 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our rescheduled bridge meeting. My name is Ariane Ravenbach, and I will be serving as the moderator for today's meeting. As a reminder, the Office of Agency Services at the National Archives and Records Administration hosts these bimonthly records and information discussion group, or bridge, meetings to present information relating to federal records management. Bridge is co-produced by the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the United States and the Federal Records Center Program, and is live-streamed to the audience over our YouTube channel. Generally, bridge meetings consist of a scheduled program of presentations with an open forum at the end of each meeting to ask questions of the presenters or of any related federal records management topic of interest. Viewers are encouraged to post questions in the chat or by sending an email to rm.communications.nara.gov. Our staff will be monitoring this email box during the meeting. You are also welcome to make comments during this meeting in the YouTube chat. However, keep in mind that all comments are subject to moderation, so we ask that you keep the comments relevant to the topics being discussed. Copies of the presentation slides will be posted on the bridge page of the Archives website. That webpage is also where you'll find links to the transcript of today's meeting when it is available, as well as links and information about previous and upcoming bridge meetings. If you have general comments about bridge or suggestions for future topics, you can use that same email address, rm.communications.nara.gov, to pass these along to us. We welcome your feedback. With that, I would like to start today's meeting by introducing Lawrence Brewer, Chief Records Officer for the U.S. government to get us underway. Good afternoon, Lawrence. Thanks, Ariane. And good afternoon. Good morning to everyone who are able to join us for bridge. We have a very special program today. And I'll go over that in a minute when we get to the agenda slide. But before I do, it just had a couple of quick announcements, just a couple of things to direct your attention to. First, this week, we released our final strategic plan for FY22 through FY26. Many of you have seen the drafts and commented on the draft strategic plan. It is now posted on our website. So for those of you in records management, goal three is where you'll find a lot of the work that we'll be doing in records management and working with you and your agencies. There are a number of objectives that are described there, which really get to issues like equity in scheduling an appraisal, an emphasis on transparency and getting our data that we're collecting out to the public and to agencies. And as you might expect, more guidance for agencies, especially on emerging topics and, of course, a greater emphasis on regulations and digitization standard. So a lot of work for us to do and, of course, a lot of work that's not specifically in the strategic plan. But I encourage you to take a look at the plan itself, look at all four goals and the work that's being done. And in goal three, if you have any questions, send them our way. We will certainly plan at future bridge meetings to do a deeper dive into the work that we're going to be doing and focusing on here at the National Archives with the strategic plan. Second announcement sort of related to that because it is a strategic document and it's the one that you all know and love, OMB NARA M1921. I know the questions are going to come up, so I'm just going to say right now that at this time I don't have an update on changes to the target dates or anything else that's been, you all have been working under with that memorandum. We continue to work on that issue. We're aware of the concerns that many of you have been experiencing over the past two years and trying to bring your programs and your agencies into compliance with those goals. So all I can tell you right now, and I think it is the more important message, is to keep working on the goals and continue your efforts to make that transition to fully electronic government because the work is important and we want to see fully electronic government happen sooner rather than later. So more on both of those topics later on and hopefully at future bridge meetings and other agency meetings that we're going to be having the rest of this fiscal year. So if we could flip aside. So the agenda today, you could see it is a very special bridge meeting. We're fortunate to have David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, join us for a conversation on the eve of his retirement. We will also have presentations by Chris Pinkney who will talk about some updates for the Federal Record Centers program and Matt Itzin will close program with presentation on transfer of classified documents. And before we get into the program itself, I am going to introduce Jay Trainor who is the executive for agency services for some opening remarks. Jay is responsible and has oversight for five programs within agency services of the National Archives, of course my office, the Office of the Chief Records Officer, but also the National Declosification Center, OGIS, which is the Office of Government Information Services, ISOO, the Information Security Oversight Office and of course the Federal Record Centers program. So with that, let me pass the microphone over to Jay Trainor. Thank you Lawrence. So today we remember Gordon Everett after his sudden passing on February 25th. After a long private sector career and customer service, Gordon joined NARA in 2010 as a national account manager and quickly rose to serve as the first Director of Customer Relationship Management Division for the Federal Record Center program and he held that position for about a decade. More recently, Gordon became the FRCP Director in May of 2021. In all three roles at NARA, Gordon was a commanding presence at bridge and his steady leadership, mentorship and positive attitude will most definitely be missed at NARA and with you, our customer agencies. I would like to highlight two other career accomplishments for Gordon. He was selected for and completed the Excellence in Government program that is administered by the Partnership for Public Service. His group project on federal terminology was later incorporated into NARA's online orientation and our new supervisor development program and we are aware that it's also been used at a few other agencies. Gordon became an advocate for the EIG program and later sponsored other NARA participants. Gordon also served as the liaison for the NARA one-voice phone system that manages calls to our toll-free number. Gordon's leadership led to a reduction in abandoned calls and helped streamline the process for callers to connect with our highest volume services that includes the National Personnel Record Center, research at NARA, public programs and museums, press inquiries and employment opportunities at NARA. Gordon was a graduate of Winston-Salem State University and was a very active member of the Alumni Committee as a Chairman and later as Co-Chair. Gordon was a devoted husband and proud father. He is survived by his wife Sharon, daughter Jasmine and son Gordon Jr. Gordon will be greatly missed. His commitment to customer service and employee engagement were unparalleled and made a positive impact at NARA. More important than what he accomplished is how he conducts himself by always maintaining a