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The Center for Electronic Records of the National Archives and Records Administration was established in 1988 as the custodial unit for the permanent electronic records of the U.S. federal government. The program for the long‐term preservation of electronic (or machine‐readable) records by the National Archives goes back to 1968, and the acting archivist of the United States has recently acknowledged the thirtieth anniversary of the first formal appraisal of electronic records. This article will highlight both the Center for Electronic Records' program and the various levels of access to information about the records in its custody.

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to establish a framework for managing trusted records in the electronic environment.

The study collates the criteria required to manage trusted electronic records through the available literature and best practice and tests these on experts through an opinion survey. The study was done via email inviting 40 selected experts (18 participated), known in the fields of records and archives management all over the world, to respond to a structured framework of managing electronic records.

The findings indicate that the experts are unanimously agreed that the five main contexts, namely governance, recordkeeping, archival, technological, skills and competency, serve as an audit list providing the trusted environment for managing records in the electronic environment.

The collation of the criteria for trusted electronic records management, based on available literature and best practice in the field, may not be exhaustive as new literature on the latest information and knowledge, debates and practices continues to emerge throughout the records and archives community.

The study's findings are significant in confirming that the criteria collated are highly recommended and crucial in ensuring the reliability, authenticity, integrity and long term accessibility of electronic records.

The study establishes the elements in building trusted management of electronic records. This framework provides a basis for good records management practices to ensure that electronic records are to be managed in an efficient and consistent manner. This is vital for the long‐term preservation of those records with continuing value or as the evidence of transactions and the accountability that the records held for their current use.

This paper aims to examine some of the issues associated with managing electronic records, identify some problems, and suggest some solutions, from the perspective of a professional records manager and archivist. Three main issues are considered that need to be addressed by managers of electronic records — management and organisational, technical and legal. The overarching theme of standards is woven into these three main areas of concern. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for attention to be paid, in the UK, to discussing and framing a professional approach to electronic records management.

Recently, increasing importance has been given to electronic records in China, despite the lack of understanding that institutions and organizations have regarding the security status of electronic records preservation. Wuhan, the largest city in central China, serves as a case to investigate the preservation security of electronic records. Challenges to security are summarized, and solutions are proposed to support policy-developing and operational guidance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The Delphi method is applied to analyze the advice of nine experts, select survey items and design questionnaires. Data are collected from 34 archives in Wuhan through field surveys, oral interviews and e-mails, which are analyzed and illustrated with three representative cases.

Main achievements of electronic records preservation are concluded in the electronic records management system, carrier types and storage formats, and data backup. Problems are summarized as a lack of awareness and capability of defending against security risks, disaster recovery capability, and understanding of electronic record characteristics. Solutions are proposed as follows: carrying out regular security risk evaluation, adopting new technologies, implementing application-level backup, strengthening technology-related education and attracting more IT talent to join the archive discipline. In addition, it is critical to promote an understanding of the characteristics of electronic records.

This paper investigates the security status of electronic records in central China by surveys and case studies. Critical problems and corresponding solutions are raised to support policy-developing and operational guidance for the research and practice of all kinds of institutions that implement electronic records preservation.

This study aims to find out how the e-records management subject has been researched and tackled by researchers in the Eastern and Southern African Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA).

This research paper applied a bibliometric survey, where a quantitative survey of the literature pertaining to the study of e-records management in the ESARBICA region, covering the period from 2000 to 2016, was conducted applying bibliometric methods. The survey aimed at providing descriptive data that cast a spotlight on the features and development of the e-records management base literature in the ESARBICA region.

The research data display a lamentable outlook in the contribution to the electronic records management body of knowledge from the ESARBICA region. Few research articles from professionals in the records and archives management are being published. These figures call for increased investments in electronic records management research by institutions in ESARBICA, as management of electronic content has become the centre of political and socio-economic development. Follow-up studies need to be done to counter limitations placed on this research paper. The findings show that there is under production of research publications in the ESARBICA region. The region only contributed 2 per cent of the total world output in the period under review and in the study of electronic records management from journals indexed by Scopus.

A bibliometric study places researchers at the mercy of analysing incomplete information due to limitations of resources. The variance in use of terminology (key words) by authors in published research articles may entail some being left out in an analysis of articles the same subject matter. As much as due diligence was placed on using Boolean search methods to counter such limitations they are unavoidable. An interpretation of bibliometric or citation analysis research is subjective as some analysts may label results incomplete or unreliable; hence, this paper finds itself in the same predicament. Inability to access the Thompson Reuters Web of Science database left the authors with Scopus as the only option, as Google Scholar was overlooked due to difficulties of having to rely on third-party software for analysing its indexed content that are mostly inaccurate and or ambiguous.

