DLM Forum 99
The second European DLM Forum called upon industry to actively engage in debate on the good management and preservation of electronic records, in order to preserve the memory of Europe's Information Society. If Europe is to follow the example of the USA where the life-cycle management of electronic records is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and several participants expressed a belief that it would, then industry must find an efficient and cost-effective way of archiving their electronic information. To date there is little experience to draw on from European industries, and a major objective of the DLM Forum is to gather together what expertise does exist whilst planning what functional requirements, standards and specifications will be required in the future. Sponsored by the European Commission, the theme of the event, which took place in Brussels on 18 and 19 October, was 'European citizens and electronic information: the memory of the Information Society'. Users of information management software are a disparate group, and the Forum provided a rare opportunity for them to get together to share experiences and plan for future developments. The Forum organisers promised to compile a reference model for the management of electronic documents and records based on existing experience to meet certain criteria. These concern issues such as transparency and accessibility of electronic information, the possibilities for short and long term preservation of authentic records, open standards and specifications, and interdisciplinary guidelines for best practices. Participants intend to develop this model in close cooperation with the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. For this purpose the Forum, together with the European Commission and Member States, formulated a special 'DLM message' to industry. In order to keep authentic and pertinent information in accordance with quality standards and specifications, the Forum felt industry should work towards open interchange standards for different software products that would allow information to be transferred without loss of content. This is particularly pertinent to Europe, where information is regularly exchanged between countries and software is needed to support different languages and different national presentation contexts. In this regard the Forum considered that standards and interdisciplinary guidelines are required for both short and long-term preservation of records. The DLM message to industry is still open, and further comments are being welcomed by the DLM Secretariat up to 6 December 1999. A principal aim of the Forum was to instigate a modular European training programme for administrators and archivists and steps were taken towards the development of a basic programme for the management of electronic documents and records. A project for the first module of the training programme was established, which once refined will be called 'E-TERM' (European training programme in electronic documents and record management) and distributed to interested parties in the second half of 2000. Finally, the Forum asked the interdisciplinary DLM Monitoring Committee and the European Commission to reinforce the DLM action plan for the period 1999-2004 which aims to ensure access to content for the European citizen and best funding of priority activities. Participants called for the implementation of the European Commission's Green Paper on public sector information, which addresses the policy issues of re-using information held in public and private sector archives, and for consideration of the legal issues involved. A progress report on the progression of the Forum's demands should be delivered by the DLM Monitoring Committee in the first half of 2000. The conference was opened by Mr Carlo Trojan, Secretary General of the European Commission, who said providing European citizens with open access to information is in line with the new Commission's priorities of transparency and accountability. Mr Trojan pointed out that as the Information Society changes, people are becoming increasingly reliant on technologies, and he said: 'It is essential to exchange information on how to use machine readable data - they have to be compatible'. The Deputy Director-General for Information Society, Mr Vicente Parajon Collada, spoke of the need for consensus. He said 'technology and networks are definitely changing our society', and we have to work out how best to deal with this. The DLM Forum was, he said, an opportunity to debate how to maintain electronic information for future generations, what parts of it to preserve, and what skills are needed to archive it. The Associate Director of electronic data management at Smithkline Beecham, Philip Lord, showed how his company has coped with the demands of electronic management since the last DLM Forum in 1996. 'Developing an electronic archive is very difficult but not impossible,' he said. As a multinational pharmaceutical company with dealings in the USA where the management of electronic records has been regulated since 1997, Smithkline Beecham was forced to develop a system for electronic archiving when there was very little on the market. Their efforts have involved the definition of user and functional requirements, experimenting with pilot systems and investigating the financial issues around data retention. 'When we started in 1995 we knew very little and, when looking to the outside world in Europe and beyond, found little to guide us,' he said. 'There were no private sector electronic archiving models we could adopt; there were no commercial suppliers of specialist software, and very few advisors who could guide us. However DLM 96 has been invaluable in showing us where to look, feeding ideas, and keeping us informed of development.' For DLM 99 he said: 'There needs to be an exchange of information between suppliers and consumers to define needs, and between consumer and consumer to build a body of good practices and good (and bad) examples.' Mr Lord shared some of his experiences at Smithkline Beecham, saying the most challenging issue was establishing a sound basis for calculating a return on investment as well as accounting processes and measures for the continual maintenance of archived data. Convincing senior management of the need for projects in this area was also difficult, and Mr Lord called for greater awareness. Forum chair David Lipman, Head of Unit responsible for the Commission's mail and archives, said that in order to remain accountable the European Commission had a duty to provide accessible information to its citizens. He pointed to the Information Society Project Office (ISPO) as one Commission service that has proved useful in bridging the gap between electronic archives and public information. ISPO's main aim is to promote cooperation and development in the different areas of the Information Society. Eventually the PROMISE programme will allow visitors to visit the European institutions at any time via 3D virtual access. In the meantime delegates were invited to visit stands of the information services currently available on the Web, including Eudor, the electronic archive of official EU documents (http://eudor.eur-op.eu.int/) Celex providing archivable information on EU law (http://europa.eu.int/celex/) Eur-Lex an entry point to new EU legislation (http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/) and TED - Tenders Electronic Daily, an official information source of public procurement opportunities in Europe (http://ted.eur-op.eu.int/). After much discussion, the two-day event was closed by the Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, Erkki Liikanen, previously responsible for the Commission's computing services. He noted from his experience the difficulties inherent in archiving, and the mammoth task ahead for many organisations. Crucially for Europe, the difficulties lie in relaying information from one system to another. However he said that increasing use of electronic data should improve the services available in this area, although the Commission would help where necessary. 'The European Commission always has a role to play in promoting the European Information Society', he concluded.