Educating Legislators

One of our bigger challenges as archivists is educating lawmakers on the importance of what we do; particularly in regards to how electronic records are impacting our ability to preserve our cultural and intellectual heritage. Few lawmakers understand archives, fewer still understand what it means to archive especially when it comes to what to do with email. Educating them on the importance of e-records management is an important first step in we are to get funding, staffing and authority to execute on our legal mandates of preserving records of enduring value in the electronic world. Here is an interesting article I had bookmarked back in Feburary from Newsweek. It speaks on the need for politicians to be more tech savy - and points out the we have an open door to help educate them on tech AND archives at the same time; provided we have the understanding and expertise ourselves to translate 'geek heavy' topics into 'plain speak' (one of my topics to speak on!)