آمادگی بخش عمومی برای حفظ دیجیتالی در نیوزیلند: میزان پذیرش نوآوری در شیوه های سوابق مدیریت

Recent legislation in New Zealand has placed statutory obligations on its government organizations to introduce sound records management practices and to ensure long-term access to their digital records. To obtain a base level of knowledge on current digital preservation practices and on awareness of digital preservation issues, an online survey was conducted of the nation's government organizations in March 2006. The survey, which achieved a response rate of 42.4%, found that most organizations were knowledgeable about basic aspects of their digital resources but their awareness of digital preservation was generally low, and digital preservation activity was modest overall. To identify possible reasons for this situation, Rogers' (Diffusion of innovations. 5th ed. New York: Free Press. 2003) Diffusion of Innovations model is used to discuss digital preservation as an innovation and the level of readiness for digital preservation as the innovation's rate of adoption. The paper concludes by using Rogers' model as the basis for making recommendations aimed at helping the government's lead agencies to increase New Zealand's public sector readiness for digital preservation

New Zealand's public sector organizations are now creating almost all of their information in digital form. Much of this material has long-term value, for example, as organizational records that support ongoing business continuity, as primary data that enable evidence-based decision making, and as intellectual assets that embody the institution's corporate thinking. However, this material is at risk due to technological obsolescence, lack of organizational policies, insufficient resources, fragile storage media, and other threats. The preservation activities managing these threats are characterized by a high degree of uncertainty in which much experimentation and a variety of techniques are employed by different organizations to meet their individual needs. The research described in this report identifies the level of organizational awareness of these issues and the current activities taking place in this area in order to determine the present state of readiness for digital preservation in New Zealand's public sector. Recent legislation has given new impetus to preservation requirements for government information that has actually been in place for more than two decades. In 1982 the Official Information Act established clear requirements for New Zealand's public sector organizations to provide public access to their official information (including any information recorded or stored by means of a computer) unless there is good reason for withholding the information (Official Information Act, 1982). Recent changes to New Zealand's legislative environment provided the framework and incentive for Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand to fund this study to develop a base level of knowledge about digital preservation awareness and activities within the nation's public sector. The Public Records Act of 2005 has mandated Archives New Zealand to be the long-term repository for the public sector's electronic records and has set out specific requirements for every public office including local government “to create and maintain full and accurate records in accordance with normal, prudent business practice” (Archives New Zealand, 2005). Furthermore, under section 17 of the Act, all public sector records must be preserved in an accessible form for future reference. A phase-in period gives government agencies until 2010 to establish sound records management practices. In that year, independent audits of agencies' records management practices will commence. In a similar vein, the National Library Act of 2003 set out requirements for the National Library of New Zealand to manage the legal deposit of the nation's public documents in both print and electronic form. While the Act exempts public records as they are defined within the Public Records Act 2005, it includes those “public records made available to the public (for example, public records that have an ISBN or ISSN number)” (National Library Act, 2003, s. 29). This requirement means that public sector organizations must make available to the National Library any internet documents or electronic documents that have been made available to the public and have been deemed by the National Library to be presented for legal deposit. As well as these mandates, the country's Digital Strategy (New Zealand, 2005) called for a national content strategy to be developed and launched by December 2006. One of the five key elements of The New Zealand Digital Content Strategy is “managing and preserving digital content” (New Zealand, 2006). The Content Strategy highlights the need for “well-managed government records…[as] a vital component of democratic accountability, enabling citizens to hold government to account for its actions.” This context of legislation and strategy set the stage for this research. It was conducted by a team from Victoria University of Wellington on behalf of Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand to provide a base level of knowledge from which to guide national priorities or actions related to current digital preservation issues. The data for the research was gathered via an online survey that ran from 20 March to 18 April 2006.1

The most notable findings of this study were that respondents ranked (1) insufficient organizational knowledge of electronic recordkeeping as the greatest threat to effective data control in organizations, and (2) insufficient organizational awareness of digital preservation as the greatest threat to digital material. These rankings reveal an important concern among respondents about the lack of organizational knowledge and awareness with respect to digital preservation. Their concern is a strong indication of a key reason behind the low-level of readiness for digital preservation among many organizations in New Zealand's public sector. These organizations are not sufficiently aware of the positive advantages that will accrue to them in terms of their ongoing access to digital records, and their statutory requirements to establish sound recordkeeping practices. To remedy this situation we need to consider the role of communication and the agents involved in the communication process that is the adoption of an innovation. Rogers (2003) contends that the innovation adoption process is a communication process with different players involved in key roles that affect the rate of adoption. We can view New Zealand's public sector as being one large bureaucratic organization in itself or equally as being a variety of individual organizations within a system. In order for the rate of adoption of digital preservation to increase, it will need strong champions. Rogers says that “a champion is a charismatic individual who throws his or her weight behind an innovation, thus overcoming indifference or resistance that the new idea may provoke in an organization.” Champions are “brokers and arrangers for an innovation in an organization, helping fit it into the organizational context.” Given that 20 of 36 organizations (55.6%) reported that they had not identified any organization that could assist them in their digital preservation endeavors, it is essential that Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand, as the lead agencies for digital preservation within the system, must identify a strong champion to promote digital preservation. Similarly each individual agency should identify its own internal champion of digital preservation. The second group of key players in this communication process are the change agents. Rogers (2003) says that “a change agent is an individual who influences clients' innovation-decisions in a direction deemed desirable by the change-agency.” Change agents need to possess a high level of knowledge about the innovation, and they often hold high-level university degrees. As people who act as links between the change agency and the client organizations, change agents must possess good analytic and communication skills in order to gain the confidence of the client's staff and to selectively disseminate to them information that is relevant to their needs. Thus change agents must be capable of informing their clients' decisions in a manner that does not lead to information overload which could cause the process to break down. The fact that only 16 of 38 responding organizations (42.1%) have a designated staff member who holds specific responsibility for digital preservation suggests that many organizations have not identified change agents to guide the innovation's adoption internally. In 2006/7, Archives New Zealand established a Digital Preservation Team (Archives New Zealand, 2007) whose staff are acting in the change agents' role within the New Zealand public service. For Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand, as the two lead agencies in promoting the adoption of digital preservation, the challenge appears to be primarily one of communication. The fact the large majority of public sector organizations in this study had only a modest degree of awareness of digital preservation, and only a minority acknowledged the importance of digital preservation, demonstrates the need for a government-wide champion to communicate clearly the reasons for and importance of digital preservation, and for each public sector organization in New Zealand to have its own champion. In effect, the lead agencies need to provide a champion of champions for digital preservation. The combination of an influential public sector champion providing direction and motivation for institutional champions would give impetus to individual institutions to establish records management positions charged with taking responsibility for digital preservation. These records managers could then become the change agents needed to communicate the advantages of adopting sound records management strategies and to assist staff in decisions and planning related to the adoption of digital preservation as an innovation within their institutions.