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Archives and Records Commission urges retention, seeks removal from sunset schedule
Summary
The Department of Libraries and the Archives and Records Commission asked lawmakers to retain the commission and consider extending or removing its sunset period, citing the commission’s role in preserving government transparency and new digital-preservation technology funded by recent appropriations.
State archivists told a legislative committee the Archives and Records Commission is critical to government transparency and should remain in place beyond the upcoming sunset review.
Natalie Curry, executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, which administratively supports the commission, told the committee the commission — created under the Records Management Act in 1961 — approves records-disposition schedules that guide agencies on what to preserve in the state archives and what records may be legally disposed. She said the commission can compel state officers and agencies to provide records for evaluation and that the commission’s review enables cost savings by eliminating unnecessary record retention and administrative burden.
Curry described the department’s recently appropriated one-time funding to stand up digital-preservation technology. She said the state acquired a preservation product, Preservica, and has worked with OMES to build secure workflows allowing agencies to transfer born-digital records into the archives with metadata preservation and format migration to protect accessibility over time.
The department said the Archives and Records Management program within the Department of Libraries has about 4 FTEs dedicated to archives and records management and an additional open position; Curry said department appropriations undergird operations (she cited about $850,000 budgeted for the department program this fiscal year, not including separate technology expenditures) while the commission itself receives no direct appropriations.
Committee members asked about meeting frequency, quorum and the department’s capacity to preserve digital records. Curry said the commission meets at least quarterly and has not had quorum problems; she emphasized the importance of the new preservation system’s hot and cold storage redundancies, format migration and preserved metadata to guard against data loss.
Curry asked the committee to consider extending the commission’s sunset period beyond one year or removing it from the sunset schedule, noting the commission’s statutory authority and cross-agency role in records disposition. The commission offered to provide technology cost details if the committee requested them.
No formal committee action was taken during the hearing.
