Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit: Archiving state government social media in North Carolina and beyond North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Lawrence Giffin Electronic Records Archivist

Everything changes, nothing perishes. –Ovid 2

Playing the Long Game 3

Mandates 4 In 2009, GSA negotiated federal agreements with social media sites starting with Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv and YouTube. Others followed. Standard service agreements often did not fit federal government requirements. Some of the amendments allow for capture of content, such as

Challenges of Social Media 5 Frequent updates Dynamic content Non-permanent Structural changes Password protected Metadata

Factors to Consider 6 1.Frequency 2.Comprehensiveness 3.Authenticity 4.Context

More than Meets the Eye 7

Methods of Capture 8 Copy & Paste Screenshots Save As… Data dump Personal Social Media Archiving Tool Web Crawler Third-party services

What North Carolina is doing about state government social media 9

North Carolina’s government record 10 From left: Letter to Lords Proprietors to Carolina’s colonial governors, 17 th century; Carolina Parakeet by Audobon, 19 th century North Carolina session laws, 1817; Tweet announcing NC DOA’s Facebook presence, made by Governor’s office on September 16 th, 2009.)

The program: 10,000 foot view 11

The program: 1,000 foot view Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net 12

Why archive North Carolina’s state government social media and online web presence? 13

Legislative mandate Preserve state government information in any format and make it accessible to the citizens of North Carolina 14

Appraisal & Declaration Records retention schedules require agencies to save social media interactions. Centralizing this activity saves time, money, and people. Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net 15

E-discovery Digital information, like its analog counterpart, must remain authentic, readable, and unchanged to be entered as evidence in a court of law. Luckily, libraries and archives have been in the permanence business for a long time. And, we continue to be. Some rights reserved. 16

Reinterpretation & retention 17 A “daily bulletin” according to the retention schedules for local and municipal law enforcement. Could also become part of a case file, and as such, will need to comply with appropriate judicial retention schedules, as well.

North Carolina’s social media archiving and access program began in

Program inception 1935, 1973, Legislative mandates Increased focus on transparency in government, state agencies encouraged to utilize social media - Governor’s office expressed strong interest and support Spring. First harvest Governor’s social media - Fall. Government-wide harvest of social media - DCR creates “Best Practices for Social Media Usage in North Carolina State Government” (pdf, videos) - December. Governor announces program on Twitter 19

Statistics Nearly 200 North Carolina state government social media sites at least five times per year 139 Facebook accounts 92 Twitter accounts 31 YouTube channels 3 Linked-In accounts 21 Flickr accounts 53 Blogs (blogspot, wordpress) Over fifteen million documents, 2.5 TB of social media content 20

A job this big is not without challenges. 21

Considerations for sustainability Social media is in constant flux State agencies link to more than government websites 33 state agencies with their own management, culture, objectives Social media accounts come and go Communicating guidelines and records retention requirements not always straightforward Limitations on funding, staff, storage, etc. By redghia69 for shirtwoot! ( 22

Considerations for sustainability 23

DIY requirements Funding. North Carolina works with a vendor to harvest, store, and provide access to the data Staffing. Monthly harvesting, site monitoring, communications requires ~1.5 FTE Storage. While vendor keeps a copy of the data, a second copy must be stored on site, ideally online Administrative oversight. The more the better to get the word out (and keep it out) Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net 24

Final thoughts on North Carolina’s social media archive and access program. 25

Social media archiving and access program is Centrally managed to alleviate records retention concerns at the agency level Easily replicable with minimal funding and staffing First and longest running program in the nation Using well tested library and archives concepts in new and innovative ways to ensure records retention is safe, stable, and authentic 24/7 service provides outstanding access to today’s history now and in the future. 26

State government has fundamentally changed......and, North Carolina is capturing and preserving that change, as it happens, for its citizens today and tomorrow. 27 Free clip art images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net