The findings of this study help uncover areas in e-records management, which have been researched over the years, and identify the prominent e-records management researchers in the ESARBICA region.

A number of bibliometric studies have been conducted; however, none has been conducted to establish e-records management research trends in the ESRABICA region.

The greatest challenges which digital systems present are the creation and maintenance of reliable records and the preservation of their authenticity over time. It is vital for every organisation that its records should be able to stand for the facts which they concern, i.e. that their content is trustworthy. To meet these challenges the international community of records professionals must develop appropriate strategies, procedures and standards. This paper seeks to explore the concepts and principles derived from archival diplomatics that should guide the management of electronic records and therefore these developments, as well as drawing conclusions about the nature of the research work required.

The paper looks at the problems presented by electronic records, considers a definition of electronic records, and discusses the authenticity and reliability of electronic records.

Research work needs to be carried out to formulate the principles that will guide the development of international, national and organisational policies, strategies and standards, the specific criteria for each type of policy, strategy and standard, and the procedural methods for their implementation. The most important thing is to ensure that the policies, strategies and standards are consistent with one another, and this is only possible when they are based on the same concepts and inspired by the same principles.

Concepts, laws and models from various fields must be studied to foster useful transfers from one field to another, to encourage the development of theory in emerging areas of endeavour and investigation, to eliminate the duplication of theoretical efforts in different fields, and to promote consistency of scientific knowledge. However, in order to develop the body of knowledge of records management, concepts, laws and models of archival diplomatics must be brought to bear.

The existence of policy serves as a guideline to facilitate actions and decisions to be taken. Electronic records management should be driven and guided by clear, comprehensive, understandable policy, to direct the organization and ascertain the effectiveness of functions implemented. The purpose of this paper is to find out whether government agencies in Malaysia do possess such a policy for electronic records management. In addition, the aim is to identify the responsible party for the policy besides investigating the sources referred to in developing the policy.

The survey employs a questionnaire to gather the data from 25 selected government departments in Klang Valley and Putrajaya, Malaysia.

As anticipated, not all government departments possess electronic records management policy far from complete, clear, and easy to implement. Most surveyed samples are executing policy provided by Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) and National Archive of Malaysia (NAM) with some modifications to suit their needs. On the other hand, the number of organization carrying out electronic records management without any policy in place is alarming.

Electronic records management is carried out in some organisations merely based on their instinct and initiatives, far from complying with international standards of best practice.

This paper provides evidence from an original study.

This paper is based on the doctoral study conducted in 2016 at the University of South Africa. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the current state of management of electronic records in Kenya facilitates or undermines implementation of e-government with a view to develop a best-practice framework for management of electronic records in support of e-government.

The study used the interpretive research paradigm and adopted qualitative research methodology using phenomenological design. Maximum variation sampling was used to identify the research sample for the study.

The findings established that the general status of management of e-records (MER) in government ministries is inadequately positioned to support e-government; use of e-government in Kenya had grown significantly and more ministries were adopting e-government services; although some initiatives have been undertaken to enhance MER, the existing practices for MER require improvement to ensure they adequately support e-government.

The limitations were access to respondents and the challenge of self-reported data.

Recommendations and a best-practice framework for managing electronic records in support of e-government have been provided. A proposal for implementation of the recommendations on a priority basis has also been provided.

The study’s contribution to scholarly works and literature in the field resides in its findings and a framework that can be practically adopted for management of e-records in support of e-government. By establishing the nexus between management of e-records and e-government in Kenya, it is hoped that it will provide input to policymakers to consider records managers as key stakeholders in e-government.

The originality of this study stems from two aspects: original topic and understudied area.

This article is based on two sets of sources: the work of the International Congress on Archives (ICA) Electronic Records Committee, and a series of European initiatives, most recently the DLM Forum on electronic records held in Brussels in December 1996. The article concentrates largely on national archives, because governments are the largest record creators and it is in the public sector that the problems of electronic records are seen most clearly.

Terms such as medium preservation and technology preservation are now widely used when discussing issues related to the preservation of electronic records. The advent of electronic information introduces new preservation requirements. Medium preservation has been addressed in discussions on environmental and handling concerns for tapes, magnetic disks, optical disks, and the like. Greater attention should instead be directed to the obsolescence of technologies. It is a challenge to imagine not only how to technically preserve electronic records indefinitely, but also how to choose what to preserve and how to guarantee the electronic record’s reliability and authenticity in the future. The combined problems of immense volume, unstable storage media, and obsolete hardware and software add up to some very tough problems, which have to be dealt with. Digital preservation is becoming a business issue. Not only are historians, librarians and archivists alarmed by the loss of cultural and government records due to a lack in digital preservation, but certain industries have also realised that they need to keep data longer and longer for regulatory or business reasons.