Talk:Records management/Archives/2011

Something badly wrong in the Definitions Section

The last line of this section currently reads:

Records management is the storage preservation and retrieval of information in the shortest possible time.(MUDD) Records management is very important for the use of storing document this topic was thought in Office Administration.

Obviously a mistake. Actually, many different mistakes strung together - it does not make sense at all. I won't try to fix it as I don't know what the intention is. But I hope someone does fix it... MarcMFresko (talk) 16:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Records management is a reflection of corporate memory

Yes, the two terms are highly related, but not precisely congruent. For example, in a law firm, client fields are certainly records, but the records are legally the property of the client, even though they are housed at the law firm. On the other hand, the true corporate memory of a law firm is often ignored by the records management department; items such as awards and certifications of the partners are not indexed and maintained by the records manager.

Think of this way: The corporate memory is the total, shared experience of all of the directors, employees, suppliers, and customers of the corporation. Records management is any reasonable attempt to capture, index, manage, and properly hold or dispose of any of these assets. Reasonable because though we may wish to spend time indexing and tracking trophies and interesting artifacts, there may not be a profitable payoff or regulatory obligation to do so.

An important article to note is Atherton's (1986) reflection on the role of records managers in the context of the records life cycle and the records continuum as a paradigm shared between archivists and records managers:

"Records managers are concerned with efficiency and the present" (p. 43) "Records managers (conversely) have viewed themselves as administrators, managers, interested in the development of systems and the increase of efficiency, with little interest in history or understanding of sophisticated historical research techniques." (p. 44)

Atherton, J. (1986) "From Life Cycle To Continuum: Some Thoughts On The Records Management - Archives Relationship" Archivaria 21 (Winter) pp. 43 - 51)

This indicates that records management as seen and experienced by professionals may be more the action of maintaining the corporate memory than actually having as a complete goal its creation and development.

15:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.161.124 (talk)

Corporate memory

Electronic records

Can I ask why the section on electronic records has been removed from this page (it was here the last time I looked!). My job is primarily electronic records management, and although I spend a great deal of my time encouraging people to manage their emails and electronic records in the same way as they manage their paper records, I still believe that a separate section on electronic records management would be useful.

akal salhek ya how

Records Management Systems or Electronic Records Management Systems?

I have taken the liberty of changing the heading of a section from the former to the latter. That is because (a) the section addresses solely electronic systems; (b) teh term "records management system" has a separate meaning, namely the sum total of the policies, procedures, and any tools (eg softwarte, classification scheme) used to manage records. MarcFresko (talk) 12:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If my link addition is not acceptable, can you tell me why? Also, would links to publications (such as Information Management Journal or Law Enforcement Technology magazine) be appropriate here if subject-related? Tomcat66 g500 (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not an informative link - it does not reveal any special or unique information about records management and is mainly PR for a company. See WP:ELNO. Links to publications that provide useful information, and are not simply glorified press releases, may be suitable. --Rbreen (talk) 22:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I understand that rationale. Looking again at the website link, I see your point. However, in looking at a screenshot of the records management page from this morning, there were seven external links on the records management page; now there are two. Weren't any of the links, such as the Google Knol link, worth keeping?71.210.133.97 (talk) 01:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I removed a number of other links that were not adding useful information and appeared to be essentially commercial. The Google Knol link was short on constructive detail and very much focused on the products of the company which was mentioned prominently. There is already a link to the article on Enterprise Content Management in the article. If you think the article could do with more information on the subject, I suggest you put some information in the body text, with a reference - preferably a more informative one than the Knol page. If you feel this is unfair, you could seek a second opinion or invite comment from other editors who contribute to this page, rather than simply adding the link in again. --Rbreen (talk) 19:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, thank you, I understand the issue. I only added the link to the Knol page back in because I wasn't sure why it was deleted. I will try to find articles to link to that add constructive detail.71.210.133.97 (talk) 23:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Info about the topic of Medical record management....

