**GAO-10-838T**                      Published: Jun 17, 2010. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 2010.                  

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## Highlights

Federal agencies are increasingly using electronic means to create, exchange, and store information, and in doing so, they frequently create federal records: that is, information, in whatever form, that documents government functions, activities, decisions, and other important transactions. As the volume of electronic information grows, so does the challenge of managing electronic records. Both federal agency heads and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) have responsibilities for managing federal records. As requested, after providing some context about records management in the federal government and the roles of federal agencies and NARA, this testimony describes the challenges of electronic records management and potential means of addressing these challenges. In preparing this testimony, GAO relied primarily on its previous work, supplemented by analysis of publicly available documents.

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## Topics

Information Management

DocumentationElectronic recordsElectronic records archiveElectronic records managementFederal agenciesFederal records managementInformation managementInformation storage and retrievalInformation systemsRecords managementStrategic planningSystems integration