Electronic Records
About Electronic Government Records
In addition to physical records, institutions and individuals create and maintain records electronically. The Society receives electronic records from state and local government units, as well as private individuals and organizations. Electronic records create unique records management challenges and require additional steps to get records transferred for long-term preservation.
Manage Electronic Records
Government employees are responsible for the maintenance and care of all public records created as part of their position, independent of format, and including those created by prior employees. Additionally, state and local government units need to conform with Wisconsin Administrative Code Chapter Admin 12, which outlines the state’s electronic records management standards and requirements.
Individuals and non-governmental organizations are not beholden to state statutes or formalized records management practices. However, they also can benefit from active electronic records management.
Transfer Electronic Records
The State Archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) accepts electronic records transfers directly from state and local government units at the end of the record’s retention period as indicated in an approved RDA.
Digitization Guidance
The Digitization Guidance for State Agencies and Local Units of Government lay out standards and best practices for implementing mass digitization of public records. The guidance is modular in nature to allow for ease of access regarding specific questions. There are two separate versions, one for state agencies and one for local units of government to address the slight differences in processes and statutes between the two.
The WHS Electronic Records Portal (WERP) provides access to the processed electronic record collections of the State Archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society. The WERP collections currently include recent state and local government records, manuscript collections, and library material transferred in digital formats to the WHS.
Items in the WERP often originated as born digital file formats, but some may have been digitized by the donating party before their transfer to the archives. Items also are often part of a larger collection of paper documents, photographs, and various film and audio formats available at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives or at Area Research Centers (ARCs) around the state. To determine where records in a collection may reside, search the Library & Archives catalog.
Government Records & Publications
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