positive can-do attitude. On behalf of NARA and Gordon's family, I am grateful for the condolences and support we have received during this trying time. As we move forward, Chris Pinkney will serve as the Acting Director of the FRCP and you will hear an update from him later in the program. Peace be with you. Thank you Jay. Just before we transition to our next event I just wanted to say Gordon was a great colleague, a good partner for many of you in your agencies and a friend to many of us and I echo Jay's sentiments he will be missed. With that let's flip the slide and begin the segment with our conversation with David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. So first thank you David for joining us and all of the federal records management community here today for this conversation. When I heard the news of your retirement after 12 years as Archivist of the United States I knew I wanted to do this. Have an opportunity to get your perspective on the records management issues of the day. Look back over your tenure and perhaps maybe look a little bit into the future. Before we get into the discussion I do want to say how much I've enjoyed working for you these past several years. I've appreciated your leadership not only in where we want to go with records management but also in how you led this agency through two very difficult years of of COVID-19. So here we are in 2022 and if you'll indulge me one short sports analogy so far this year we saw the retirement of Tom Brady and then his own retirement. We're seeing the retirement of Coach K two of the all-time greats and now exactly and now with your retirement I'll just say it the greatest archivist in the United States of all time. So for me and and and many of the others watching today you will be missed but we wish you the best and whatever comes next and maybe we'll hear a little bit more about what that is as we get into the questions. So before we begin I understand you'd like to kick things off. Well let me start by pointing out the comparison that picture that you're looking at on your slide there was me when I arrived when I had brown hair so that that's kind of an indication of what the last 12 years have been like for me. Let me start by thanking all of you for the work that you do every day to ensure that the records of this country are created maintained and and delivered to us on schedule. It's a it's a a task that I'm sure you don't get thanked for every day. It is the most important task in the federal government in terms of preserving our democracy and if there is a silver lining of what we've been through in the last year anyway the focus on the importance of records has really risen to a new public awareness. I think the public now understands how important those records that you are overseeing are to our democracy. So for me thank you for the work that you do and I have really been proud of the work that we have been supporting in your agency. Thanks David. So I've got a few questions with some contributions from your senior staff. I think they were trying to come up with some questions to stump you. I don't think the questions are all that difficult and we'll see how many we can get through and in time permitting we may be able to take some questions from the audience as well. So the first question is what are you proudest of having achieved in your time as archivist? There are lots of things that I could point to. I think way back at the beginning they had first of all they had difficulty convincing me to to leave my what-lown-looks-like-a-cushie job at the New York Public Library to lead this agency but it was the conviction on the part of the Obama administration that the National Archives had an important role to play in the open government initiative and it was the that was what tipped the scale for me in terms of what we could I could bring to the organization. And so we worked very closely with Oira and the OMB around the needs around I'm thinking about electronic record keeping and we were very fortunate to capture the attention of the president and the delivery in November of 2011 of the presidential memorandum where he used our language to describe the importance of good record keeping being the backbone of open government. So that really set us up to do some important work which resulted in the OMB Narum directive in August of 2012 which laid out basically the shift from paper to electronic record keeping established the SAO positions, raised the profile of record keeping across the executive branch, directed OPM to create the occupational series. I can still remember the public meeting where I discovered there was no such thing as a records management occupational series which startled me and basically the overall the general record schedule all that spelled out in the directive and if I'm proudest of anything I can point to that as as really you know historic it's the first time since the Truman administration basically that the White House has gotten involved to to that degree in record keeping. Yeah I remember that time those those were fun times, those were also challenging times but really exciting trying to figure out what we want to get out there in that first directive what do we want to focus on and it's it really is great looking back you know from where we were in August 2012 to where we are now and all that we've accomplished. So um second question is and this is kind of a fun question what surprised you the most during your tenure as archivist? I think um I shouldn't have been surprised but I was surprised by the sorry state of the information technology infrastructure within the executive branch. I just I guess I just assumed that the federal government had so much money that they would have invested in information technology more robustly and having come from the academic field where we worked through that and developed the enterprise approach to information technology. I just assumed that the federal government had come that way also. So it's still bothers me because we're still not where we need to be in terms of that infrastructure. We've made some progress in terms of looking at enterprise approaches using convincing GSA to get involved in ensuring that IT systems and records management capabilities those kinds of things but we're still not it's all it's still a struggle to convince the funders that information technology needs to be refreshed it needs to be robust and it's something that that needs continuing investment. So that was the biggest surprise I guess. Yeah I'm certainly agree with you there. Another fun question what was the most enjoyable moment from your time as archivist and in event you were invited to a person you met something like that. So a couple of things I've got two answers to that. One fun thing we did we started doing sleepovers in the rotunda for kids age of 12 year old. So twice a year fall and spring we invite first come first serve 100 kids and an adult with them to spend a Saturday night and Sunday morning with us with a whole set of activities. Scavenger hunts and movies and readings and things like that. And that's really been a lot of fun these these kids are history nerds and they're just you know tingling at the at the prospect of sleeping on the floor of the rotunda in the presence of the charters so that's that's a lot of fun and I I spent the first the first sleepover I spent on the floor of the rotunda and never did it again and it was not just the how hard the floor is but it's the