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Introduction
Since information technology has been rapidly developing, there are many governments keep propagating their e-government projects in the world. Those governments generate huge volume of electronic records under these circumstances. In the light of reviewing electronic records highly consistent with correspondent carrier medium, the rapid changes in software and hardware technology seriously affected the accessibility and preservation of electronic records.

The impact of information technology also has influenced archives. Archivists must take account into that different types of electronic records will be generated continuously, and how to preserve them in the conditions of authenticity and integrity in the future configurations. Meanwhile, those preserved electronic records also can present original contents if necessary. 

At present, most developed countries have involving related researches to find out effective solutions, and we are one of them. We emphasize that our solutions captures all metadata of every electronic record in different phase following the complete life cycle. That is, we extract key features from the very beginning of every electronic record as being created for subsequent representing original formatting and contents. 

National archives administration is the government official documents authority that is in charge of proposing an effective solution to keep all electronic records in our government. The institution has proposed “National Archives Digital Services Project (2008-2011)”(Figure1), including related researches to take care electronic records long-term preservation issues. We are looking forward to provide the optimal solution for our government by 2011. We have been holding different conferences and symposiums, contracted subject researches out to several universities to discus current status in different countries about these issues. We have developed a prototype system for electronic government official documents and records management in National Archives Administration as pilot study. Hereby, we propose primary issues concerning electronic records long-term preservation and what we are proceeding in our project.

Figure1. National Archives Digital Services Project Conceptual Modules Diagram

Current Electronic Records Preservation Format
There are many types of electronic records sources in our institution. We regulated definite formats as our preservation formats. Those records in other formats will be converted into our preservation formats as following procedures.

• Printed Document:  Scanned Image for original printed documents in JPG, also being converted in microfilm simultaneously. We preserved 2 types of format for conventional written and printed documents.
• Video records: we converted CD-R into DVD format.
• Reel Video Tape: we convert BETA CAM into DVD with MPEG-2 or WMV format.
• Audio Tape: we migrated into DVD in WAV format

All electronic records are kept with 2 copies at least. We are taking account of preserving other digital contents, such as databases, E-Mails, web sites, software applications, and so on.

Main Methods for Electronic Records Long-term Preservation in our institution

• System Preservation
• Refreshing
• Replication
• Standardization
• Converting into Paper or other Analogous Media
• Encapsulation
• Migration
• Emulation

Electronic Records Long-term Preservation Framework
Under our electronic records long-term preservation framework, the system will produce make metadata entries that correspond appropriate encapsulation types of preservation methods when every electronic record just has been generated. After appraising value and technique of archives, the system will check the retention year field whether if it is less than 10 years. If not, subsequently, it will examine consistent formats to ensure the requirement of long-term preservation. There are 3 kinds of solutions for different situations that includes:

• Keep digital object encapsulations accompany with system hardware and software. All contents will be replicated.
• Keep digital object encapsulations in migrated formats.
• Keep digital object encapsulations in specific emulated configuration.

Figure2. Electronic Records Long-term Preservation Framework in National Archives Administration (R.O.C.)

What Electronic Records Encapsulation Are in NAA
Keep all original system configuration information for its subsequent long-term preservation metadata application strategy, which includes content、structure、context and behavior in an digital parcel which was named as an encapsulation file. There are for layers of an onion like digital file, which includes object layer, archival folder layer, document layer and content encoding layer.

Figure3. Electronic Records Encapsulation

When Migration Works
When the hardware or software of an electronic records management system has become obsolete or lose efficacy, we will need to convert them in specific formats for later access operation without accessibility influences of hardware and software development. The major target for migration is digital object.

Advantage：Change original objects for adapting the latest technological configuration.
ex：Convert documents in Microsoft WORD format as PDF or Open Document formats；Convert application in Java instead of C language；replace Solaris with Linux operating system.
Drawbacks：Migration will violate the original authenticity and cause inevitable data losses at the same time. Besides, always need to do manual examination. Furthermore, missing data will be propagated by continuous migration.

The procedure of performing format migration in NAA

• Select default long-term preservation formats
• Parse electronic records in formats first, and then define suitable preserved formats and corresponding viewer
• Preserve contents and format structures
• Trace changes of file formats periodically
• Examine preservation media aging status, performing media refreshing, encapsulation, resigning for avoiding format conversion losses to ensure their authenticity, integrity and accessibility

Figure4. Format Migration for Long-term Preservation Structural Diagram

When We Adopt Emulation Strategy 
Either used for emulating hardware or emulation using hardware to remain original operating systems, software applications, drivers and configurations for ensuring electronic records authenticity. The purpose of using a proper emulator is to maintain genuine software operation environment with very latest operating system and hardware equipment.

Figure 5. Emulation Working Platform Conceptual Diagram