How to Manage Records in the E-environment

Citation

Demb, S. (2007), "How to Manage Records in the E-environment", Records Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2007.28117bae.004

How to Manage Records in the E-environment

Julie McLeod and Catherine HareRoutledgeLondon and New York, NY2006ISBN 0851424635Keywords: Records management, Digital librariesReview DOI: 10.1108/09565690710757940

In this second edition, the authors confront the reality of records management in the maturing electronic environment; a far cry from the context the 1997 Aslib edition addressed. In the intervening years, a variety of standards have been established as management tools to empower information professionals. In 1997, the only international standard cited in the guide was ISO 9000’s introductory tract Quality Management and Quality Assurance Principles; now the authors are compelled to introduce the reader to no less than seven ISO benchmarks, all of them developed in the new millennium and each specific to a particular aspect of information management. Such is the brave new world of electronic records management. The significance of the field, and therefore the literature, has increased to such a degree that while the first edition cites under 50 references, the second edition points the reader to over 100. We are now spoilt for choice when seeking guidance, a potentially overwhelming situation that the new book seeks to rectify.

The necessity of the second edition is highlighted by the fact that while the first edition merely points out that managing electronic records can be challenging and technology-dependent, the second edition focuses directly on practical approaches to a “huge and complex task.”

The first edition was published when the main concerns about e-records focused on appraisal and admissibility. The second edition provides specific guidance on the current hybrid and digital records environments in which legacy systems, EDRMS and ERMS, legal precedent, international standards and national legislation, metadata and functional requirements play an integral role in records managers’ basic decision-making within their organisation.

In order to place e-records management in context, this edition includes a discussion not only of the application of the (paper) records lifecycle model to e-records, but also of the records continuum model, a concept that addresses the specific characteristics of “virtual paper” or e-records. The authors note that while the latter model has had little practical impact outside academia, it can provide a dynamic alterative to the lifecycle model that has had to be adapted to e-records.

Merely alluded to in the first edition, the importance of the relationships records managers build with their organisation’s systems administrators and senior management in the responsibility for e-records management is stressed in the second. In the current environment of distributed custody of e-records and the tension between resources and legal compliance, this aspect of our work has become critical to the effectiveness of the records manager’s role in the organisation.

This edition provides practical guidance via self-assessment questions and other checklists for legal and regulatory compliance, risk management and business continuity, scheduling records for retention, approaches to managing e-records, managing e-mail and making the case for records management while chapters on the same topics expand some of the first edition’s text and also introduce new material. The authors have presented a complex subject in a clear and effective handbook that should be useful both as a primer and a quick reference tool.

Sarah DembInternational Records Management Trust, London, UK