Managing Records: A Handbook of Principles and Practice

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2003), "Managing Records: A Handbook of Principles and Practice", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 59 No. 6, pp. 734-736. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410310506349

This work reflects the growing importance of records management. It is targeted at records management and information/library practitioners, and will be useful as a sourcebook for them, but equally good for managers in other fields but with contact with records managers. Even more, it will be useful for people running and studying on courses on records management, in colleges and universities, and that is where its sales are likely to be greatest. At one read, the beginner can get a sound overview of current issues and developments in the field, and, mainly through the well‐researched and well‐selected references, the more experienced professional identify key sources and quality‐check their procedures. It is a fast‐changing field and the authors make this clear, disentangling it from archives, setting it alongside document management, and implying a complementary fit with information and library management. It will take its place as a standard textbook for students alongside works like Elizabeth Parker's Managing Your Organization's Records (LAPL, 1999) and J. Kennedy and C. Schauder's Records Management: A Guide to Corporate Record Keeping (2nd ed., Addison‐Wesley, 1998).

The case for records management will already have been made for insiders who will find the work a useful update, above all for some of the electronic and digital developments. For the newcomer the authors spell out the case step by step – the organization needs records for information and as evidence, to support decision‐making and activities, for legal and regulatory, administrative and fiscal reasons. The context of records management – links between processes and activities and records – leads on to records management programmes – classifying records comprehensively and consistently, modelling what is required and determining the scope and role of metadata and the creation and capture and retention of records. These lie at the heart of the business and the heart of the book, providing a good outline for students and a check‐point for new practitioners.

Advice is given on templates for records creation and this is set in the context of personal and group (e.g. groupware) and corporate activity, and the principles of record capture (unique identifiers, metadata, paper‐based and electronic records management or ERM systems) are discussed. Examples of classification are provided from the human resource management field (not the most obvious, and a wider range could certainly have been provided) as a way of indicating how records and metadata can be entered and retrieved. Relevant also is the inclusion of “value” in retention scheduling, and decisions about security and record integrity and risk assessment.

The authors indicate the principles that apply to paper‐based and electronic systems, pointing towards what systems are available and how they work. References to electronic systems are provided in a good bibliography, fine for students to start further research, and indicative of where the work stops and where practitioners in the thick of it will have to look further for themselves. Useful final chapters on access and management point to records management policies, confidentiality procedures, using the ISO 15489 methodology, and retrieval languages.

In the best sense, then, no surprises with this work. It shows the practitioner and educational experience of the authors – Shepherd ran a records management programme at University College London between 1992 and 2000 and is now a records management specialist at the recruitment company TFPL Ltd and Yeo now runs that programme. At a time when records managers in the public sector are, in the UK, thinking through their position on the JISC Model Publication Programme and examining the implications of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and in the private sector are facing a range of challenges from document management providers and integrators (much more on this – e.g. Documentum and Hummingbird and SAP, as well as systems and schemes for small‐ to‐medium‐sized enterprises – would have been welcome), this book is timely at its level, and looks likely to go through several editions over the next decade if it wants to keep up. An exciting field and a sound introduction to it.