Feature article Getting the records straight developments in records management

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

The challenge
The following quotation from one of the small number of standard texts on records management conrms the importance of records management for organizations of all types:
Records management in the information society is a necessary part of the societal foundation[1].

Living in the information age as we do, it is logical and appropriate that information, which is produced by businesses during the normal course of their operations and is a unique resource which has cost money to produce, is now recognized as an agent in competitive advantage. Records, therefore, which are dened as:
any information captured in reproducible form that is required for conducting business[1]

The authors Catherine Hare is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information and Library Management, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Graham Southwood is Senior Business Consultant at BDM, London, UK. Abstract The growth in the volume of records and developments in technology and business practice is changing the role of records managers. Technology has given users greater power in records creation with a consequent risk of falling standards and possible disastrous failures of systems. The inevitable obsolescence of technologies, their complexity and potential vulnerability require signicant effort in the management of the records they create. The necessary analysis of existing processes before implementing systems based on new technologies can in itself show how improvements can be achieved even without changing the technology. Such analysis is essential in the growing area of business process re-engineering. Changes in business practice include emphasis on quality and service provision. Outsourcing, with its associated requirements for performance measurement, costing and charging out, now embraces records services. These developments affect the records managers role in establishing and implementing standards and procedures and require him to be at the forefront of introducing and using new technologies and business practices.

are now seen as having an active and strategic role in contributing to the success of an organization. The challenge for the future is to ensure that they are managed as any other business resource. This article looks at the developments in technology and in business practices which are impacting on the creation and use of records and in turn are changing the role of the records manager.

Setting the scene

In the past, records management has meant different things to different people. Most practitioners would sign up to a denition such as:
a co-ordinated programme of appropriate standards and procedures for the effective control of records and records systems from their creation to their disposal[2].

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 pp. 5-12 MCB University Press ISSN 0307-4803

But all the communities of interest, which includes the library community, had a particular view of their role. Ten years ago most records managers had no great interest in current ling systems. They saw their responsibilities beginning when records became semi- or non-current. At the other end of the records cycle most archivists viewed records management as an activity quite separate from their own. Even now few records managers are given responsibility for any aspect of records creation. Such parochialism was not conned to the stages of a records life. It was often attached to the record medium. Those concerned with
Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood, 1995.

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

the control of paper records kept well clear of electronic records and conversely many of the people who dealt with non-paper records spoke disparagingly about paper as yesterdays technology. What all these people had and have in common is that the volumes of records over which they have oversight continue to grow. It has, for example, been estimated that the number of records received or created by the average organization increases by 20 per cent a year. Declan Treacy in his book Clear Your Desk[3], published in 1991, stated that: every minute computers produced 2.5 million sheets of paper; every hour 60 million pages were duplicated; every year 30 billion faxes were sent.

skip back and forth through a document rather than read it straight through. This is particularly true of reports and other multipage documents. Absorbing information in this way is not an easy and comfortable thing to do on screen. Paper is coming back in from the cold and this will raise the status of the traditional records manager. But such records managers must not become complacent. The task we have is to help to provide ofce workers with the media-efcient ofce.

Information technology
Technology is dramatically changing the way that records management is perceived and breaking down boundaries. It is placing much more power in the hands of the user. But distributed systems create greater opportunities for the unauthorized disclosure of information, the lowering of the quality of information and looser application of standards. The technology itself is being harnessed to create, distribute and manage records. Standard commercial packages, e.g. spreadsheets, databases and word processing, which are likely to be readily available in organizations, can play their part but they are now being supplemented by a whole range of software types. But this technology has not disposed of the need to use basic records management principles and techniques. Todays records manager has to understand how to handle electronic records, the opportunities for introducing document image processing and document management software and, when it is appropriate, how to install le management systems. He/she may also have to become acquainted with electronic data interchange. Electronic records According to the US government, by the year 2000, 75 per cent of all governmental transactions will be handled electronically[4,5]. The very facility with which we can store document after document in electronic form, with apparently minimal physical storage costs compared with storing conventional paperbased records, has accelerated the rise of records management as a central management issue. This provides a huge opportunity for records managers. They are ideally placed to solve the disaster waiting to happen if 6

