Information Quality Challenges for the Preservation of Norwegian Public Sector Records

Abstract

The digitalization from paper-based to electronic records management results in challenges to preserve material in an authentic form. This paper explores the role in ensuring the authenticity and usability of electronic records in a long term preservation perspective. The discussion is viewed from an information quality perspective that provides a suitable lens to the topic. We identified a number of challenges that government records face, stressing the issue at hand of how to maintain authenticity and usability over a long term perspective. Challenges results from issues around authenticity, usability, the user, volume and heterogeneity and particular the time dimension. We conclude that the fields of record keeping and long term preservation have some clear information quality issues that could benefit from a concerted approach by integrating information quality research into records management. To date this seems to be missing.