A recent New York Times article got me thinking about Obama's email archiving challenge. As the result of many different entities working as part of the Obama election campaign, transition and inauguration teams "and now the White House, many individuals, including Obama, will have had multiple email addresses in four months:

• @barackobama.com during the campaign;




• 
  @ptt.gov for the presidential transition committee;
  




• wh.LASTNAME@gmail.com for the press office for the briefest of periods right before the inauguration; and finally,




• @who.eop.gov after the inauguration.

Technology wise, that should not have been an issue for his team to roll one email address into the other. But I wonder if this did in fact impact productivity, or security or records management.

From a records perspective, I wonder if and how the transition of those records will be managed. Will they be archived for posterity so that future generations can view the inner makings of the first African American president? Were all email addresses included under the umbrella of records policies as the multiple changes occurred? Emails from any of the four email addresses may eventually be required as reference or evidence for a variety of reasons. Has this been considered during the transition?

Presidential transition teams are a private entity and typically exempt from disclosing records during and after the transition. They are not subject to the Freedom of Information or Presidential Records Act. However, from a historical aspect, one would hope that these records are preserved, no matter what changes occurred.

Once the emails are rolled over to the White House, they do become subject to FOIA and are required to be saved.

Hopefully, this tech-savvy leader and his transition team gave thought to this records issue, with the records that started his tenure becoming available and not lost due to transition changes as four email addresses.