A digital tsunami is coming. The National Archives is in trouble.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/20/national-archives-troubles-digital/

2 Comments

  1. ProfessionalCreme119 on

    From the article:

    >By 2004, a decade after Archives II opened, NARA’s physical holdings reached 2.8 million cubic feet, or 6.9 billion pages. In the past two decades, its holdings doubled. NARA predicts that even with the transformation to digital, the physical holdings will reach 17 billion pages in the next decade and a half. In a step backward, NARA expanded an exhibit area in its main building in 2004 to make it more of a tourist attraction; that wiped out a large chunk of storage space.

    When you keep specific government agencies under staffed you can guarantee they will not be able to shuffle the paperwork as fast.

    When the IRS does not have enough agents wealthy people get away with more financial crimes. Or taxation. When the food stamp office doesn’t have enough receptionists and office staff state benefits come slowly. It works across any administration office in government.

    So too is it for record-keeping and preservation. They understaff the agencies and groups designed to preserve information, sort through newly released information and make it available for the public. For historians later.