The impact of the shift to cloud computing on digital recordkeeping practices at the University of Michigan Bentley historical library

Abstract

Cloud-based productivity, collaboration, and storage tools offer increased opportunities for collaboration and potential cost-savings over locally hosted solutions and have seen widespread adoption throughout industry, government, and academia over the last decade. While these tools benefit organizations, IT departments, and day-to-day-users, they present unique challenges for records managers and archivists. As a review of the relevant literature demonstrates, issues surrounding cloud computing are not limited to the technology—although the implementation and technological issues are numerous—but also include organization management, human behavior, regulation, and records management, making the process of archiving digital information in this day and age all the more difficult. This paper explores some of the consequences of this shift and its effect on digital recordkeeping at the Bentley Historical Library, whose mission is to “collect the materials for the University of Michigan.” After providing context for this problem by discussing relevant literature, two practicing archivists will explore the impact of the move toward cloud computing as well as various productivity software and collaboration tools in use at U-M throughout the various stages of a standard lifecycle model for managing records.