Getting the medium right

These gures are astronomical. They point to another development, namely that most records are now held in electronic form for some part of their life. For example, 90 per cent of records are thought to be created electronically. While it is self-evident that the faxes are distributed in electronic form, it is not so evident that a letter is created electronically, though most are. This can lead to the strange circumstance where an electronically created document is printed on paper, the contents of which are digitized so that it can be faxed and that the fax which is printed on paper is then scanned into a document management system. The story might not end here. The record may be stored on an optical disk but a user might take a hard copy for his/her le and possibly even photocopy the record to send it to a third party. In the 1980s paper was seen as the problem. The microform and computer salesmen made much of the desire for a paperless ofce, which they themselves had generated by clever marketing. In time, inappropriate use of technology led to the notion of the paperfree ofce. This may also be a chimera. There is a growing understanding now that paper has its place in the workplace. It is increasingly recognized that technology is not always the answer. Paper is user-friendly, portable and it matches the way people absorb textual information. In short, when we read we chunk. That is we read chunks of information and

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

electronic records are not managed effectively and efciently. When dealing with electronic records the records manager has to recognize that, with electronic records, unlike their paper-based counterparts, the medium is not the message. Even a 3.5-inch high density oppy disk can store 1.44mb of data. But the data are unusable without the machine to translate the digital bits into human-readable form. Obsolescence Computer generations succeed one another with great rapidity. The records manager now has to ensure that the physical condition of the electronic data is protected and that they will still be readable when required in the future. While this is a headache for individual organizations, they do at least have the opportunity to standardize and control so as to provide for transportability as systems are upgraded. Major problems, however, arise for central agencies with statutory responsibilities such as the Public Record Ofce. They can cope relatively easily with a variety of formats of paper-based records but are beginning to nd electronic data produced by all sorts of different software packages on a variety of different software platforms a cause for concern. COLD (computer output to laser disk) systems and OSI protocols help to increase the chance of portability into the future. However, the vested interests of computer manufacturers who want to retain their client base require that the records manager uses all her/his skills and knowledge to ensure accountability and continuity in operations. Looking more closely at possible solutions to the management problems posed by obsolescence, a number of questions need to be asked. Should the system be archived with the data? Should the data be converted as the new system is introduced? For current data, conversion is probably the answer. However, it is likely to be too expensive for non-current data and not necessarily very reliable. A system is estimated not to be usable longer than ten years once it is obsolete. Copying to humanreadable form is an option favoured by one school of records management thought, whether it be paper or COM (computer output to microlm). Vulnerability Problems can materialize with paper-based systems which are badly managed. These 7

problems are not inconsiderable. However, the speed with which the problem builds up in the electronic environment and the vulnerability of the electronic medium, which could result in huge amounts of information being deleted by a single inadvertent key press, mean that to prevent disasters electronic records need to be managed better than paper records. The virtual record A further problem arises in that an electronic record may not actually exist in any one place. It could be a compound document comprising a set of linked elements from a variety of different software applications, e.g. a report might be made up of text from a word-processing package, a table and chart from a spreadsheet and a data set from a database management system. It may exist only as a physical entity at the point at which it is printed out. In such cases we must therefore build in management practice at the design stage, prior to the creation of the document to ensure efcient retention and disposal. One possible option might be to retain the paper document as the ofcial record and dispose of the electronic version. Document image processing (DIP) DIP has made a signicant impact on the work of records managers. The ability to store scanned images of documents in huge quantities and to base retrieval systems on the electronic image rather than the paper-based original has perhaps, at last, come closest to the paperless ofce. BT, Northumbria Water and Sussex Council all use DIP systems for customer enquiries. The danger, however, is that not enough care is given to the indexing process which will ensure the efciency of the system. The way in which the documents will be used must dictate the index attributes. Great efciency gains can be made, for example by having direct access to documents, but at a cost. The hardware and software required, even if networked, still demand the supply of a workstation for each user. On the other hand a paper-based ling system can potentially be accessed by several people at once. People sometimes have the nave view that capturing documents electronically will reduce the intellectual effort needed to manage them. Unfortunately this is not so. The

