National Archives Announces Electronic Records Contract

*** Press Release ***

The National Archives and Records Administration is pleased to announce that it has awarded two contracts for the development of ERA to Lockeed Martin and Harris Company after a rigorous competitive process. ERA is NARA's strategic response to the challenge of electronic records. ERA will authentically preserve and provide access to any kind of electronic record, free from dependency on any specific hardware or software, enabling NARA to carry out its mission into the future.

The award of these contracts heralds the shift in the Electronic Records Archives Program's focus to the system analysis and design phase. The link below connects you to the web site that contains links to the award press conference, read the official press release, or learn more about the chosen contractors. Click Here

To Do List - Disaster Planning and Inventory Control

It has been awhile since I read this article, but it is a good one to think about. The article is an opinion piece by Eric Lundquist published in eWeek magazine on the need to do those bothersome but important system administration duties such as disaster planning, equipment and software inventories, and other "Fall Cleaning" chores. For more click here.

Cooperative Information Technology

Another excellent article was recently published in Computerworld magazine title "Intelligent Disobedience." Many of us have enjoyed the antics of the Dilbert comic strip in recent years and, laugh at the foibles of the "Pointy Haired Boss." Unfortunately, these antics often turn into realities when technical staff go up against management on project design and implementation issues. This article offers some ideas on how these problems might be addressed. Click here to read more.

IT Survival Guide Article from Computerworld

An excellent article from a 40 year Information Technology professional was published recently in Computerworld magazine. The author, Paul Ingevaldson, currently the Chief Information Officer, has been with Ace Hardware for 25 years. He obviously knows something about how to "survive the IT jungle." Click here to read the article.

Wireless Courthouse in Albuquerque

A recent article in ComputerWorld magazine highlights the new wireless capabilities being installed in the Bernalillo County Courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Read "New Mexico County Pioneers Courthouse Wi-Fi Service" for more.

Real World Digital Security

John Udell of InfoWorld magazine has posted an interesting report from a security conference on how the use of digital security works and doesn't work in the real world. Click here to read the article.

Getting to Done

There is an excellent Computerworld magazine article posted titled "Getting to Done" by Paul Glen. This is a critical part of project management, to define success hopefully before you start your project. What is "done"? Are there degrees of "done"? If you can set achievable milestones for the project the court staff and judges can see that progress is being made. Read the article by clicking here.

Computers in the Courtroom

In many courtrooms there is often a lack of space for personal computers. I have seen computers on top of and under the furniture taking up valuable table and more important, leg space. Hewlett Packard is introducing a new system call CCI for Consolidated Client Infrastructure that centralizes the PC's into rack storage "blades" with a thin-client workstation installed, in our case, in the courtroom. Read about this new system by clicking here.

State Supreme Court Web Broadcasting

Rory Perry, Clerk of the West Virginia Supreme Court and frequent speaker at Court Technology Conferences reports on his Blog that there are now eleven state supreme courts that are providing live and archived internet video streams of their oral arguments. Click here to read more.

Imaging Space Calculations

From Archive Builders: http://www.archivebuilders.com/abcourses.html

Computer storage requirements for various digitized document types:

1 scanned page (8 1/2 by 11 inches, A4) = 50 KiloBytes (KByte)(on average, black & white, CCITT G4 compressed)

1 file cabinet (4 drawer) (10,000 pages on average) = 500 MegaBytes (MByte)= 1 CD (ROM or WORM)

2 file cabinets = 10 cubic feet = 1,000 MBytes = 1
GigaByte (GByte)

10 file cabinets = 1 DVD (WORM)

1 box (in inches: 15 1/2 long x 12 wide x 10 deep) (2,500 pages) = 1 file drawer = 2 linear feet of files = 1 1/4 cubic feet = 125 MBytes

8 boxes = 16 linear feet = 2 file cabinets = 1 GByte