ATLANTA — The Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority (GSCCCA) was recently honored with the 2019 Award for Excellence in Archival Program Development by a State Agency.

The award was sponsored by the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council, an advisory body for historical records planning in the state, and presented on Oct. 15 at the Georgia Archives. The GSCCCA and the Council of Superior Court Clerks of Georgia were nominated together for their joint work in promoting disaster planning awareness and, specifically, for the development of the statewide My Vault Online Archive Program.

The GSCCCA launched My Vault in 2007 as an enterprise-level data protection service; it was created to help Superior Court clerks protect the irreplaceable public records maintained by their office. My Vault was designed and implemented by the GSCCCA in support of the clerks’ ongoing business continuity planning efforts. The intent of the program is to serve as a second line of defense against a data loss event or larger disaster at the courthouse.

Enrollment in the program allows clerks to securely protect their real and personal property records, court data, accounting and business records, and general purpose documents, among others, according to a press release from the authority. Safeguarding these records ensures their long-term protection and provides a reliable method for restoring lost data if necessary.

“The My Vault program is designed to meet the needs of all counties o’f all sizes and with varying levels of IT support and complexity,” the release said. “The program is currently protecting the electronic records of Georgia’s Superior Court clerks in 155 counties with 132 terabytes of live data and over 845 million files currently being stored and protected. My Vault has received a total of 138 requests to restore data since 2008, with 11 requests in the last quarter alone.”

Internal audits, ransomware attacks, and human error are the top three reasons clerks have requested data from the vault in recent months, the release said. More than 3.4 terabytes of data have been restored back to clerk servers since the project started.

The Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC), who presented the award to the GSCCCA, was established in 1993 and consists of 12 members, appointed by the governor, who include citizens, educators, members of local government, historians and professional organizations. The council works to educate and promote awareness for the significance of Georgia’s historical records; advocates for the planning and preservation of these records; and works to ensure that the public has access to these records. Additionally, the council advises the Board of Regents and the Georgia Archives on programs and issues relating to records management and the preservation and protection of historical records.

Each year, the GHRAC hosts the Outstanding Archives Awards Program which recognizes the outstanding contributions of individuals and organizations in archival development in Georgia. There are twelve different award categories recognized. A reception was held at the Georgia Archives on Oct. 15 celebrating all 2019 award recipients. The awards were presented by Christopher Davidson, J.D., state archivist and assistant vice chancellor of the University System of Georgia My Vault Archive Program Manager Tara Johnson and VMF (Virtual Microfilm) Coordinator Jonathan Clark attended the reception and accepted the award on behalf of the GSCCCA.