6. Archiving is an integral part of information management
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Statement Archiving is to be seen as a part of information (lifecycle) management. Rational Several tasks have to be carried out to ensure long-term accessibility. For example, the information has to be enriched with sufficient metadata, physical storage has to be reliable and accessible, and the file format risks and/or system dependencies have to be analysed and solved. Many of these tasks are not unique to archiving but also relevant to information management in general. As such, “good archiving” does not start once information is delivered to a separated archival repository. It begins before this, with the application of best practices during the creation and initial management of the information. Implications – Archiving has to ensure that the standards and tasks it uses are in line with the standards and tasks used in information creation and early management. – Archiving must collaborate with information management to discuss and propose best-practices that have to be implemented for the early stages of the lifecycle. – There is no single “correct” way of integrating archiving and information management. Rather, it is about organisational and systems design choices if archiving is separated both functionally and architecturally, or indeed natively integrated into information management organisations, functions, and systems (either way, the two implications above remain valid). Notes (if any)