Archives and digital repositories in an eGovernment context: When the subsequent bird catches the worm Hannes KULOVITS 1 , Andreas RAUBER 2 , Rui GAMITO 3 , José BARATEIRO 3 , José BORBINHA 4 , Milord MAZIVE 5 , Domingos JOÃO 6 1 Secure Business Austria, Favoritenstr. 16, Vienna, 1040, Austria Email: hkulovits@sba-research.org 2 Vienna University of Technology, Favoritenstr. 9-11, Vienna, 1040, Austria Email:rauber@ifs.tuwien.ac.at 3 National Laboratory for Civil Engineering, Av. Do Brasil 101, Lisbon, 1700-066, Portugal Email: {rgamito, jbarateiro}@lnec.pt 4 INESC-ID, Rua Alves Redol 9, Lisbon, 1000-029, Portugal Email:jlb@ist.utl.pt 5 Mozambique's Engineering Laboratory, 1081 Av Moçambique Km 1.5, Maputo, Mozambiquee Email: milordmazive@gmail.com 6 Angola's Engineering Laboratory, Rua do Laboratorio de Engenharia, Luanda, Angola Email: mangilas28@msn.com Abstract: Records constitute an important corner stone of governance. As more governments are introducing e-Government solutions, digital preservation turns into an important challenge. This paper reviews both the challenges faced by governments in the area of digital preservation, and scopes several repositories currently installed in different African countries in that context. It then outlines ways to elevate such repositories to long-term digital archiving solutions fulfilling international standards. It points out advantages that making this step now has, potentially avoiding many of the pitfalls that early adopters in Europe and elsewhere are facing, and shows how open-source solutions can be utilized to achieve this goal. Keywords: e-Government, Digital Preservation, Digital Repositories 1. Introduction Often leading a wallflower existence to most people, archives undoubtedly play an important role in every society. In particular, state archives all over the world hold important evidence ranging from the state’s existence to its very identity. An important example from recent history is the border conflict between Botswana and Namibia which had been settled due to still existent archival maps from the Botswana National Archive [17]. Archives serve an important purpose which goes far beyond providing researchers with the right material for their work at a certain point in time. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell recognizes the considerable importance of archives [1]: "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past ... The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon." Archivists in governmental archives have the difficult task to balance political influence on the one hand, and choose from