Automated Preservation of Electronic Records: A Case Study of the Archival Preservation System

by Fynnette Eaton * The National Archives and Records Administration has had a program for accessioning, describing, preserving, and providing reference service to the electronic records (Machine Readable) records) created by Federal agencies and transferred to the National Archives for almost thirty years. Although there have been many changes in the name of the office, its basic mission has remained the same: to preserve and make available those records created by Federal agencies in electronic format that the National Archives has determined to have value beyond the short-term need of the originating agency.