Pamela Wright, the chief Digital Access Strategist at the National Archives and Records Administration, says every agency can create a digital archive that is easily accessible to the public.

The payoff is enormous: “As we continue to work toward increasing access to NARA’s records online, our goal is to delight online users with a rich website that is easy to use,” Wright said.

Here are five tips for agencies to create a digital archive:

1. Know your users – Who are they, what do they need, what would they need to do to find it and use it easily?
2. Have clear data standards and enforce data quality processes.
3. Give users what they want, not what you want them to have/know.
4. Design matters. A federated search is okay, but a centralized index is better because users can go to one search box instead of different stovepipes.
5. Listen to user feedback and continually update based on it.