Two words: social media. It’s a problem for government recordkeepers. Do we trust the Facebooks, the Twitters and the Flickrs of the world to manage our information for us? They feed on data after all, provide the best platform for viewing and accessing that information, and aren’t likely to disappear anytime soon. Or do we try to capture social media records into our internal recordkeeping systems? To bring it home so we can control it better. And if we do, how? By using third party applications? Export functionality native to social media platforms? Print screen? Copy and paste into a spreadsheet?
QSA is taking another look at its advice on recordkeeping for social media. So far we’ve put out three targeted Public Records Briefs and have touched on the topic in other places as well:
- Social media and public records*
- Recordkeeping and blogs*
- Capturing short messages
We’ve been quite cautious up till now in recommending processes and tools. But we know the sandpit is a bit dirty and we think it’s time to start playing in it. We want to come up with practical advice for agencies that will help them to get good, useful records of their social media presence as well as meet their requirements under the Public Records Act.
We’ve got some ideas we’re mulling over. But where do you think we should start? Should we update and combine our current advice or keep it separate? What’s working well for you at the moment? What are you particularly worried about? Tell us your good news stories. Cry on our shoulder too if you like. We’re listening…
Feature image: Social Media apps by Jason Howie CC0 1.0
*Both public records briefs have been incorporated into our advice on Social media and Yammer records
The Aug 2012 IG magazine (The RIM Quarterly) had a good article by Katherine Stevenson about some of the issues – “Managing ‘tweets’ as records” on pages 24-27
Thanks for the tip Mason, we’ll take a look at that article!
Would be interested to see the PDFs but looks like the links are now inactive. Any chance of reactivating?
Hi Morgan,
You can now find our advice on Social Media at The Recordkeeping SPOT – http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/Recordkeeping/Digital/Pages/Strategies-for-capture.aspx.
Thanks
GRK