While the agency has been able to set up an archiving system for its official blog posts and messages on Twitter, a microblogging site, it has found it much more difficult to meet the records requirement for other online technologies. "How do you keep records of status updates, photos and correspondence on Facebook internally?" Lemaitre asked. "Maybe in the next administration we can figure out a way to do that."

President-elect Barack Obama has made online transparency and citizen participation priorities for his administration. But balancing the quest to use new technologies with the need to preserve information will pose a challenge to the new administration, as evidenced by the continuing struggle to preserve the electronic records of the Bush White House.