TESTIMONY
Pauline Toole, Commissioner of the Department of Records And Information Services, on Enhancing Public Access to Historic and Contemporary City Records
4:38:08
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11 min
Pauline Toole outlines the Department of Records And Information Services' efforts in record management, digital initiatives, and public engagement.
- Details the department's key functions including records practices and policy enforcement, information access provision, and historical records preservation.
- Highlights federal and state grants administration, significant digitization projects, and online platforms for public access to vital and historical records.
- Describes the implementation of electronic records management system citywide and the challenges of budget cuts.
- Emphasizes the expansion of public access and engagement through digital collections, social media, and educational outreach programs.
- Concludes with an overview of key activities and availability to answer council members' questions.
Pauline Toole
4:38:08
Good afternoon.
4:38:09
Council members.
4:38:11
Thank you for hearing from the Department of Records And Information Services, known as Doris.
4:38:16
Doris is responsible for 3 key governmental functions, establishing and enforcing records practices and policies, providing access to New York City government information and preserving the historical records of city government.
4:38:29
We do this through our 3 divisions, municipal library, municipal archives, and municipal records management with essential support from the information technology and administration units.
4:38:40
The agency's mission is to foster civic life, as you mentioned, council member, by preserving and providing access to the historical and contemporary of the city government to ensure that city records are properly managed, maintained, following professional archival record man record management practices, and to make our materials available to diverse communities.
4:39:02
The preliminary budget includes 14,500 $63,733 in operating funds.
4:39:10
In fiscal 24, Doris implemented 2 rounds of program to eliminate the gap peg cuts, totaling a little under $1,600,000.
4:39:20
The bulk of the peg was drawn from funding to implement an electronic records management system, ERMS, citywide, in the amount of 1,300 $2336.
4:39:33
The remaining $556,664 was obtained through reductions in cleaning and other services.
4:39:42
And totaling a $134,000 and PS accruals totaling around $423,000 and the elimination of 2 staff lines.
4:39:54
In the current fiscal year, Doris received 436,000 in federal and state grants We administer up to $1,000,000 annually from the state archives local government records management improvement fund for logics and city offices and agencies.
4:40:12
The New York State Library is helping the municipal archives preserving catalog, the Lower Manhattan Building Plants collection, There are currently 2 projects funded by federal agencies.
4:40:22
The IMLS National Park Services funding preservation and digitization of the Brooklyn Bridge drawings.
4:40:28
And the NHPRC is funding preservation rehousing and digitization of more than 5000 ledger records The Townsend Villages in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island that date prior to consolidation in 18 98, collectively, they're called the old town records.
4:40:45
The municipal archives has made good progress providing online access to information about its holdings and increasing the quantity of digitized items available on our website.
4:40:56
The archives continues to add content to collection guides, first launched in 20 21.
4:41:02
The guys are a comprehensive searchable publication of archival collections and includes multiple levels of descriptive information as well as name, place, and subject authorities.
4:41:14
The archives currently is implementing a software application for digitized and born digital collections that have been and will be transferred to the archives.
4:41:23
The public interface for digital collections is slated to launch in May of this year.
4:41:29
The archives also completed the relocation of its off-site storage to a state of the art archival repository in Sunset Park that features specialized HVAC, digital labs, a conservation lab, and a really beautiful public reading room.
4:41:44
As a result of the relocation, the archives establish greater physical and intellectual control of the collections, which date from 1645 through 2021.
4:41:55
During fiscal 23 and to date in fiscal 24, the archives reference services unit responded to more than 50,000 requests for information including vital records.
4:42:06
They digitized over a 103,000 items on demand and responded to 96% a vital records request within 12 days, which is up from the 47% of them last year.
4:42:19
The municipal library continues to pivot from a brick and mortar research facility to one that increasingly offers digital content with the goal of building and maintain changing a robust online library.
4:42:31
The catalog of library holdings is accessible via Worldcat, which as it pounds and it's a worldwide catalog platform.
4:42:39
The foundation for this online library is the publications portal, which is mandated by such and 1133 of the city charter.
4:42:46
The charter requires every agency to provide the municipal library with digital versions of all ports required by executive order or law, as well as all other publications issued.
4:42:58
The GPP currently provides access to over 44 1000 items, and the chart that is in the testimony shows the growth of the online portal in the past decade.
4:43:09
Each January, the librarian notify every agency of the report it is required to issue during the calendar year.
4:43:17
Notices of reports that are not submitted or posted on the portal as mandated.
4:43:22
There were 1855 reports that were required in calendar year 23, 1285 were submitted, which is 69% of those that were required.