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

records captured on to a DIP system will still have to be prioritized. The ephemera will need to be eliminated and the records indexed. Document management Generic document managers (GDMs) provide a standard set of management and control functions for documents in all forms, including paper. Products such as PC DOCS OPEN, Soft Solutions and DE/Cartes support an information storage and retrieval system across application packages. They maintain an audit trail for version control and enable the checking in and out of documents for mobile computing. A system of passwords provides secure access and the location of les can be controlled. PC DOCs and Soft Solutions have facilities to automate many of the housekeeping tasks related to retention, transferring les to off-line storage as they age. Some GDMs incorporate workow software. Workow software automates a complete business process, e.g. dealing with an insurance claim. The software can dictate the sequence in which a record should be dealt with and by whom. It can also prompt action. Workow procedures can of course be developed for manual records systems. It is interesting that the imaging technology has given rise to a greater emphasis on procedural analysis and the consistent application of standards over the processing of active transaction records. The savings achieved are often dramatic. This is because processing and handling of active records take up a great deal of expensive staff time. Paradoxically, therefore, a document management project often leads to signicant savings being achieved by the application of standards which could have been gained without the introduction of imaging. Records managers are being forced by the success of document management systems to pay more attention to the management of active records. This is particularly challenging because it engages them directly with busy people who may not welcome interference in their working practices. File management systems Some companies have not taken the electronic route but have rather used computer technology to manage better their paper-based records. Software packages such as STATUS CORA from Harwell Computers Ltd and 8

Sydney Plus from SOUTRON provide for records managers what automated library systems provide for librarians. The documents themselves remain physically in paper form but retrieval and movement are managed by the computer. There is also the possibility of combining computerized management with automated retrieval. An example of this is the system based on the Kardex Lectriever and their Filepic computer software which has enabled the personnel department of British Gas West Midlands to manage paper records for 6,500 employees in an effective and cost-efcient way. The records manager has a key role in dening the requirement and making sure that the technology chosen matches the requirement. EDI (electronic data interchange) EDI is the electronic communication of standardized documentation between two organizations. It aims to improve the distribution and processing of transaction records. Since 90 per cent of commercial records are thought to be transaction records, EDI will have a dramatic impact on the speed and cost of their processing. EDI will dramatically reduce the volume of paper work and the requirement to store this. The problem of setting or agreeing standards internally is magnied when applications cross organizational boundaries, e.g. a manufacturer requiring its suppliers to conform to its documentation. Managing the process and the disposition of the electronic documents will also give the records manager continuing challenges. Legal admissibility It is not surprising that there has been a problem of legal admissibility with non-paper records. Microform began to be used in the ofce in the 1930s but the use of electronic and optical records is very recent. But progress is being made. The publication of BS 7768: 1994 Recommendation for management of optical disk WORM (write once read many) systems for recording of documents that may be required as evidence, in August 1994, although a fairly thin document, is a signicant beginning in the establishment of clear guidelines. The Legal Images Initiative, sponsored by the CCTA, has drawn up a draft code of practice which is being tested, under the direction of Cimtech in leading compa-

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

nies. The role of the records manager is critical in this initiative.

Business process re-engineering

Management is about planning for the future. Most organizations are the shape they are because they have adapted to past needs. Managers recognize that organizations need to embrace change if they are to remain in tune with their customers changing requirements. They have therefore become more concerned to undertake a thorough analysis of the business processes. Business process re-engineering questions why things are being done and how they are done. This analysis can dramatically impact on records management systems, since, if a process is revised or eliminated, this is likely to affect the way the records are handled. Record migration from one medium to another is an important issue in this context because business process re-engineering often identies where processes can be usefully computerized or where discontinuities between manual and computerized systems should be addressed. The records manager has to be aware of the different technologies and have some understanding of how they work and their strengths and weaknesses. He/she should also develop procedures for establishing appropriate control over the records through the life cycle, on whatever medium they are held. The records manager is well placed to contribute to the analysis of business processes because records are a natural outgrowth of these processes. To design cost-effective records management systems in support of these processes, the records manager rst needs to understand them. The records manager is thus one of the people within an organization who needs to be at the cutting edge of organizational change.