snoring it's probably over there too. It's not not too bad not too bad but the most meaningful moments for me have been the two naturalization ceremonies a year that we do where we swear in anywhere from 75 to 125 new citizens of the United States in the rotunda in the presence of the charters and it's just a moving moving ceremony and we've had been fortunate to have some really great speakers to talk to this new group of citizens about their rights and responsibilities. We had Marilyn Albright, Elaine Chao, President Obama, Jose Andres, for instance talking about their own stories and the importance of the documents behind us so those are the two things I would point to. Yeah I recall something along those lines I was fortunate to get an invite to one of the naturalization ceremonies at Archives One and I remember that year it was President Obama who came and delivered some remarks in the rotunda and it was it was a it was a special moment. Okay I got a question here and this may be a tough one this one was one of the questions submitted by your senior staff. In the holdings of the National Archives do you have a favorite born digital record or the most interesting digitized series either digitized by an agency or by NARA? I have one of each and born digital is an email series of email messages from me to John Koskinan. John Koskinan was the the IRS commissioner but before that he was President Clinton's Y2K Tsar and during the year 2000 at which point I was the librarian at Duke University and John was on the Board of Trustees in fact he chaired the Board of Trustees when I was appointed at Duke and I wanted him to donate his non-government Y2K material to the library at Duke so there's a series of email messages between us that are government records and I had forgotten all about it until the Clinton Library forwarded some of that to me when I became archivist. So there's the born digital and then for the digitized records I would point to the work that we've been doing with the VA on the Bluewater Navy Coast Guard digitization project. An important set of of records to support veteran claims, Vietnam veteran claims for Agent Orange exposure. Very important to have this this information about where those ships and boats were during the war and as a Vietnam veteran myself I'm really proud of that work. Excellent so the next couple of questions are focused on records management trying to get your thoughts on you know some of the things we've done and still need to do. The first one is what do you think was the most significant achievement in federal records management during your time as archivist? I guess I would point to getting our heads and arms around social media and I can still remember being on the cellar coming to Washington for I had to go through a series of meetings with members of the senate committee that was my confirmation committee and I was coming up for one of those meetings and reading in the paper that the White House had led an RFP for advice on managing social media and I'm saying to myself I'm not the archivist yet but it seems to me that should be something that the National Archives is providing why are they going outside the government? So it gave me some indication that maybe we weren't where we should be around social media so I think in my attitude at that point and as I said I wasn't even archivist yet but if we're responsible for providing guidance to the agencies about their use of technology records implications then we should be pulling around but experimenting with social media so focusing on that and unleashing a lot of talent in the agency to to look at that and and then to be able to provide guidance I think I would point to that major accomplishment we're now on the National Archives is now on 16 platforms and you know we're it's not the easiest thing in the world as you all know especially with the snapchat and all kinds of disappearing short-term burn phones all all that kind of stuff. Yeah we're actually already getting some comments related to to those kinds of messages ephemeral messages disappearing apps and we'll maybe get to some of that a little bit later we've already touched on and you already mentioned sort of your your your concerns with the technology and infrastructure that you know also contribute to some of those challenges and we know we have more work to do with policy around social media and and all of these new emerging technologies that just keep us on our toes every day. So one forward looking one what do you think the biggest challenge and we've already talked about a few either the biggest challenge in records management will be for the next archivist. I think it's this deciding managing this deadline that everyone's concerned about factoring in what has the impact of the pandemic on all of us over the past two years so I think that's high on on a list of things that the information technology infrastructure issues the the FOIA backlog issue across the executive branch huge huge issue that needs that is needs some solutions those those are the things I would point to. Okay um let's see so I think this is one of the last one of the last of records management specific questions that I have for you today what do you what message would you like to impart to the agency records officers in the call today and the other professionals working on records management about their role in preserving our government's history. So as I said when we started you are doing the most important work in the government in terms of preserving our democracy. The the the archives was established after many years of discussions and and thinking was established to ensure that the American people could hold their government accountable for its actions and learn from the past and that's the work that you enable every day and that work is crucial to our survival as a democracy so here goes to all of you for for that work and you just take great pride in it unlike other countries you know we we really focus on collecting what what is the most important record of the of our administrations the good stuff and the bad stuff and and it's really important that we make sure that we are able to continue that work great so my next question is uh I don't know if you'll have the opportunity to to do this personally but um what advice would you give to your successor spend some time getting to know your staff and getting to know your constituents you know I I always in my transitions from you know I was at MIT for 31 years and then went to Duke University and I was there for eight years and then the New York public library five years and each one of those transitions was my belief that I could make a difference in the organization and I knew enough about what the business of the organization is and I knew what some of the issues that needed to be addressed but I always felt that I could make a difference and that was that was important work background for me and coming into a new organization first of all to identify the talent in the organization to get first hand information about the history you know where how did we get to where we are um and not bring in a posse you know I'm never in my transitions abroad felt that I needed to bring you know outside talent and the first thing is getting to know the place and getting people to get letting the organization know me and that that I certainly would advise and then at the same time or in your constituents spend some time with your you know who are your researchers