4:43:35
The library continues to harvest social media posts from 601 New York City government accounts associated with 53 entities.
4:43:43
Across 9 social media outlets, including Facebook, Flickr, Google Plus, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, x, Vimeo, and YouTube.
4:43:53
In addition, the library maintains an online repository of agency websites dating to 2019.
4:43:59
Both services are now provided by an outside vendor, Civic Plus.
4:44:05
The agency's application development team continues to create innovative solutions to improve public access to government records.
4:44:13
The city's once that freedom of information law portal, open records, which launched in 2015, Processors request for 55 active and 7 inactive agencies.
4:44:25
There have been just over 412,000 foil requests entered into the system, The status of request can be tracked in the portal, providing the requested with the time frames to receive responses and the tools for a direct dialogue with foil officers at each respective agency.
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The site is fully ADA accessible.
4:44:44
In fiscal 24 and fiscal 25, our team is going to be migrating the platform from its current on premise server to the Azure cloud with no impact acted on either the agency or public end users.
4:44:58
In 2022, the application team developed an online vital records platform that currently makes more than 10,000,000 historical birth, death, and marriage records dating from 18 62 Okay.
4:45:10
Available to the public.
4:45:12
High quality copies of the records can be downloaded and printed from the site at no charge.
4:45:17
The historical records allow people around the world to explore their family history and additional records are added on a quarterly basis.
4:45:25
On Records Management, the City Charter defines records as anything created or received in the course of transacting city business.
4:45:33
For the past several years, Doris has developed guidance to help city government manage the 2,000,000 cubic feet of accumulated paper records as well as to implement modern records management practices for born digital records.
4:45:46
As of August 2023, OTI was managing 11.2 petabytes of data on servers and a total of 546.3 terabytes of data on the combined Microsoft platforms, which I have to say is a lot of data.
4:46:05
The cities moved to MS 365 in 2019 2020 facilitated the Doris ability to deploy an ERMS at city agencies.
4:46:16
The softness of software is a solution that we are utilizing integrates with MS 365 to provide the records management connection.
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The solution implements each agency's file plan.
4:46:28
It's basically that's the record schedule It identifies digital records, it applies retention periods, and triggers the eventual disposal process.
4:46:36
The effort recognizes that almost all city records are created and stored electronically and should be managed digitally as well.
4:46:44
Currently, 30 agencies utilize the ERMS, and there are $42,000,000 records under management.
4:46:50
This is up from 7,000,000 at the start of fiscal 24.
4:46:54
We are working with OTI and several agencies that did not move their records to the MS Cloud to deploy the solution on record stored in their on premise servers.
4:47:03
And we are now deploying the tool to manage email records and agencies using the service.
4:47:09
Public access, Doris, has taken steps to expand public access to an engagement with the library in our tidal collections on-site online and in neighborhoods.
4:47:18
We offer many online programs, including lunch and learn sessions, book talks, and lectures.
4:47:23
Our recent program on the founding of municipal government in 1653 had more than 300 viewers.
4:47:29
Our current on premise exhibit uniting the boroughs was Korean in partnership with MTA bridges and tunnels, it explores the engineering marvel that is the tribal bridge.
4:47:39
We have built a strong social media press with dedicated followers on Facebook, x, and Instagram.
4:47:45
In addition to the NYC.gov site, we have 2.ny seasites, women's activism, and archives dot NYC, and then the separate city of New York cite Harlem conditions.
4:47:57
Archives dot NYC includes images from our exhibits.
4:48:01
It has a weekly blog post.
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It has examples of digital collections, a new Amsterdam story collection.
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It's also an entry point for volunteers to sign up for our storytelling initiative, which is called Neighborhood Stories.
4:48:14
This project pairs volunteers who gather stories and residents who want to share information about their neighborhood.
4:48:20
It's based on the notion that the effective governmental decisions is experienced by everyday New Yorkers.
4:48:26
So these perspectives about schools and housing and street cleaning and parks, placing you name it.
4:48:32
They're available online and will be available going forward in the archives.
4:48:36
Harlem conditions focuses on a 1936 report to mayor Fiorella LaGuardia that was not published at the time.
4:48:44
A stellar group of New Yorkers had been appointed to a commission to explore the roots of a 1935 riot in Harlem.
4:48:51
Their conclusions have resonance today.
4:48:54
We have also exhibited archival content at the annual Photo Villal Show, most recently linking sound from historical WNYC Radio broadcast with video from the NYPD surveillance films.
4:49:06
And finally, our education outreach includes connecting high school students with access to primary source records and providing elementary school students with either an in person or online trip through the Brooklyn Bridge records.
4:49:19
This summarizes our key activities and be happy to answer questions if we can.