Excellence  in  Records  &  Information  Management

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Ken Thibodeau
Having retired from the National Archives and Records Administration in 2011, I am devoting my time to a number of educational, research, and consulting activities, including advising on digital preservation projects at several institutions, speaking at numerous conferences and contributing to digital preservation research as senior guest scientist in the Information Technology Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Among other presentations, in 2011 I gave the opening keynote address at "The Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation," a conference commemorating the 20th anniversary of UNESCO's Memory of the World Program.  The presentation presents an overview of the myriad challenges involved in digital preservation and outlines a framework for addressing them.  It is available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/events/calendar-of-events/events-websites/the-memory-of-the-world-in-the-digital-age-digitization-and-preservation/webcast-recordings/

Most of my time and energy have gone into my career as practitioner of archives and records management in the U.S. Government, capped by successful development and implementation of the first two major components of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). These component support NARA's mission in the areas of federal records and presidential records respectively.  The second instance of the ERA system was specifically designed to handle the transfer, preserveration, and access to electronic records of the George W. Bush Administration.  ERA successfully completed the ingest of over 200,000,000 presidential electronic records in less than a year, establishing item level control over them.  In the process 65,000,000 problems of various types were identified and more than 64,500,000 resolved.  For more information on ERA see: http://www.archives.gov/era/. T

I've long balanced the pressures and demands of my government career with extensive research, writing, teaching and occasional consulting in the area of electronic records. My basic interest is in reformulating archival science to provide a richer theoretical foundation and more effective methods for managing records in cyberspace. My Leahy Award Lecture provides insight into my thinking in this area.