Editorial

Citation

Hare, C. and McLeod, J. (2003), "Editorial", Records Management Journal, Vol. 13 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2003.28113baa.001

Editorial

As we write this we have just returned from the annual conference of the Records Management Society of Great Britain, held in Leeds. Those of you who attended part of or the entire event will no doubt agree that it was an excellent event for various reasons. First of all, the number of attendees broke the 200 barrier for the first time, with many familiar and also many new faces, then there were the variety and also the quality of the papers and sessions, not to mention the opportunities for networking and the social events. On several occasions speakers highlighted that organisations face real records management challenges which in turn present many opportunities for records managers and that there has never been a better time to be in the profession.

Well, this issue of the Records Management Journal highlights some of those challenges and opportunities and includes some papers on topics which were also covered in this recent conference. Paul Sutcliffe is the first to voice some of the opportunities in the opinion piece. His claim that new technology has changed the perception of records management – no longer the graveyard of information but the birthplace of the corporate memory "capable of informing and influencing everything that we do" – is one that all of us would recognise, even if we feel it has not yet quite been met. Key to exploiting the corporate memory are the players involved, which means not only records managers but records management vendors, whose focus is on "turning records management products into knowledge discovery tools, with powerful facilities for sophisticated knowledge-based searching, Web publishing and portals".

It is pleasure to include a contribution from Australia in this issue. Paul Feldman, Assistant Director, Collection Development, at the National Archives of Australia, shares details of the "Australian series system' with which some readers may not be familiar. A metadata system, it is normally used to describe records in archival institutions but has the potential to be used within the context of current records, including electronic records. Paul explains how the system can be used as a basis for gathering and presenting evidence of the need to improve existing practices and how it can assist with the management of legacy records, once improved systems have been established. There are concepts in his article that can be applied in many organisations.

This issue also includes two articles on ISO 15489, the records management standard. The first is the second part of Elizabeth Shepherd and Victoria West's article comparing the standard with ISAD(G), the General International Standard for Archival Description. It contains the detailed element-by-element mapping of the two standards to establish the extent to which they are compatible. The authors demonstrate that the mapping reveals a large degree of correlation between the metadata elements mostly in relation to description.

The second article is from one of the Journal's joint editors, Julie McLeod. Julie has conducted some initial research into the reactions and take-up of ISO 15489 over the past year. The results are very interesting, showing, perhaps not surprisingly, that many, though not all, in the records profession are aware of the standard and that some in allied information professions are also aware of it. The data, gathered at different events and contexts, mostly in 2002, showed fairly positive first impressions or reactions. However, plans to implement them were fairly limited. This seems to compare with the message of one paper at the Leeds conference, although that was based on a much more limited set of survey data. However, as a delegate highlighted in the question and answer session following that presentation, it took a while for ISO 9000, the quality standard, to take off.

Xiaomi An and Michael Cook share their plans for a major national research project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation in China which will last for three years. The research agenda is integrated management and integrated services for urban development records, archives and information, particularly in the digital and networked environment, and it involves a research team based in a number of organisations in China as well as Liverpool University's Centre for Archive Studies. It comprises no fewer than nine separate but related sub-projects – we look forward to seeing the results.

The final article in this issue comes from Africa, Kenya to be precise. Nathan Mnjama from the University of Botswana reviews some of the developments in records services at the National Archives of Kenya over the past three decades, which are seen by other archival institutions in Africa as something of a success story. However, despite the apparent success Nathan concludes that there is a great deal still to be done and that the National Archives need to extend their focus and influence beyond that of archival preservation into the entire records lifecycle, something which many other National Archives, including the UK's own recently renamed Public Record Office, have been doing for some time.

The final contribution in this issue is a review of the first textbook to have been published in the UK for some time.Carl Newton provides a detailed review of Elizabeth Shepherd and Geoffrey Yeo's book, which is likely to have a place on your bookshelf soon, if it has not already.

We hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to bringing you the next issue, which will be the annual international issue on the theme of managing records in the private sector.

Catherine Hare and Julie McLeod