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Washington state digital archives celebrates milestone |
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News Release
Issued: March 23, 2006
Cheney...The Washington State Digital Archives has reached an extraordinary milestone. Archivists have placed more than four million critical Washington records online. They are now accessible to the public around the world.
Specifically, the Cheney-based digital archives holds 4.23 million records online in an effort to improve the transparency of government for current and future generations. It serves some 550 researchers per day; more than 1000 searches are conducted each day, and the numbers continue to climb.
"This increase in usage serves as proof of the importance of the Digital Archives and its popularity among patrons," said Secretary of State Sam Reed. "I am sure we will see this trend continue to rise as individuals from around the world become aware of the easy accessibility to these crucial collections."
Online for the first time in October in 2004, the opening of Washington State’s Digital Archives answered a nationwide call to protect digital records left perishable by advancing technology and the Internet.
Estimating that the State of Washington is missing more than half of its electronic records, archivists believe that many of these documents, including letters from former Governors and other elected officials, as well as ancestral records, may never be recovered.
"Vital decisions in government are now reached through email conversations and electronic document transfers. Many of these seemingly insignificant records have been erased with the delete button and lost forever," said Reed. "The Digital Archives now capture and preserve all of these valuable interactions for our future generations, giving us the technological ability to preserve for our children what previous generations have done for us."
A collaborative project of the Office of the Secretary of State and Microsoft, the Digital Archives holds a wide range of material from birth, marriage, death, census, military and naturalization records, as well as historical records such as the State Constitution and the first election results in Washington Territory.
"Authentic records build trust in government," said Reed. "Our mission is to preserve our day-to-day successes and failures for people who will live in this state 100 years from now and beyond."
