Electronic Records Management

Abstract

Records management is a common human activity. Each day, we process information and decide whether we need to preserve it or not. It might be a letter we receive, a phone message, or even whether we need to remember a phone number. Without this selective information destruction, we would soon drown in information, unable to locate useful, needed information among all the unneeded material. Records management is described as ‘‘The systematic control of all organizational records during the various stages of their lifecycle: from their creation or receipt, through their processing, distribution, maintenance and use, to their ultimate disposition. The purpose of records management is to promote economies and efficiencies of record keeping, to assure that useless records are systematically destroyed while valuable information is protected and maintained in a manner that facilitates its access and use.’’ Since the invention of writing, humans have been examining their written records and making a determination of whether they need to be retained. Whether it was Sumerians smashing clay tablets, Egyptian scribes scraping ink off old papyrus, or a parent deleting old E-mail messages off their home PC, records management is a common human activity. It was only with the development of the National Archives that the concept of a formal records management program evolved. Archivists needed a process of pre-reviewing records to determine what information was worthy of being preserved for future generations. As a profession, records managers are a fairly new group existing only in the past 60 years. In the pre-digital world, records management was a back-office activity. While records managers would preach correspondence and reports management, their main thrust was in the management of semi-active and inactive records. Once records ceased to be active in the office, they were transferred to records management which was responsible for managing them until they were eligible for destruction or transfer to the archives. The efficacy of such programs was shown through the reduction in filing equipment and floor space devoted to semi-active and inactive records storage. Many times, records management was made part of the facilities management function of the organization because of this space management function. From a records management standpoint, a record is treated the same no matter what media is used for storage. A contract is retained for the same amount of time whether it is on paper, carved in stone, or is an electronic file found on a network drive. Electronic records present specific problems dealing with access over time, proliferation of multiple copies and duplicates, and preservation. Unlike paper records, which can be segregated into centralized file areas, electronic records are decentralized into many different network servers and individual PCs, distributed easily by E-mail and file sharing, and allow for many different versions to coexist throughout an organization. Electronic records management strives to manage these records according to basic records management principles, but this requires adopting new techniques and strategies to effectively manage these records. It becomes especially difficult while organizations are in transitional phase between analog and digital records. Establishing the integrity of files and providing access and managing retention are complicated many folds when the records exist in both paper and electronic form. The purpose of this article is to present the basics of electronic records management and to provide some idea of the future impact of managing electronic records on organizations. This article is a general discussion of managing electronic records. The author understands that there are some differences in how this is performed in the private and public sectors. Where applicable, how these tow sectors diverge will be covered. The encyclopedia entry on electronic records management written by Philip Bantin examines this topic from an archival standpoint. These two articles should be viewed as companion pieces rather than contrary or competing topics.