Corporate Memory: Records and Information Management in the Knowledge Age (2nd ed.)

Citation

McLeod, J. (2006), "Corporate Memory: Records and Information Management in the Knowledge Age (2nd ed.)", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62 No. 4, pp. 539-540. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610673918

In the introduction the author states that this book is written for the “corporate memory manager” of the future who “will come from different professions that are in the process of merging” though the professions are not identified. But the title alone should be attractive to a wide range of information professionals.

Megill is a records manager who began his professional life as a philosopher and worked in “the world of organisations and politics before information management” (p. 1). It is perhaps this background of thinking and practice that make the 11 chapters of this slim book an interesting combination of theory, philosophy, practical strategy and guidelines.

The first three chapters set the scene. The author discusses how the information revolution has empowered people and organisations to work differently doing different things, and how information has been recognised as an organisational asset. He also explores the problems surrounding the maintenance of the corporate memory, the cost of keeping too much and, conversely, losing it. A discussion of risk and its consequences, especially in the light of recent well publicised information management problems, would have been useful here. And he considers the relationship between corporate memory and records management, referring to the international records management standard (ISO 15489) along the way.

Chapter 4 is perhaps the most interesting part of the book, examining the concept of the document being a verb, rather than just a noun, in the electronic age, i.e. a response to a query rather than a physical item that is stored, borrowed and returned. The author highlights the need to “re‐examine the traditional ways in which we manage records and documents” (p. 40) in the electronic age, something that is happening and about which there have been many developments in the last decade.

Chapter 5 concerns the value of documents and offers a set of “rules of worth”, useful for information professionals unfamiliar with the records management concept of appraisal. In chapter 6 the author explores the role and responsibilities of the corporate memory manager and the knowledge and skills required. He suggests they come from a range of still separate information professions, such as records management, librarianship, archives, systems analysis and IT. He is rather critical about records managers and archivists saying they are often “overwhelmed” by the enormity of the task and suggesting there is little practical collaboration between the two professions.

Technologies are covered in chapter 7, at the level of principles and functionality rather than technical detail. The only change here from the first edition is the inclusion of thesauri and communities (as in the knowledge management sense of communities of practice). Chapter 8 highlights the need to facilitate “performance centred” learning rather than provide training in the corporate memory context, and refers to the work of Communibuild Technologies (www.communibuild.com). Given the emphasis on technology in this chapter, explicit rather than implicit coverage of change management would have been useful. Chapter 9, entitled workflow, is about the ways in which a “corporate memory system” changes the way business is done, in particular the change that occurs in the move from paper to electronic working.

The final two chapters suggest practical approaches to managing the corporate memory. These are in the form of a series of improvements to “set the stage” and possible starting points; included is a new reference to knowledge application services, which seems to be an outsourced service.

Throughout the book there are numbered boxed inserts containing examples, most of which seem to be the same as in the first edition. Some sentences are also highlighted but the significance of this is unclear – I did not find a reference to the purpose and it does not appear to relate to new text. At the end there is a useful, up‐to‐date annotated bibliography, information about ISO 15489, a glossary of terms and an index. Unfortunately, the latter has some errors, and was presumably automatically generated, since some page references against entries are to the index page itself.

The main changes in this edition are the inclusion of digital archives, knowledge application services and ISO 15489, together with new boxed quotes from one of the author's other books entitled Thinking for a Living (Megill, 2004).

If I were to criticise the book it is that it has not been significantly changed almost a decade after its first publication. Perhaps this is because, as the author says in the opening sentence “much has happened … yet little has changed” (p. xi). I enjoyed reading the first edition but felt I wanted more from this edition. Perhaps that it inappropriate – it would require a new book rather than a new edition. But overall, providing comprehensive coverage rather than detail, the book is suitable for anyone new to the information profession, including students and possibly senior managers with a responsibility for corporate memory management.