Quality Records management has traditionally been strong in those industries which were heavily regulated, such as oil and pharmaceuticals. Local and national government have also placed a high premium on good records management practices. The Civil Service operates detailed les management procedures and a number of the utilities have beneted from this tradition. Increasingly quality assurance is playing its part in the private sector. The BS EN ISO 9002: 1994 standard, formerly known as BS 5750, is being adopted by more and more organizations. Quality assurance requires an organization to prove that its procedural practices are complied with consistently. The way in which this is achieved is to formalize the procedures and document them. Forms are created to identify non-conformance, customer complaints, etc. Thus the records manager has a key part to play in ensuring that the records management systems are documented and complied with. Quality management Quality assurance does not guarantee quality, since an ineffective procedure will not become more effective by virtue of having quality assurance applied to it. Quality management requires managers to question why a procedure is being undertaken and whether it is being done cost-effectively. As records are a natural by-product of the business process the records manager is well placed to help. Increasingly therefore records management is being seen as a quality issue and records managers are being asked to join quality project teams. Outsourcing The data storage industry has been in existence in the UK for over 20 years. Data storage companies store and manage a whole range of records for their customers. This includes back-up copies of magnetic media, active ling and bulk storage of semi-active and inactive documents. The Governments market-testing initiative has set records managers in the Civil Service the task of measuring their services against the private sector. This has led to considerable staff savings and, in the case of the Benets Agency le store at Heywood, to the service being contracted out to a data management company. A similar initiative in local govern9

Business practices
Alongside the more obvious technological advances in the last decade, there have been changes in the attitude to and methods of delivering services. On the one hand these include a demand for services of a better quality, tailored to user requirements. On the other is the recognition by both parties that services should be cost-effective and give value for money.

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

ment is being driven by compulsory competitive tendering. The private sector is not immune from this pressure. Increasingly organizations are focusing on their core business and contracting-out support services. A major oil company has also contracted-out its records management and information and library services to a data storage company in an outsourcing in partnership relationship. These initiatives are requiring records managers to become more radical in their thinking and more hard-edged in their resource planning. Charging Records managers have in the past been chary of charging for their services. They have taken the view that managers would resist such an initiative and that the imposition of charges would lead to a decline in the use of central records management services such as the records centre. The end result would, the records managers feared, be cluttered ofces full of redundant and non-active papers. This would lead to poor morale, difculty in retrieving documents and might encourage some managers to destroy records in a cavalier manner. Outsourcing is leading to a reappraisal of this view by some records managers. They do not underestimate the problems that charging for records management services can bring, but are now actively considering how they can be overcome. Performance measurement Outsourcing has of necessity focused attention on how to measure service performance. For example, the invitations to tender issued by government departments set out in detail the metrics required by prospective tenderers to measure both quality and productivity. While many of these statistics can be easily collected through a computerized le-tracking system, the task is much more onerous if the control and tracking of records are not computerized. Records managers will need, like the library community, to pay more attention to how meaningful data can be collected and analysed cost-effectively.

date have emerged from varied professional backgrounds some from archives administration, others from librarianship and information science, some from other management areas, perhaps nance or personnel. The education and training available to them over the last decade have not matched the challenges presented by the changes in technology and business practices. Records managers have had to learn from experience, often bitter, and by networking. Professional associations Records management is maturing as a professional discipline but as yet does not have all the trappings of a profession. There is no single professional association like the Library Association (LA) or the Society of Archivists (SOA). The number of organizations which have an interest in records management is considerable. These include the Business Archives Council (BAC), Cimtech, Aslib (the Association for Information Management), Institute of Information Scientists and the British Computer Society. There are also a number of specialist groups representing records managers in particular sectors, e.g. IHRIM (Institute for Health Records and Information Management, formerly AMRO) for medical records ofcers, the Scientic Archivists Group (SAG) and the Association of Information Ofcers in the Pharmaceutical Industry (AIOPI). The organization which has the clearest specic mission relating to the subject is the Records Management Society, but it is not a professional association in terms of having a Royal Charter. Many records management practitioners belong to one or more of the above organizations. This has led to co-operative initiatives and joint meetings between organizations. The necessity to work closely and in harmony with other professionals and specialists is a feature of records management life. Education and training There are a great many records management practitioners but few records management qualications. Those people who did not work their way up from the post of ling clerk or who fell into records management tended to come from other professions such as librarians, archivists and management services 10

