NARA taps Lockheed for archives project.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has awarded a $308 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to build the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program.

The program is needed to store and maintain the billions of electronic records that federal agencies produce each year and that NARA must store and maintain. ERA is a federal effort to save the government's records--regardless of format--and make them accessible on future hardware and software.

The key to the system is to make sure records remain "authentic," meaning users can view them in their original format, even if the software that created a record is outdated or no longer available. This is a difficult challenge because technology changes so quickly that documents created today may not be accessible in just three or five years, federal officials said. Kenneth Thibodeau, director of the ERA program, estimated that federal agencies use at least 4,800 different document formats. Most records are stored on magnetic tapes now and are not easily searchable, he added.

NARA officials said Lockheed's single-level system will be introduced in five phases and feature an interface designed to improve recordkeeping. The agency successfully tested the concept behind the new system--creating a searchable network of databases--by entering information into 100 databases.

Lockheed will not be taking on the monumental project alone; its team includes BearingPoint Inc., Electronic...