Records Management: Retention Schedules Take a Back Seat

The records retention schedule’s daily use is in decline. 

I don’t mean to say that your organization shouldn’t have one — far from it. Every organization should have a records retention schedule safely tucked away in the arms (arsenal?) of the Records and Information Management, Legal and Technology departments. However, Typical End User (TEU) doesn’t want it and won’t use it.

So, Records Manager, how will you respond? What’s in your wallet?

Hard Copy Records Management

For hard copy records management (usually remembered during the 4^th and 1^st quarters), a straightforward shopping list of records types and their corresponding retention periods is simple and easy to post on the intranet.

Direct the new TEUs to the link off of the Records department’s main page during the onboarding process (be gentle; they’re not going to remember it later) or to your colleagues during those “Help!” calls always placed to you at 4:55 pm.

Electronic Records Management Minus the Retention Schedule

Electronic records management is trickier. The trifecta of Records and Information Management professionals can always agree to match rules behind e-Records publishing platforms, but what if TEU involvement is required? How best do you encourage TEUs to make retention decisions without reliance on the records retention schedule only?

Let’s play a game. You, Records and Information Management professional, will create a guideline that outlines how your organization’s content becomes a record. First, a few rules:

You can’t:

• defer to the records retention schedule
• discuss legal/regulations/standards
• use records jargon
• rely on the old standby, “but it’s instinctual!”

You can:

• use specific business examples
• use company jargon
• discuss the types of documentation in your company
• mention scope and impact

So, how do you create your deliverable? 

First, leave the Records and Information Manager role behind. Next, disassociate yourself from the traditional definition of a record — weighed against the pace of the typical work day, TEU doesn’t really have time to care in that context. Remember: everyone attended the mandatory Records training and promptly forgot it. You’re creating a new (records-related) Third Place.

Draw on haunting, inspirational sources like this one. This 2012 Motion Graphics Finalist in the Vimeo Awards was created beautifully by Adam Gault, Stefanie Augustine, Chris Villepigue, Carlo Vega and read by Mitch Rapoport. Sure, it’s Speech 101, but remind yourself:

• you’re creating a memorable, but 101 document;
• you’re providing a directive that will encourage TEUs to decide what content becomes a record in less than 5 seconds; and
• most importantly, you’re reminding TEUs of “here” — this organization’s records, this preservation activity, this legacy.

The Gettysburg Address is perfectly suited for such inspiration and this video is deceptively simple. Simple is elegant.

Meanwhile, don’t forget your instruction from Edward Tufte (create depth) and Nancy Duarte (resonate with meaning).

What are the results of this game of logic? Three to five typical business content categories that should in no way map back to functional records series. These categories are different. It’s ok to present the dotted line model — after all, we’re discussing a change of information state — but you should leave that behind with the definition of a record if you can. The categories must be universal because they’re relevant to everyone’s responsibilities. At best, TEUs will remember one in the declaration moment. But one category is all that’s needed, yes? 

Editor's Note: Mimi knows records management. To read more of her thoughts, try Fuzzy Logic for Retention Management: Millington, Funge and Games. 

About the Author

Mimi Dionne is a records and information management project manager and Consultant/Owner of Mimi Dionne Consulting. She is a Certified Records Manager, a Certified Archivist, a Certified Document Imaging Architect, a Certified Information Professional, and a Project Management Professional. She currently resides in Seattle.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Alfresco Records Management 2.0 Provides Granular Controls, Mobile Access

Alfresco announced its next generation Records Management 2.0 platform, and the updated system now fully integrates with Alfresco Enterprise 4 including more granular controls, mobile access and email features.

As more and more enterprise and even government level IT move to the cloud, tracking documents and records is going along for the ride. Records Management 2.0 is just such a vehicle.

Secure, Mobile Content Management

Alfresco 4 debuted early in 2012 and in June, the company released a cloud based version of its open source CMS. With Records Management 2.0, the cloud based transition is complete. Not every document needs to be available for mobile downloading, of course, but things are moving in that direction with this release.

Records management may not be the sexiest aspect of an IT department's mission, but it's become painfully obvious there's a growing need to keep secure documents protected. One way to do that is to make documents easier to identify and sort.

A new multi-level file plan in Records Management 2.0 allows for creating deeper record structures beyond the main levels as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense. 

Additionally, because the system has been redesigned to support Alfresco Enterprise 4, mobile, social and cloud capabilities in the Enterprise CMS can be leveraged as well.

New Features

Records are now simpler to search with easier to define queries, and favorite searches can be saved for records more frequently called upon. With a single file repository, less content needs to be migrated so there's less of a chance of losing information.

Furthermore, there's a Web-based interface and native IMAP support so it's easy to file emails without installing a plugin. RM 2.0 shows up as a mail folder so filing records can easily be done with drag and drop.

For those needing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requirements, Alfresco has included workflow and hold tools like better transparency.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Solving Problems with Authority and Sharing: Developments and Prospects #saa12

The Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) project is an ambitious one that seeks to locate records of historical importance across repositories and make them available to patrons on a massive scale. Our panel updated us on its fascinating progress. Look at what we records and information management professionals can do.

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) 2012 annual meeting, “Beyond Borders," concluded Saturday, August 11, 2012 in San Diego.

Tammy Peters of the Smithsonian Institute introduced her panel:

• Ray R. Larson (University of California, Berkeley)
• Daniel Pitti (University of Virginia, Institute for Advanced Technology in Humanities) 
• Jerry Simmons (National Archives and Records Administration).

The Social Networks and Archival Context Project: Status Report

Ray R. Larson

Mr. Larson delivered an update to SNAC. Officially, the goals of the project are to further the transformation of archival description and to separate description of records from description of people documented in them. Translation: the project is meant to make available records of historical importance and

• enhance access to archives resources, through all cultural heritage resources; and
• enhance understanding of those resources.

We’re talking big data. With a sample of 150,000 EAD-encoded finding aids contributed from around the world by national libraries and others, including:

• Library of Congress
• National Archives and Records Administration
• Smithsonian Institution
• British Library
• Archives nationales (France)
• Bibliothèque nationale de France
• OCLC WorldCat and VIAF 
• Getty Vocabulary Program.

Institutes like the Getty Vocabulary Program have contributed a union list of artist names (make that: 293,000 personal and corporate names).

The problem: a proliferation of the forms of names (for example, different people with the same names). EAD records are full of family names and within the structure it notes the creator of the archive (typically the complete autobiography is provided). This autobiography is extracted to the Encoded Archival Context for Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families records (EAC-CPF) record.

We’re given names — sometimes multiple names. Identical names means a complete Library of Congress record with attributes is available. If it’s an exact match, it’s marked. But marking doesn’t work for everything. Abbreviations are troublesome — think transliteration of non-roman characters. We take names where we didn’t get an exact match, then test against library authority files. Do we find an exact match? We flag it as a potential merge. Is nothing matched by this stage? We create overlapping segments of three characters. Finally, we take all flagged as potential matches, do a find, make sure these are the ones we want. With the authoritative form of the name, we combine all EAC-CPF records. To give you an idea of volume, a recent test merged 93,033 person names from 114,639 person records," said Larson

In other words, the names are extracted from EAC-CPF and from existing EAD. If the EAC-CPF records match against one another and against existing authority records (for example, VIAF), then prototypes of historical resources and accessibility are created.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com