who are your agencies who uses who depends upon you for services we've spent a lot of time becoming you know a user centered organization thinking about what do we look like from the user's perspective how can we make it easy for our constituents to do their work how can we support them those kinds of things and you're only going to get that first hand by talking to them opportunities to meet with them and also those those members of your staff who are directly involved with those researchers and agencies great advice and I mean it just from you know the past year or so all the work that we have done with customer experience and hiring a customer experience officer I think is only going to put us in a really good position going forward with all of our various customers that we work with at National Archives I agree so last question what's next for you any big retirement plans any chance of pulling a Tom Brady no chance and no plans that's that the plan is don't plan it's one day at a time all right well I can't thank you enough for joining us today I just wanted to note that in the chat as we've been talking there've been a number of congratulatory messages from from the audience thanking you for your service got a nice comment from Alex Howard who we both know well and he says thank you for your service and he's acknowledging good records management is the backbone of an open government that is transparent and accountable to people it serves and I couldn't agree more and I'm sure you agree as well thank you Alex so we'll keep the the chat open and see if anybody has any any questions or comments I got Visa Harrell at this working behind the scenes to to grab any questions so I will pause for a second all right well I hope you all have appreciated and enjoyed this conversation as much as I have thank you again David for for joining us it's been a lot of fun and again wish you nothing but the best in whatever comes next thanks a lot take care thank you so with that I will turn it over to Chris Pinkney I believe who has the next set of updates in our program first thank you Lawrence so I um I very sincerely wish that the circumstances behind my presenting today were very different Gordon had been a good friend to many within the record center program and he was also a very eloquent proponent of our operation and um this is this is not quite the plan the two of us had been discussing in mid-February so I am uh I'm not nearly the public speaker that Gordon was but I hope folks will bear with me for a few minutes here because I think at least the contents of our update will be good news to many FRCP customers the waning of the pandemic has allowed us to fully reopen all FRCP sites and as of Monday March 28th NARA staff had been recalled at all federal record centers and occupancy returned 100% of our pre-pandemic levels our staff are already working additional hours at many centers in an attempt to reduce the pandemic era backlogs multiple sites have initiated Saturday work and our extended daytime hours three of our locations the NPRC the Kansas City FRC and the Lee Summit FRC have instituted additional shifts and we've added temporary contractor support and the plan is now in place to bring on additional support at six of our other locations with large backlogs when we look across the system the backlog situation is different at each center which is a reflection of the local collection maintained within individual FRCs already several of our sites are essentially current with reference activities and all centers are working hard to get that way as quickly as possible but the backlogs are very large at some centers we have literally millions of pending reference requests many associated with projects to service across the system and that remains our highest priority right now we also have an approved disposal backlog that sat at 1,973,519 cubic feet on Monday recovery from that will not be quick as the volume is comparable to what we had to handle after the tobacco industry litigation freeze left we do have textual and non-textual disposal contracts in place to cover all of our locations and we have plans in place to eliminate the disposal backlog within two calendar years to include both the boxes that are currently delayed as well as those that get approved for destruction in the next 24 months the situation is similar with new transfers on Monday morning Arcus tells me that we had 204,020 boxes which agencies have been approved to ship to us and I should note that those are only the known knowns unknown to me at this point is the volume the agencies have politely held during the pandemic and for which they've yet to prepare and submit ss 135 so I suspect that the volume of incoming will be substantially greater so I should I should address the fact that the last week or so I've received several phone calls or emails related to the restart of our metro courier service and the WNRC truck service restart of those operations is anticipated but it has not yet occurred it's very likely that the restart will be on the center by center basis as appropriately licensed drivers are available vehicles are fully serviced and sufficient floor space cleared to receive pallets and streamliners of new records the story with our agency review rooms is very similar and I should stress that I'm talking about agency review rooms not public research rooms which are controlled and managed by other NARA entities most of the FRCP agency review rooms were by appointment only pre-pandemic and we are headed back towards that mode of operations our most active rooms have historically been at the NPRC and the WNRC and access is dependent upon available personnel for coverage for right now any appointments should be negotiated on an ad hoc basis with the host center the status of each FRC will continue to be reflected on the FRCP webpage in the FRCP operating status table for most of our services we've returned to standard operations I would like to highlight the situation with the physical shipment of approved transfers for a little while longer we're asking agencies to coordinate shipments with the receiving center we do still have significant congestion on the floors at many sites and our staff are working to shelve records and get that activity back to a normal mode of operations so all that said I feel that I would be somewhat remiss if I gave everybody the impression that we were immediately going back to 100 pre-pandemic world because that's not not really the case staff safety remains very important to the FRCP and probably like most of you we've modified a number of our internal work processes to allow for additional physical distancing and limit congestion in internal spaces air filtration has been upgraded at many of our sites and we're piloting HEPA filters at four centers the bottom line is that with multiple internal processes we're still rather feeling our way and determining exactly how we will conduct operations in a post-COVID world but I should also point out that that is not all bad we've learned how to improve many of our internal operations during the pandemic and those modifications will remain in play as we aim for a return to normalcy for example we now have greatly expanded access to laptops tablets and we have an upgraded IT network and this means that we have greater ability to handle electronic activities remotely and if one center falls behind with a process like reviewing transfer requests attaching ss 135 are conducting disposal