The Archives is pleased to announce its morning keynote speaker for the Utah State Archives Electronic Records Management Conference 2012 will be Kenneth Thibodeau.
Ken Thibodeau is a records and information management professional recognized around the world as a leading expert on electronic records and digital preservation. He has spoken at more than 150 conferences, published over 30 articles and chapters, appeared on televison, documentary film, and radio, and lectured at universities in the U.S., Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Hungary. In three decades in the federal government, as records officer of the National Institutes of Health he produced the first comprehensive records retention schedule for this, the largest biomedical research institution in the world; as Director of the Center for Electronic Records at the National Archives, he lead the modernization of NARA’s processes for electronic records, leading to over 100% improvements in productivity and in the quantity of electronic records preserved in the National Archives; as Director of the Department of Defense’s Records Management Task Force, he led the updating of DoD’s records management policy to address electronic records and led the development of the DoD 5015.2 Standard for records management software; as Director of NARA’s Electronic Records Archives Program, he initiated and led the development of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system. Among other things, the ERA system enabled NARA to successfully ingest — in 8 months — some 300,000,000 electronic records from the George W. Bush White House, identifying 65,000,000 problems with those records and resolving more than 99% of them, and enabling archivists to respond to pressing requests for access from the Congress, the courts, and the current and former Presidents.
His accomplishments have been recognized in numerous awards, including the Emmett Leahy Award, the Archivist of the United States’ Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Society of American Archivists’ Fellow. Ken retired from the National Archives in 2011, but remains active professionally, including serving as senior guest scientist in the Information Technology Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he is engaged in research on the preservation of digital multimedia and electronic health records.[1]
Kenneth will be exploring the topic of technological judgment. The conference will be held April 26th, 2012 in the auditorium of the Utah State Capitol Office Building. Seating is limited, so be sure to register soon.
