Editorial

Citation

McLeod, J. (2007), "Editorial", Records Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2007.28117aaa.001

Editorial

How many records management practitioners have knowledge, experience and skills in developing taxonomies? How many have explored the subject through formal academic study or training programme for continuing professional development purposes? I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do know that the Masters records management programme in my own institution and the rm3 partnership, which we jointly developed with the University of Liverpool, have always covered classification and incorporated the term taxonomy when it became fashionable in our discipline. I would venture to guess, however, that the term is a relatively recent addition to the language of many records professionals.

And so it is particularly pleasing to publish Chris Milne’s opinion piece on taxonomy development. Drawing on personal experience of taxonomic construction, as well as the literature, Chris identifies the benefits of using a functional approach to developing a taxonomy can be used in the context of portal and intranet design and organization. But his main message is that, whilst librarians have long advocated classification as a tool for creating taxonomies to support effective corporate information management within portal and intranet environments, records managers need to make the connection too. He believes that classification is insufficiently covered in records management texts and that this is a lost opportunity since, in his organization, it was the contextual classification approach advocated by records managers that provided an adequate solution. Records managers who are not involved in taxonomy development should consider his points and ensure they do not lose an opportunity to enhance the impact of records management.

Jeff Morelli’s article also explores the organization of electronic documents and also considers using a functional approach within the context of what he describes as “ad hoc, uncontrolled filing practices” based on metadata attributes. He explores ways of creating a hybrid functional file plan from a business classification scheme by inserting “metadata signpost folders” at strategic points in the filing hierarchy. These are in effect “breaks” in a purely functional file plan, which reflect common user requirements to retrieve, cross reference or group documents together, and therefore support their day to day operational needs. He provides real examples of how he uses this approach to organize his own documents on his laptop. He firmly believes that, whilst functional filing is the only effective method of filing electronic documents so that they are managed in line with corporate information management policies, it requires special measures which current IT, EDRM and related technologies may not fully meet via metadata. He concludes that a hybrid functional file plan, i.e. a functional file plan with metadata folders, is an effective “compromise” solution. This is a fascinating article.

Interestingly there is also a link between Elizabeth Shepherd and Elizabeth Ennion’s article and the opinion piece. Chris Milne concludes that whilst freedom of information legislation has been a powerful catalyst for developing records management in the UK public sector, it is unlikely that it will be sufficient to sustain senior management support in the medium to long term, and hence the importance of information classification and retrieval. But what of the current impact of the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000?

Elizabeth Shepherd and Elizabeth Ennion share the results of a small British Academy funded project and a Masters dissertation on the impact of FOIA on archives and records management services in four UK public bodies. The public bodies investigated include two different educational establishments, a police service and a local government City Council. The authors used the Department for Constitutional Affairs Model Action Plan to examine leadership and policy, training and awareness, information and records management, customers and stakeholders and systems and procedures. They found that all four organisations coped well with the requests they had received in the first six months of the Act’s implementation, although systems would not have been robust enough had request levels been higher, and that archives and records management services should take an active role in research to establish best practice in this context.

The final article in this issue comes from Nigeria. Abiola Abioye, from the Department of Library, Archival and Information Studies, at the University of Ibadan reflects on 50 years of archives administration in Nigeria and tries to identify lessons for the future. In 2004 the National Archives of Nigeria marked its 50th anniversary but what had been achieved in its first half century? The author looks at the successes and the continuing challenges of this national institution against the country’s political backdrop. He concludes that whilst the early years saw some remarkable achievements the economic recession of the 1980 s and early 1990 s resulted in inadequate funding, deterioration of facilities, equipment and materials and high staff turnover. A key challenge for the future is for the National Archives to strike a better balance between its previous emphasis in the earlier stages of their life. It must champion records management in the public and private sectors to ensure sustainable development and to guarantee transparency, accountability and good governance in Nigeria.

We also have reviews of two very welcome additions to the growing collection of text books in our field. Carl Newton reviews a new title in the Chandos series of records and archives texts by Caroline Williams, University of Liverpool; on managing archives and Susan Childs reviews Adrian Brown’s book on archiving websites which is part of Facet’s series of books in the field. We should not only congratulate the authors on their contributions but also the publishers on their commitment to bringing more relevant texts to the marketplace.

The first issue of 2007 has one less article than normal because the four that we are publishing are substantial and I hope you agree make extremely valuable and enjoyable reading.

Julie McLeod