reviews we now have a network of trained staff at other centers who can assist and I think that's pretty much the story for today either myself or another FRCP staff member will be back at future bridge meetings to provide updates I would encourage anyone with agency specific questions to reach out to your assigned FRCP account representative and see how we can help now that we've reopened and I guess at this point we can take any FRC specific questions that may have come in so thank you Chris we do have while we're waiting on questions we did get one comment I'm very grateful for all the extraordinary assistance that my account rep Pam northern and the WNRC staff especially Cheryl Shariff and I'll have provided to the Peace Corps during the pandemic so it's a nice recognition of people going above and beyond that's wonderful to hear thank you very very much I will I'll make sure they all all get that comment and as of now we we have no further questions we'll continue to monitor and Chris I'm sure you'll be around to pick up anything on the end and with that we'll turn move forward in the agenda to bring up Matt Matt Eidzen for improving the resources for transferring classified records Matt go ahead good afternoon. Matt Eidzen supervisor of the permanent records capture team and I'm here today to talk about a project that my team and others have been working on devoted to transferring permanent classified records next slide please project was started in 2020 and the goals were to identify what improvements NARC could make to the current process and encourage more timely transfer of classified records particularly those that are involved in the annual move of records from the Federal Record Center program to archival custodial units now as you know classified transfers are unique and they follow a slightly different process than unclassified transfers do in order to transfer classified records by the time of their disposition authority they must be reviewed and oftentimes the review process at agencies can be long and resource intensive so for example when we looked at data pulled for a four-year period out of about 3,500 eligible transfers only 28 percent were successfully accession next slide please we wanted to see what we could do to better describe all of the nuances around classified transfer and also to promote the need for a greater level of planning so that transfers could be sent on time and they're in the end of our project now and I have a few helpful items to report on the first of which is a suite of new training resources through our annual move home page with helpful content including job aids videos online lessons tip sheets and checklists second we've updated the annual move website with additional content and providing a home for this these new resources third we scheduled a webinar on May the 4th devoted to classified transfer so please be on the lookout for an invitation coming soon and lastly starting in January we'll be sending out the advanced transfer classified list to get started so that agencies can have an advance of what records will be coming eligible in next five years all right next slide okay so just I mentioned the annual move web page all of the access and the new resources are going to be available through our web page if you go to the office of the chief records officer on archives.gov as a records manager you'll see a link under scheduling and transfer tile annual move of permanent records and if you click on that you'll get all of this information that I just described to you okay thank you Matt we're monitoring to see if anybody has sure says any questions if not we can also circle back to bring Chris up there were a couple FRC related questions that appeared so Chris are you back yes sure thank you first question can you speak again about shipments of pallets of records to the FRCs please I want to make sure that I relay the correct message to my offices and disaster centers sure another problem so at least for the next next few weeks we're asking the people who have approved transfers reach out to the local FRC and arrange for a date of shipment the concern is that it sites that still have a lot of pallets on the floor we might struggle to take in additional trucks if they arrived unexpectedly so if you have 52 footers that need to ship my hope would be that you can reach out to the TND unit at the receiving center and arrange a date on which those can come in and we'll we'll try to get back to something that looks like a little bit more like pre-pandemic life once we work through the first part of this backlog thank you thank you another related FRC question will the FRCs be digitizing permanent records for federal agencies so we do have document conversion units and one of the projects that we've been engaged in is trying to confirm that we have the equipment and the software in place to be prepared for permanent record standards there have been a number of software upgrades that have been executed on our equipment during the pandemic I think one of the challenges that we're still working through with our document conversion units is making sure that we've come up with a safe manner for our staff to operate those have generally been pretty packed offices and we're still making certain that we can come up with a workflow that will be efficient but will also allow people to socially distance and not not feel that they're on top of each other as they do things from doc prep to scanning to quality control so I think the answer for right now is we we do offer scanning services we hope to be able to meet any permanent record standards that are required and that we're not not quite ready to actively restart that type of operation at this point it'll probably be several weeks or several months out. Thanks for new project. Thank you for that. Have standard record requests resumed or should we continue with the emergency request for records process? That's a great question and standard reference requests have resumed we are we're trying to get those in and out as rapidly as possible some of our centers that had smaller backlogs are already back within the 24-hour turnaround there may still be some delays at sites that had had larger backlogs but we're working to get everything back into the 24-hour turnaround for standard reference requests. Thank you. I think this is a question for Matt. Can you repeat the dates for the advanced list for classified records? Sure yeah but we'll be sending we'll be starting in January of next year sending out the advanced transfer classified list. We normally send out a candidate list for each annual move and we'll continue to do that which will contain both unclassified and classified transfers in it but we want to start a course where we we will send a listing of all the classified transfers within the next five years so that the advanced planning can begin which is needed to get them so that you know by the time they reach their eligibility date they'll be ready to transfer. So January is when we're planning to send that out. Thank you Matt. So this sort of is a question for we've got a couple questions about resuming accepting direct offers from federal agencies and I know that's tangential to the FRCs but Lawrence do you want to answer that one? So I'm not sure if I have the latest information from research services. I mean direct offers are handled through the accessioning staff. They have an email address e-transfers at r.gov. I would recommend if you have