Equipping the records managers

Records management has changed and is continuing to change. Records managers to

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

practitioners which have their own qualications. There is no developed, professional, education framework in the UK for records managers, although courses have now been developed by the University of Northumbria at Newcastle (UNN) and University College London (UCL) which awarded a named qualication in records management. Records managers who have been practising their craft are now seeking specic qualications to conrm their professional status as specialists. NVQs are potentially an ideal mechanism to complement formal education. Hopefully an NVQ qualication will provide an opportunity to recognize the skills and knowledge needed by records managers who, while being closely related to other information management professions, have additional responsibilities especially related to records creation and retention which will need to be covered satisfactorily with the ILS (Information and Library Studies) standards. Most of the library schools have now recognized the importance of records management and are adapting their courses to take account of this. In a recent survey of library schools 12 out of 16 indicated that they teach records management in some way. Short courses are provided commercially by the Business Archives Council and TFPL whereas specialist groups like IHRIM and SAG offer professional training with qualications. Literature Most books on records management are written by North Americans. Although two books which relate more directly to the UK were published in 1989, some of the most interesting literature currently emanates from Australian records managers. UK records managers do, however, have the benet of two periodicals The Records Management Bulletin and The Records Management Journal, published respectively by the Records Management Society and Aslib, which concentrate specically on the subject. The Cimtech journal Information Media and Technology relates specically to non-paper media. There are also periodicals which focus on document management. To keep up with emerging trends in the management of electronic records and business practice the records manager has to 11

subscribe, or at least have access, to a wide spectrum of magazines. The Internet, being all things to all men and all women, also caters for records management with a range of material including the records management policy of an American university. Partnership Just as the successful records manager has to work with others, educational institutions teaching information and records management studies must co-operate with external organizations. Records management is a practical discipline. Students interested in the management of information resources need to be exposed to records management in the workplace if they are to be properly equipped to take up a responsible position when they leave university. This article came about through such cooperation. BDM, a leading data storage company, saw the value in funding the rst ever information and records management bursary at a British University, i.e. at UNN. The Department of Information and Library Management at UNN, keen to work with industry, welcomed the opportunity to develop a partnership with BDM, a company which manages the records of 1,200 customers and has its own records management consultancy. Such partnerships will help to raise the prole of records management as well as the competence of the next generation of records managers.

The records managers developing role

The records managers core responsibilities are threefold. First, to establish records management standards for the organization. Second, to ensure that those responsible for carrying out records management responsibilities are appropriately trained to do so. Third, to develop effective monitoring procedures to ensure that the standards are complied with. At the centre of these three responsibilities is change. Records managers are being forced to move their interest further up the records continuum to the point of creation. If we are to control properly electronic records, we must apply appropriate standards to aid their retrieval and disposal when they are created.

Getting the records straight developments in records management

New Library World Volume 96 Number 1118 1995 512

Catherine Hare and Graham Southwood

IT within the workplace is now ubiquitous, and the records manager has a vital and increasing role in helping to match this technology to user and organizational needs and to ensure that it is fully exploited. To this end records managers must keep up to date with technological developments so as to be able to evaluate their appropriateness for application in their organizations. Records managers must be more businesslike in the delivery of services. This includes being tough-minded about resource planning, costing, charging, performance measurement and marketing. Increasingly the records manager is being seen as a major player in the organization. He/she can help to identify with the users the value of records. But, as has been shown in this article, the records managers portfolio can be all-embracing. It can include the analysis of fundamental business processes and the records systems which support them. The records manager is likely to be involved in quality initiatives and questions of information security and legal admissibility. Records managers will need to be more proactive. They will have to get closer to their customers. They will have to form closer alliances with other change agents and information professionals within their organiza-

tions. They must also, through training and attendance at conferences, exhibitions and seminars, etc., keep up to date with changes in technology and technique. The role of records manager is demanding and ever-changing, and people taking up records management posts need to be equipped to accept the challenges demanded of them.

References
1 Penn, I.A., Morddel, A., Pennix, G. and Smith, K., Records Management Handbook, 2nd ed., Gower, Aldershot, 1994. Touche Ross/Records Management Society, A Practical Guide to Retention Schedules, Touche Ross, London, 1991. Treacy, D., Clear Your Desk, Century-Business Books, London, 1991. Shepherd, E., Managing electronic records, Records Management Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1, June 1994, pp. 3949. US Congress, House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations, Taking a byte out of history: the archival presentation of Federal computer records, House Report, No. 101-987, US Government Printing Ofce, Washington DC, 1990.

3 4

12