important work focuses on the security, accuracy, authenticity, and reliability of systems, which applies broadly both to our defense capacity as well as other areas such as NASA's mandate. So a lot of diverse research is in progress. I am hopeful that we will turn seriously to the issue of preservation of electronic records in the research sector. This has previously not been seen as sexy or cutting edge research because it is not moving on beyond the next new technology; it is looking back. But I think we have moved to a point of awareness and soon we will see resources redirected--and it does apply to business just as much as it does to Government, and certainly to university administrations and everywhere else. I do expect that the technology industry will turn to this issue and devote a good deal of attention to it. Just a quick anecdote, I was speaking with a computer science professor--a respected individual named Ken Birman--and we were talking about this issue in a seminar setting. He said rather impassively, ``I think that technically and economically and organizationally we will get this solved by about 2015, and probably everything between 1995 and 2015 we will lose most of it. But that is a reasonable loss for a transformation of this size.'' I said, ``Ken, I don't think society has given any indication it would find this a reasonable loss, but I can't guarantee you it won't happen.'' So I think we will reach the point of successful management, but we need to reach it a little faster than we are moving right now. Mr. Horn. What do we know about the security of these records in a digital age and how they can be damaged? We all take our disks out at night so we don't have to redo everything we have done during the day. But beyond that, when you have documents that can be, I am sure, marred in some way by somebody that wants to make mischief--either a disgruntled employee or whatever it is, it happens in doctor's offices and hospitals when they want to get even--so we have all those dangers. How can we protect against it on vital records? Mr. Hickerson. As I said, a lot of research DARPA is funding concerns security issues for systems. But whether that applies to every individual user out there and when those tools will come into common availability--I certainly cannot speak to that. I see this as a crisis because we have made this transition to a largely electronic world without building very much of the human infrastructure that really guarantees its usability. Mr. Horn. Mr. Stevens, given your report, the National Archives' fiscal year 1999 performance plan indicates that the business process reengineering plan would be complete in 1999. However, the 2000 performance plan notes that the business process reengineering plan is scheduled for completion in 2000. What is involved in a business process reengineering effort in terms of the GAO? What do you feel on that? Mr. Stevens. There are many aspects to it, Mr. Chairman, and the archivist has described a number of them. I tend to separate it in two components. One is the internal and the other is the external. Internally, obviously the National Archives and Records Administration has agreed they will have work to do to figure out how it is going to interact with agencies. That means looking at the paper flow, policies, guidance, training, and that sort of thing. And that is not a misplaced emphasis. What struck us when looking at electronic records management as an issue as opposed to NARA as an agency was just how little information is available about what is going on in the places in the Government that really have primary line responsibility for managing electronic records at this point in time, and that is the agencies themselves. We were surprised at how little NARA really knew about that as well. They had recognized this issue in past years and I think quite sensibly had laid on the baseline where-are-we-now survey. We felt that the information coming out of that would be very valuable--not just for NARA's own purposes in framing its policies, guidance, paper flow, business process in general--but also for the agencies themselves and noted that in their strategic plan keeping up with the agencies was an integral element. So we were sorry not to see that information come available, at least for a couple more years. It is a matter of timing. I think they would agree that this needs to be done. We would like to see it done a little sooner, partly because our focus is a little more Government-wide, a little more issue- oriented, and theirs is more agency-based. Mr. Horn. Do you think the National Archives' estimate that the process will take 18 months to 24 months is reasonable? Mr. Stevens. Given our experience in other agencies that are going through the Government Performance and Results Act, reexamination of their functions and processes, I would say that is certainly reasonable, maybe even optimistic. It is a complicated job for people to reexamine fundamentally what they are doing and how they are doing it. Mr. Horn. One of the things this subcommittee will be doing, once we get through this Y2K bit and have maybe a hearing on the retrospect of what went right or wrong, will be to look agency-by-agency--and obviously we want the General Accounting Office's help on this--to look at upgrading their computing capacity, because that has been one of the problems. Some agencies are three, four, or five generations behind. The Congress really needs to face up to that and move ahead on it. It seems to me that you can build into this the archival end at the other end of the process, and we ought to be thinking about that. Mr. Stevens. You should be able to do that. Right now, we just do not know what is happening. My suspicion is that nothing much is, but we cannot prove that. Mr. Horn. I think we will give the GAO 6 months to do one of its wonderful reports as a lead-off witness. So maybe we can work that out as to the questions that need to be asked. We welcome from all of you, also, What questions do we have to raise if we are going to make a rational decision in the executive branch, OMB, the President, and the Congress? That is where I am headed in terms of getting this Government up to speed in this technological age. Any comments any of you would like to make? We are going to wind this up, but we thank you for starving to death through the lunch hour. Anything else anybody would like to say for the good of the order? If not, just write us a note and we will put it in the record at this point, or if you do not want it in the record, you just want it for guidance for us, that is fine, too. We would love to have it. You are all wonderful people and we appreciate what you are doing. Governor, you are running a great institution there. Future generations will appreciate it, I hope, just as much as current generations. I thank you and your staff for coming. With that, I have the staff list as to who helped on this. J. Russell George, the chief counsel, is not here. He is over at the Pentagon going through their Y2K things. Matthew Ebert, to my left and your right, is the policy advisor who put this hearing together. Bonnie Heald, director of communications, professional staff member; Chip Ahlswede, the faithful clerk; and we have two great interns here, P.J. Caceres and Deborah Oppenheim. On the minority staff we have Trey Henderson, counsel; Jean Gosa, minority staff assistant. And we have Mel Jones, who is probably as glad as we are that this session is over. Thank you, Mel, for reporting these proceedings. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you very much. [Whereupon, at 1:26 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned to reconvene at the call of the Chair.] [The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4651.082 -