any questions about direct offers email the accessioning staff via that address. I know there are working on communications and getting things sort of ramped up and we have released through our blog and upon our website there are some new tools that relate to transfers including direct offers but in terms of you know how things are are progressing I think to get the best information I would contact you transfers and talk to representatives from the accessioning staff. And just to clarify that the question was also about hard copy records. So I think that's not quite any transfer that would be a regular direct offer. I believe that email address though it does get you to the accessioning staff and the supervisor who is responsible and overseas all accessioning. So even though it says e-transfers I think questions about analog transfers can also be handled through that address as well. I want to circle back there's a question around commercial storage sites. So what about NARA approved commercial storage sites? For example temporary holding sent there for now and permanent to WNRC is there any true partnership with these facilities? I don't know Chris if you want to comment on that. So I don't know if I'm really really equipped or prepared to answer that one. At this point the FRCP is perfectly happy to take in both permanent and temporary records. I know the timelines are getting tight for agencies and I am aware that some agencies are starting to make that distinction between permanent and temporary as they make decisions. But I don't I don't have any any firm statement I could probably give on that beyond beyond what I just said today. Thank you. Once the FRCs discontinue the acceptance of paper records will refile services continue? That one I can answer. Yes we will continue to service any collection that's in the building. We'll be more than happy to service refiles and send out requests and anything else that's needed by an agency customer. Do the FRCs anticipate digitizing permanent records already held at their facilities? Does M1921 impact the annual move in any way? I guess I can answer the first part of that question. We do have DCUs and as I think I said earlier we believe that our equipment will be sufficient to meet standards when they're finalized. It would be done at agency request. It would have to be under an agreement and we do have limited capacity with our existing DCU setups. We're pretty good at boutique projects. We have more challenges when it comes to very large scale digitization. I don't know if somebody else wants the second half of that question. Sure about the annual move and how it's affected. So we'll continue to conduct the annual move on all of the transfer the permanent records associated with disposition authorities. They all have different dispositions. So those dispositions will continue to live out and we will need to continue to transfer permanent records on an annual basis when they're due year to year even beyond that because those records will still be living in their life cycle. So yes the annual move will continue on. Okay I'll note that there's also conversation on the YouTube chat about the FRC and room field has been taking indirect offers with its delivery set up in advance. So sort of making making sure you have goes with everything you need to do to make that to facilitate that on on both sides. And I'm scanning through our list again. Oh digitization of the status what is the status of the final rule for requirements of digitizing permanent records? Okay I can take that one. So we provide providing regular updates as we've gone along. We've advanced the standards and the regulations to the point where we are we have a draft final rule and language that reflects the adjudications of the comments that we've received from all of you the agencies and all the other input that we've received on the regs. We need to get obviously the final version of the the final rule reviewed within NARA and by NARA management and then per the normal standard processes it will go over to OIRA at OMB and then they would review and make some determinations on whether there would be another round of agency review given the changes of revisions to the document. But we're hopeful that we'll be able to get the standards out soon and when I say soon I mean in government time soon sometime towards the end of this year. But it entirely depends on how the next steps in terms of finalizing the review and the coordination with OMB can take place. So we feel like we are getting there. In the meantime I encourage you to if you have any specific questions reach out to our team at RMstandards at NARA.gov if you have any specific questions about digitization or any of the work that you were doing. Thank you Lawrence. Chris you're not getting away so easily this time. Another question do past disposition fees apply for classified records stored at FRCs? So I think you came very close to stumping the chump. I would have to check our 22 fee schedule. If the individual who submitted that if we can get an email I'd be happy to try to get them an answer once I review and make sure I know exactly what I'm talking about. Fair enough. Back to the M1921 conversation approving exceptions to M1921. Have we made any progress there? So um yes I will say we have. I mean we we have received a total of nine exception requests from agencies. So I know we've talked about it a lot and it seems as though we probably have hundreds and hundreds in the queue that are pending approval but the reality is we have a total of nine exception requests that are currently under management review. So we are and actually just had some discussions this week with staff and with our management. We want to start reviewing those and making some decisions on on those requests. We have to sort out some of the details in the process but I expect that we'll be able to review and get some decisions back to the agencies on those nine exception requests that are currently pending with us. For the M1921 deadline will the FRC's relax the standard from the standard from approved in Arcus to received in Arcus due to staffing concerns? So I think that's being actively discussed. I don't know what the final final answer will be on that and I'm almost hesitant to give my opinion because I know it is definitely being discussed right now. Lawrence do you know the status of that memo? Yeah I was going to mention that that we do have something in the works. As Chris notes we have been hearing all the questions not only today but in past meetings related M1921 and direct offers and transfers to FRC's and we started putting together some FAQs related to that. They are currently under review. We hope to be able to finalize them and send them out soon and that will hopefully clarify some of the questions or probably raise other questions that we can then follow up on. But yeah Chris is right it is something that we have discussed and and talked about. We're doing our best to give you the answers based on what we know now but I encourage you to just stay tuned and we'll be able to send out a more formal issuance that will be clearer with points of contact that you can follow up with. So here's another question around the FRC's or maybe it's around the deadline. Do you anticipate the December 2022 deadline for NARA receipt of analog records to be extended just as we anticipate that M1921 milestone to be extended even though you can't say? I can I think I can say that regardless