The creation of the Electronic Archive Information System (EAIS) launched at the end of 2011 was encouraged by the increasing amount of information in the documents, registers, and information systems, growing costs of “paper” document storage, and the demand for a unified National Document Fund (NDF) information search system.
Creating EAIS enabled transferring electronic documents to state archives for storage by means of information technologies, organising their reliable safeguarding, and providing the electronic services of access, search, and presentation of NDF electronic documents and their information to all users.
The main users of EAIS are public institutions transferring the documents to state archives and the persons searching for information in state archives.
The possibility to use the electronic documents for a long or unrestricted period of time will be ensured by transforming their content to long-term storage format (PDF/A), which will be periodically reviewed and updated in the future. Electronic documents will physically be stored in two geographically distant electronic archive data centres (in Vilnius and Šiauliai). Creating back-up copies of the information of the active data centre in a reserve data centre, storage media and the possibility to switch the operation of the system in the event of failure of one data centre is planned in the future.
EAIS has the following modules: Document Management Supervision, Transfer and Acceptance of Electronic Documents, Storage of Electronic Documents, Publication and Presentation of the Documents, and Administration.
The functions of the modules are divided into the following subsystems: public (intended for the institutions transferring the documents – to transfer electronic documents and data necessary for the supervision of document management to state archives; for legal and natural persons – to search for and view the documents, to order and receive certificates and copies of electronic documents, and to create, check, and review the electronic documents) internal (intended for the employees of state archives system to administrate the users of the system, their rights, and classifiers; to supervise the management of documents transferred by the institutions; to accept electronic documents for storage, to manage the risk of their storage; prepare and submit the copies of electronic documents approved by the archive employees) and storage (intended for storing electronic documents and the official data of the storage, search of electronic documents and risk management).
The main functions of EAIS are performing the functions of management supervision of the documents transferred by institutions to state archives by means of information and communication technologies (coordination of data of accounting documents, submitting the reports to state archives, etc.); transfer of electronic documents to state archives; storage of electronic documents ensuring their integrity, authenticity, confidentiality, and the availability for use in the long-run; search and submitting of electronic documents comprising the National Document Fund (NDF) stored in state archives by means of information and communication technologies; provision of information (description) on the NDF documents stored in state archives regardless of their mode, form and medium by means of information and communication technologies; submitting requests to state archives to issue the documents confirming legal information and issuing the copies of certificates and electronic documents in the form of electronic documents.
EAIS Electronics document storage module includes the following logical repositories:
1. Originals;
2. Transformed archive – PDF-A;
3. Transformed public – PNG/JPEG;
4. Copies.
Supporting metadata repositories:
1. Original packages;
2. Archive validation.
An electronic document as such is being preserved in the Saperion structure in the corresponding logical repository, and metadata is preserved in the database. Within the given time or on demand, a repeated check of the authenticity of certain groups of documents or separate documents (of the copies of their transformed contents) is being carried out, as well as their archival validation. The process is managed by EAIS data centre administrator. Within a certain time or on demand, a repeated contents transformation of the groups of documents or separate documents (of the copies of their transformed contents) into new formats is being carried out. The whole process is initiated and managed by the EAIS data centre administrator.
During the whole storage process, the back-up data copying is being carried out. Periodically or upon demand, the test scanning of the documents in the storage medium is performed, the aim of which is early detection of malfunction of the storage media or equipment, checking the authenticity of electronic documents (according to the archival approval signature verification results); in the repository, electronic signature checking for their expiration date, and other storage practices and procedures are being carried out.
