In line with the increase of e-services, many employees in the public sector get their working conditions changed. Their involvement in the building of e-government transforms their everyday work practices. A vivid example of such a transformation includes archivists and archival work. The use of information technologies produces huge amounts of digitally recorded information. Considering the laws and regulations of public and citizens' rights and obligations, this leads to an increased need for well-functioning e-archives. However, we find that there is little awareness in public organisations for how to deal with this complex and challenging issue. Rather the matter is left to the archivists alone, who have limited agency and influence to be able to deal with digital preservation to the extent needed. In this paper we analyse and discuss plans for, and layers of, responsibility for digital preservation as configured and reconfigured in archivists' stories and Swedish national policy documents. We use a model that covers three arenas: political, organizational, and practical (or individual). Our findings suggest that to conduct good governance there is a need to spread the responsibility for digital preservation and plan for cooperation, coordination, and communication around the same. This should happen in interplay between various actors which hold the practical responsibility, technological responsibility and strategic responsibility. Additionally we note that the view of archivists as keepers of information is moving towards the role of facilitators, which supports access to information rather than merely keeping it intact for future. Moreover, due to technological development's we find that issues to address in further studies are; present laws and regulations that governs archives, change of work practices and ways of dealing with digital preservation.

The implementation of e-government and the increasing amount of e-services leads to the production of amounts of born-digital records. In turn, this raises demands for well-functioning e-archives, for to fulfil laws and regulations of citizens’ rights and obligations. However, we have observed difficulties in public organisations for how to deal with the complex and challenging issue of digital preservation. Not only does the e-government transformation change the productivity, governance and governmental coordination and collaboration, it also transforms the everyday work practices of many public sector employees. A vivid example is archivists and archival work. The matter of e-archives is often left to the archivists, who have limited agency and influence to be able to deal with digital preservation to the extent needed. The research question we address is therefore; who should be held responsible for digital preservation in organizations? We analyse and discuss plans for, and layers of, responsibility for digital preservation as configured and reconfigured in archivists’ stories and Swedish national policy documents. We use a model covering three arenas: political, organizational, and practical (or individual). Our findings suggest that to conduct good governance and create well-functioning e-archives there is a need to spread the responsibility for the e-archives and plan for cooperation, coordination, and communication around digital preservation. This should happen in interplay between various actors which hold the practical, technological and strategic responsibility. Additionally we note that the view of archivists as keepers of information is moving towards the role of facilitators, which supports access to information rather than merely keeping it intact for future. Moreover, due to technological developments we find that issues to address in further studies are; laws and regulations that govern archives, but also the change of work practices and ways of dealing with digital preservation.