of how it shakes out whether the ARCA status is submitted or approved I don't think there's a realistic expectation that the final box would be in the building if I close the business on the I think it's the 30th with the 31st being a holiday. My expectation is that we would continue to work with customers who have obtained approval to send in material to facilitate those transfers. I don't know if it'll be a month, a quarter, two quarters. I don't know what the timelines would be yet but it seems reasonable that we would we would work with people to the extent we can to get the materials safely into the buildings. And I'll just add because I did I did speak to it a little bit at the beginning of the meeting and just to reiterate in terms of you know the the deadlines themselves we don't have any decisions something that you know as I noted before NAR can independently make those changes on its own so it requires some coordination with OMB and we are doing what we can to convey the feedback that we're hearing from all of you as input and data points on how things are going in complying with those deadlines and we hopefully will have some resolution and some guidance that we can share at some point too. Thank you Lawrence and this one's probably for Matt. Per the annual move is there a hard suspense date for transitioning classified records to NARA? So the transfer of classified records so every transfer associated to a particular disposition authority and those disposition authorities say when those transfers are eligible to come to the archive and so in order to in order to transfer the additional thing that needs to be done is that the classified transfers also have to be reviewed you know in your agency and there's a form that needs to be filled out and attached in ERA and so that process takes a lot you know it varies across agencies and so it's the need to be more proactive and to do some advanced planning in order to have the review process completed by the time this decision authority comes due so there is a deadline it's in the disposition authority for each of the transfer the associated transfers and and not a central one for all transfers. If I'm interpreting the question right. Thank you Matt. I think that's it. There was a question about NARA GRS Transmittal 32. Is there a target release date for that? Monday. Monday. So Monday April 4th is the date is the target date for GRS Transmittal 32. Is NARA working on guidance for agencies as they return to the office or transition to the new hybrid work environment? Yeah that's a good question and you know I don't know if it's something that's you know a records management question per se. I think it's something that you know as a community we can work on see what the records management implications are might be a good topic for discussion within the front or within the federal records management council and could put our heads together and see if there's something that we want to develop or share. We don't have anything on our work plan currently to deal with it strictly from NARA perspective but certainly an area where I'm happy to facilitate some conversation and see what we come up with. I just want to say you're doing a great job RN sorting through all of these questions that are coming in so keep them coming keep RN busy. So Lawrence do you want to circle back to the question from this morning or at the beginning of the meeting about tech, social media, slack, confide and what's that? Yeah yeah I will so I noted earlier where you're talking with the archivist Al Tower submitted a comment and I was more than happy to share that when the archivist was here and I see Alex that you have a question are tech, social media, slack, confide or what's that messages in which public business is discussed public records and the answer is a clear and unequivocal yes and I think that's borne out in recent legislation in the electronic messages preservation act which has now been codified into the Federal Records Act and we will be working on regulations and guidance around electronic messages and you know as everyone knows our focus has been on email with Capstone but we are interested in exploring how a Capstone approach or other policy approaches would allow us and all of you the federal agencies to better manage and capture the various types of electronic messages that agencies create as they conduct business so all of these are examples of such and it is something that that we are thinking a lot about and planning to work on. I'll acknowledge Alex that there were a couple of other questions which I think delved into Presidential Records Act territory which I typically as a rule stay away from the PRA and let the experts on the PRA answer those questions so I'm more than happy to take those back and and see if there are answers or responses from those experts that I could share with you. Next question and thank you it's thank you for the shout out Lawrence there are a lot of questions I think the archivist inspired folks. How are we doing with updates to ARCIS and ERA? Well I can talk very generally and very briefly about ARCIS recent ARCIS updates but if it's the ARCIS ERA interface there might be somebody better qualified to answer that specific question. ERA is one of those areas where as you know we typically like to bring the experts, Sam McCor, David Lake who are intimately involved and connected with what is going on with ERA development to bridge meetings. We do have plans to have some briefings in the coming months on what things are being developed and the progress on ERA including integration so I'm just going to leave it at that and pretty much stop with the teaser for a briefing to come that where we can talk in much more detail about ERA. Thank you Lawrence I'm running through our list again. How can an agency comply with M1921 if they are not receiving dedicated federal funding and there's only eight months left? I think that's probably a concern that many agencies have and you know to that I would point to the data that we are receiving in the reporting which we're hearing where agencies are in terms of compliance some of the challenges that they are facing we know and I mentioned it earlier the impact that the pandemic has had on agencies trying to comply. My advice is to keep working we know what we need to do and what initiative that we need to sort of coordinate on in-house. Funding is always going to be issued regardless of what the work is it's all a matter of you know how do we how do we prioritize the work that needs to be done for M1921 and advocate for the resources that we need and I know that in and of itself is a challenge and that's an area where NARA has always been willing to help we're more than happy to help you in meetings with senior officials to help make that case and advocate for what needs to be done for M1921 but you know at some point the reality of of where you are and the records that you have and the challenges that you have could lead you to wanting to draft a request for an exception from those deadlines. There are very specific requirements in NARA Bolton 2020-01 that were released with information about how to how to submit an exception and what to include in that exception which includes things like a business case milestones specific things that you are going to accomplish with any extension of time or a business case for why an exemption is needed from the requirement so there are things that you can consider and and work on in