• http://scholar.google.com.hk/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+medical+record+management&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
• http://scholar.google.com.hk/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+%22medical+record+management%22&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.64.219.30 (talk) 09:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

QUESTION

WHAT ARE THE EXISTING PROBLEMS WITH REGARDS TO RECORDS MANAGEMENT PARTICULARLY WHEN IT COMES TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RECORDS USERS (ACTION OFFICERS) AND STAFF?

Records That Are Not Data or Information Related

Hi, I'd like to update the definition of a Record and Records Management, as well as add some content further in the body of the article, all with references, to include the fact that there are records that are not data or information related, such as physical objects that can be used as evidence. Are there any issues with doing so? -- Thank you -- Terri.Dorman (talk) 20:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Changes to several section of the page and possible deletions

Hi, I took the liberty of making some changes to the page. First, I thought we needed to pinpoint our citations, so went through the sections mentioning the ISO standard and added the section numbers that were quoted. These changes can be found in the "Definitions of records management" and "Practicing records management" sections. I also provided a footnote with the full citation for the ISO standard. I did the same for the reference to the DOD definition of records management in the "Definition of records management section", and changed the structure of that section a bit to have all the definitions together in one paragraph.

I wasn't sure though what was exactly being meant by these two sentences: "Records Management is the storage preservation and retrieval of information in the shortest possible time. (MUDD) Records magagement is very important for the use of storing document this topic was thought in Office Administration". If someone could provide clarification-especiall the reference to "(MUDD)", I think that would be helpful for us in determining whether or not to keep these two sentences in..

I think the section on "Managing physical records" could use some expansion with respect to what is meant by records being identified and authenticated. Especially with respect to authenticity, there are lots of ways and standards for evaluating the authenticity of documents.

I added a section about the InterPARES project in the section "Managing electronic records". While it was started in Canada, the project is really international in focus and is coming up with lots of research on how to deal with electronic records. This might be helpful for individuals trying to find out more about digital records. I do think it would also be helpful if we expanded the section on why the lack of physicality of electronic records is a challenge, even more than what is currently there.

The section of Electronic Tax records, seems limited to the context of the United States. Can someone confirm? Should we put something so context specific up?

On that note, I am not sure how long we want to have the "Education and certification" section. It will need constant updating. For now though, I added the Master of Information program at the University of Toronto, to that section.

With respect to Terri's question/potential contribution, I would love to see what you might add. Physical objects are not usually discussed, in the theory (at least in the literature that i've come across so far, limited as that may be), so that would be really neat.

Thanks.

Jlfis (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the source for the definition of records from the International Council of Archives?

Sorry, i forgot to add that in my post. Does anyone know where the ICA Committee on Electronic Records' definition of records came from? We should probably give a citation.

Thanks,

Jlfis (talk) 19:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the definition comes from the ICA's 'Guide for Managing Electronic Records from an Archival Perspective', circa 1996, chapter 2. Available at http://www.wien2004.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA%20Study%208%20guide_eng_0.pdf.

But I question whether it should be present on the page at all.

A recent (by archives standards!) ICA publication, the 'Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments', ISBN: 978-2-918004-00-4, published 2008, uses the ISO 15489 definition - not the supposed ICA definition. The ICA's ISAD-G Second edition, ISBN 0-9696035-5-X, published 1999 uses what looks like a strange variant of the ISO definition, namely "Recorded information in any form or medium, created or received and maintained, by an organization or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs" (I'm going to guess, and this is no more than a guess, that this text is an early draft of the ISO 15489 definition, as this version of ISAD will have come out around the time 15489 was being finalised). And in fact other ICA publications have yet different definitions (for example, 'Authenticity of Electronic Records', report 13-1, published 2002).

Either way, there seems to be no point in retaining this (presumably) old, superseded and ignored definition of record.

MarcMFresko (talk) 17:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)