Reminding Records Managers not to Forget

Originally published on Monday, 08 November 2010 11:58 at http://www.oneilsoft.com/news-portal/ians-blog/258-reminding-records-manager-not-to-forget

As much as the next guy, I can see that the record management world is embracing and moving towards digital solutions. This, of course, is just the next, natural evolution of the industry and is an essential part of the growth of any company in this industry. But, I do get left with a sense that in the trade magazines and ListServ’s the focus has moved almost 100% away from discussing the physical records. Are the traditional boxes on shelves being forgotten about?

This question bothers me because I see so many situations where physical records are being moved to off-site storage that are ill prepared, badly categorized, and sometimes even have no metadata at all to record them accurately. My worry is that many records managers are thinking that they only have to concern themselves with their digital/electronic records and are consequently neglecting the physical records. This can put an extraordinary burden on commercial record centers when those physical records are required urgently, and that happens… a lot!

Now, to be fair, it’s understandable as to why this is happening. The digital world is a flurry of chatter about how to control all the new types of “documents”. It wasn’t very long ago when companies really didn’t have to worry about archiving web content, Twitter feeds, Facebook accounts, and that’s not to mention the explosion of emails or the challenges of cloud services. So a firm’s records manager has gone from what some considered a fairly sedate job, to suddenly being thrown into the deep end of a digital/electronic pool, which was previously the domain of the IT department. This sudden draw of their attention brings to mind a very well known and often misquoted saying:

"The objective of all dedicated employees [a.k.a. record managers] is to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators, it is difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."

So we all have to recognize the challenges that face records manager today, that they did not face yesterday, but we must help them to not forget that the physical records management issues show no sign of going away anytime soon. The latest figures continue to support this view.

According to the American Forest & Paper Association's September 2010 U.S. Paperboard Report, total boxboard production increased by 7.2% compared to September 2009. Although clearly not all of this goes into record storage boxes it has proven to be a useful indicator in the past. If we couple this with their September 2010 Printing-Writing Paper Report, which stated that total printing/writing paper shipments decreased only 1% in September compared to September 2009, while two of the four major printing-writing grades posted increases compared to last September, we can see that things haven’t changed much at all. We are still clinging on tightly to paper.

As sexy as digital/electronic records are, I know of at least 500 million boxes of physical records in off-site storage today, and they are getting added to on a daily basis. As such, we must ensure that we continually educate everyone to the initial object, which is the proper management of all business records, so no-one forgets the importance of physical records.