For Immediate Release

Melbourne, Australia (October 10, 2002) - Dr Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director of CENSA, had the honor to keynote the launch of the Centre for Excellence in Electronic Records in Melbourne, Australia. This launch was the culmination of several years of hunting for workable, commercially available options for industrial and governmental organizations who must replace paper records with electronic records and archive those electronic records for very long periods of time, in many cases decades to centuries. In some cases records retention is truly permanent, as in the case of the USA's National Archives and Records Administration records must be kept "until the end of the Republic." Many corporations have similar long-term historical and operational archives that preserve and provide access to vital and critical operational records.

CENSA has investigated the VERS strategy from many points of view, including business requirements, intellectual property protection requirements, administrative law requirements, regulatory agency requirements, R&D investments requirements, technological requirements, proper usage of technology standards, scalability, extensibility, security, commercial availability, political, and market development perspectives. When implemented correctly by vendors and used properly in conjunction with the Quality Electronic Records Practice Standards from the Global Electronic Records Association, CENSA found that the VERS standards and strategy will provide the necessary and sufficient foundations for viable programs and technology systems that will interoperate over time and space, and stand the test of time and legal scrutiny in courts and regulatory proceedings.

Dr. Lysakowski also spoke of the new standards called the "Quality Electronic Records Practices" (QERP) Standards being jointly developed by the US National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) and many industrial, universities, and nonprofit organizations.

In the May 2002 budget, the Victorian Government of Australia committed $8.2 million over two years to advance the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy (VERS). The funding committed to VERS is for two purposes: building an electronic records repository at the Victorian Archives, and establishing a Centre of Excellence for Electronic Records to support the Victorian Government in moving towards worldwide support of their Victoria Electronic Records Strategy (VERS). This is on top of several million more dollars of Australian Government investments in research and development of the VERS Strategy. The VERS Strategy is a long-term strategy that has full bi-partisan support of both houses of Parliament.

The VERS Centre of Excellence commenced operation on 15 July 2002. As part of its initiation phase, a week of VERS-themed events, including the official launch of the Centre, was held. VERS Week was a huge success, with 5 events being produced seamlessly. Dr Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director of the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA), travelled from Boston to deliver keynote addresses at all 5 events, voicing CENSA's support for VERS. Presentations were also delivered by John Rimmer, Director of the National Office for the Information Economy; The Hon Bruce Mildenhall, Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier; and Professor Sue McKemmish, Head of School, Information Management & Systems, Monash University.

The events were:

1. VERS for Vendors Briefing
2. Records Management Network (RMN) Meeting
3. Australian Society of Archivists (ASA Victorian Branch) Annual General Meeting
4. VERS Centre of Excellence & Toolkit Launch
5. International Perspectives on Electronic Recordkeeping Seminar hosted by Monash University

The VERS Week events attracted widespread interest and participation from across government and industry. The launch also received positive media coverage in Australia's 5 largest daily newspapers: "The Age", "The Australian", "The Australian Financial Review", "The Herald-Sun" and "The Sydney Morning Herald".

By clicking here, you can find Dr Rich Lysakowski's presentations and speech notes for the other dignitaries who spoke, along with the media coverage and a selection of photographs chronicling this monumental week.

Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Acting Director of GERA, who directs the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA) full-time, sees GERA's role as helping to bring stability, long-term reliability, and high-level expertise to electronic information management and records specialists worldwide. "GERA's Quality Electronic Records Practices standards being developed jointly by extensive government and industry collaboration will provide detailed blueprints and guidance to thousands of organizations struggling to understand and implement complex electronic records programs for eBusiness, eR&D, eRegulations, eGovernment, and eDemocracy."

For more information on the other benefits and standard coming from this government-industry R&D program, see http://www.erecordscentral.org.

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