BIP 0025-4:2007: Effective Records Management - Part 4: How to Comply with BS ISO 15489-1

Citation

Hare, C. (2007), "BIP 0025-4:2007: Effective Records Management - Part 4: How to Comply with BS ISO 15489-1", Records Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2007.28117cae.004

BIP 0025-4:2007: Effective Records Management - Part 4: How to Comply with BS ISO 15489-1

 

BIP 0025-4:2007: Effective Records Management – Part 4: How to Comply with BS ISO 15489-1

Philip Jones and Robert McLeanBSI2007ISBN: 978-0-580-49662-2/ISBN-10: 0580496627£30.00

This publication is the fourth in a series of user interpretation, illustration and application guides to help implement the records management framework provided in international standard BS ISO 15489 Information and Documentation – Records Management. Part 1: General. The first three provide a management guide BIP 0025-1 (2002), a practical implementation guide BIP 0025-2 (2002) and a performance measurement guide BIP 0025-3 (2003) respectively, and with this publication are complemented with a guide on how to be compliant with the standard.

The choice of topic is highly relevant as more and more organisations are seeking to benchmark their records management operations and the authors, Philip Jones and Robert McLean, both who have been active members of the British team working on the development and revision of the standard, are extremely well placed to provide an authoritative document. They are particularly successful in identifying clearly the compliance criteria, the requirements to demonstrate compliance, potential sources for verification and who should be responsible for providing or managing the requirements. The publication also covers the different levels of compliance requirements depending on the type of organisation involved.

As is standard with this series of publications there are a series of templates and checklists, for example a sample survey and analysis form plus instructions on how to complete plus lists of top tips highlighted in shaded boxes.

Overall this is a helpful publication providing a methodology for checking the level of compliance/non compliance against BS ISO 15489-1. The frustrations are that the “how to use” section is complex and not easy to follow and the sample forms provide only generic rather than specific examples. These shortcomings apart, it is a valuable guide that will provide very useful to those organisations who want to demonstrate and monitor the development of their compliance with BS ISO 15489-1.

Catherine Hare Newcastle upon Tyne, UK