those cases I also would encourage you to do it to reach out to us and our team that monitors RM standards at NARA.gov and we can review your situation if an exception is something that that you feel like you need to submit at this time and we can provide some advice and go from there. Thank you another question that's come in by the YouTube does NARA recognize agency teams meetings as temporary or permanent records? So you know teams meetings Google meets like that a lot of us do is another way that that we are conducting business probably more so than we did before the pandemic so it's certainly a mechanism agencies are typically creating notes capturing minutes which may be preserved or probably should be preserved as records it could be either temporary or permanent and a lot of that would depend upon the record schedule for the particular content that is covered in the meeting. So you know it's not something where we schedule technology in and of itself but there should be for whatever the subject topic matter is an underlying schedule that covers the information and that should be the focus how we conduct our business is something we have to acknowledge and then figure out the implementation and the steps that we would need to take as records managers in our agencies to make sure that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing under the law which is creating adequate and proper documentation of the activities decisions policies that we discuss no matter how we discuss them. Could you advise on the status of the M19 21 OPM position classification standards for the 308 series to incorporate electronic records management responsibilities? So that's a good question and I haven't heard that one in a while I can tell you that we've had some discussions with OPM and the records professionals over there. I don't have an update on where that is right now I know it's something that they have been working on and giving some attention to but I don't have an update on on the status of that work right now it is something we can look into. In addition to the OPM series classification what skill sets staffing levels and resources does not recommend to handle the M19 21 initiatives and the transition and if you want to take that one as well. Well that's a that's a good question and there's a lot in there and I think the question acknowledges that the work that we need to do right now to be compliant with M19 21 and really be successful in a fully electronic government does require expansion and relearning or learning new skills that perhaps we didn't have the records professionals you know 10 years ago and I think that's a challenge I think for all agencies you know in order to be successful we have to have we have to have more money more technology more resources but we have to have the right resources and I think that is one of the reasons why the job series is really important and you know why you know we really need to to focus on ensuring that all of us who are doing this work are set up for success based on having the right skills to be successful with this kind of work so I mean it's a very it's a very good question is a really important question and one that you know we working with OPM in particular want to really focus on and try and and provide the kinds of not only standards but growing from the standards the the tools and the resources and the training where we can help everyone who's working in this field be successful. Thank you here's another question that's come in in relation to the M2209 the zero trust initiative what guidance does NARA have surrounding the requirements to automate classification of record sensitivity and the requirements to transition away from password requirements to e-authentication tools. Wow we're really getting into some complex territory now um yeah so I mean zero trust is you know it's an information security initiative um M2209 off-demand haven't read it not familiar with it and probably you know one of those things that I need to add to my list um you know these are areas whenever we you look at information security um we're sensitive to you know areas where there might be some records management implications a lot of times these kinds of records get covered through the GRS we do have some chapters and schedules that that deal with information security and IT kinds of records um so you know what I can say right now is it's something that you know we are aware of and have had some discussions about ZTA uh within our staff and in other parts of the National Archives and it's you know one of those as I mentioned earlier emerging technologies which may have implications for records management that you know we have to monitor and should be one of the topics that you know as we meet together within the front within the federal records management council meetings that we start sharing where we are what we're doing what we're learning so that we can um help all agencies with guidance if that is what is needed. For permanent classified records that are exempt from transfer after declassification review how does the federal agency notify the FRCs to update the disposition dates on the agency inventory listing? That is a good one and I think my off-the-cuff response would be to work with WNRC's T&D program to make any required updates in ARCIS. I think that would at least get us started if that was your situation and we have a wonderful wonderful person by the name of Denise Sampson who is the current WNRC T&D branch chief. Thank you Chris double checking everything I think we've got a couple questions that we're going to address after the meeting that have come in. We are coming up on almost 10 minutes left of this usual scheduled time for bridge so I want to remind folks that call a last call for questions and I'm not seeing anything else come across so I think with that maybe we've captured them all and some of them are some of the ones in the queue are sort of we've covered in the we've already covered it it's all it's kind of the same ground over and over again on on where we are and where the deadlines are and things like that. So with that Lawrence do you want to close out the meeting? Yeah thank you Ariane again for monitoring that lively Q&A session and yeah thanks to Chris and to Matt for chiming in with answers to to the questions and you know we acknowledge you know there there are some questions where we have good answers for there are some questions where an answer is coming around the bend and there are those questions where we just need to go back and figure out what the answer is and get back to you so we'll keep we'll keep the chat open for a little while we'll keep monitoring it and if there are some questions that do come in we can follow up after the meeting directly and see if we can get some of those answers back out to you. If we can flip the slide we will share with you when the next bridge meeting is. Remember this one was a rescheduled meeting so we're not having the April meeting so the next time we will meet will be in June and we'll be working on the agenda and perhaps some of these questions and topics that came up today will figure out a way to get them on the agenda for June. So with that I want to thank everybody behind the scenes helping with production today and everyone who presented and answered questions. Appreciate all of you joining hope you've enjoyed this meeting and we will talk to you again next time in June. Thank you all. Have a great rest of the day.