“ Digital storage is a mandatory journey, there is no other choice”
That is the assertion of Mr. Dang Thanh Tung - Director of the Department of State Records and Archives - when speaking at the Digital Archive Conference - The Next in Archive recently organized by the Vietnam Association of Archives and Records and other agencies. with professional support from the State Department of Records and Archives.
“Digital storage is an important task of agencies, organizations and individuals operating in the context of digital transformation to preserve legal evidence of the operations of agencies, organizations and information. valuable information for future generations. Digital storage is a mandatory journey, there is no other choice" - Mr. Tung emphasized.
This assessment is accurate as Vietnam is going through a period of strong digital transformation, with the outstanding development of information and communications technology. The huge amount of data created every day creates an urgent need for a modern, effective storage solution to replace manual storage - a method that has many potential risks such as degraded and damaged documents. .. leading to loss and no possibility of recovery.
The Archives Law 2024 clearly stipulates requirements for records and digital archives, this is the "bell ring" urging businesses and technology organizations to participate to contribute to promoting digital transformation in the field. storage.
“Digital transformation in the State and in each organization and enterprise for storage activities is urgent and cannot be delayed, but needs to be practical, effective, and feasible on the basis of ensuring a basic infrastructure. A clear legal framework, a compatible technological and technical infrastructure, and a human resource ready to meet the requirements of digital transformation tasks in the field of current and future archives and archives" - Mr. Hoang Quoc Tuan - Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Archives and Records - shared about the context and requirements of current digital archives.
Challenges posed
In the content " Archives Law 2024 and the requirements for Digital Archives" - Dr. Nguyen Thi Chinh - Head of Archives Management II, State Archives Department - introduced and analyzed main contents and new points of the law.
In it, Dr. Chinh pointed out clear regulations and foundations for digital storage policies to meet the requirements of digital transformation, including issues of archival document databases, digital archives, and standards. Storage techniques for agencies and organizations to understand and serve as a basis for implementation. “Regulations on digital archives are an important part for ministries, branches and localities to deploy digital archives. This is a specialized data warehouse consisting of 3 important components: Technical infrastructure, software system, database and archives" - Dr. Chinh said.
Assessing the challenges and outstanding issues facing the problem of digital storage, Dr. Chinh said that, while the problem of "National Digital Storage Platform" has received a solution, the problem posed to position, the business is still there, becoming a concern.
According to Dr. Chinh, many organizations currently do not have an archival document management system, while documents have been digitized but have not been exploited and promoted to meet the information needs of society.
With this perspective, Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Thi Phung - Vice President of the Vietnam Archives Association - raises issues worth thinking about. When visiting some branches and surveying the archival work in some local units, Ms. Vu Thi Phung was still "shocked" by the archives filled with paper documents, covered with dust that the agencies had collected. Still haven't found a solution.
According to Ms. Phung, awareness of digital storage in units is still limited and confusing, and the implementation of digital storage tasks is not synchronized between technology units and professional units in agencies.
With limited professional qualifications, the number of human resources and the budget spent on archival activities, there are problems with data entry, editing and digitization, and security authentication according to the provisions of the Archives Law (amended). The newly issued 2024 are challenging problems that units need to take timely action and preparation from now on.
