Editorial

Citation

McLeod, J. (2011), "Editorial", Records Management Journal, Vol. 21 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/rmj.2011.28121aaa.002

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Records Management Journal, Volume 21, Issue 1

Over a year ago we embarked on a series of specially designed issues to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Records Management Journal. Reflecting on the feedback received and the usage statistics we can be proud of the anniversary volume. In fact the Editorial Board has recently made its nominations for Emerald’s annual Literati Awards of Excellence and the decision was very difficult. We identified a much wider range of contributions worthy of nomination, which is testament to the quality of the journal’s content. The results will be announced in a later issue.

As a result of the anniversary volume some authors have had to patiently await the publication of their contributions in what is our “coming of age” 21st volume. The range of contributions in this first issue is wide, not only in terms of subject matter, but also the roles of the authors, their affiliations and geographic location. This perhaps reflects the varied nature of the information and records management profession and the challenges and initiatives that its members are involved with.

Geoffrey Yeo, University College London, provides an extensive viewpoint article, in contrast to other opinion pieces we have published, in which he explores in depth the concept of the record today. Professionals have often struggled to explain what a record is to non-professionals; as a result the subject can appear “dry”, pedantic, onerous etc. and yet the engagement of records creators and users is vital for successful records management. In the context of some of our professional societies changing their name to include the word information, (e.g. the Records Management Society in the UK becoming the Information and Records Management Society and the Records Management Association of Australia (RMAA) becoming RIM Professionals Australasia) it is a good time to debate the definition of a record and our understanding of when a record becomes a record. I doubt any of us would disagree with the author’s statement that records need not be in documentary form – certainly during my career in industry we had many samples of various kinds that were managed as records – pharmaceutical samples, coating panels, etc. It would be interesting to hear who agrees with his statement that “the notion that documents become records when they are ‘declared’ is problematic”. Personally I do agree; in fact in a discussion with Len Asprey last year, during his visit as a Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, we contemplated a more radical approach – let’s define every “document” as a record, dispense with the distinction and manage appropriately. I hope Geoffrey Yeo’s viewpoint sparks debate amongst practitioners and academics.

Shannon Tomlinson, based in the Parliamentary Counsel Office in New Zealand, looks at a particular type of record, those relating to the legislative drafting process, and public access to them. Her interest in this topic is partly because they can be useful for researching legislative histories and partly because of their uniqueness due to debate over legal professional privilege. In New Zealand such records are considered to be protected by legal professional privilege, but what about elsewhere and what does this mean for access? Shannon gathered data from a number of international archival institutions and offices and discovered that there is no standard approach to public access. Her personal conclusions are that access restrictions to these records should not be based on the lack of a process for waiving legal professional privilege and that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should work with the various stakeholders to address the process. Her practical work raises some interesting conceptual questions around the interplay between such privileges and freedom of information legislation, the value of such records and their custody.

The other articles in this issue are all case studies but very different in nature.

Stuart Hase, a consultant psychologist, and Julian Galt, a senior academic manager, look at a single case study – the Southern Institute of Technology in New Zealand where Julian works. Their article is a refreshing example of professionals from different disciplines, neither being records managers, working together. They focus on the lessons learned from an “after action review” of its implementation of a new strategy for managing their records which comprised a new appointment, new processes and new systems. They openly share a bleak starting point where records management had “fallen off the management radar”, there was no interest in how records, a “critical aspect of … institutional knowledge”, were managed and where compliance was not a driver to get it back on the agenda. Sound familiar? Some of the lessons learned echo ones found by others but what the authors also share are some of the “unfortunate behaviours”, the people issues, they had to address and the relationship between knowledge and records management. They observe that the latter “is rarely mentioned in the knowledge management literature despite being closely related” but argue that in their scenario, the two are “indivisible”. Interesting given the name changes mentioned above and the number of records professionals who are knowledge managers. They state that “records management is essential to organizational effectiveness” but it is often difficult to demonstrate that with hard evidence. It is therefore a happy coincidence that the next article not only attempts to do just that but also in the context of the same sector – higher education.

Steve Bailey, Senior Records Adviser at JISC infoNet, shares the results of practical work to demonstrate the return on investment from records management using a toolkit developed by JISC infoNet. The Impact Calculator was used by six UK higher education institutions gather and analyse quantitative data in the context of records management projects chosen by them. Steve’s article not only shares the results of these pilots, but also draws from them some conclusions about the benefits and limitations of using quantitative, rather than qualitative data, to demonstrate impact and return on investment (ROI). There are many guidelines, standards and tools available for information and records management but few focus on demonstrating value or ROI and there is little published evidence of their application in practice. While Steve does not claim the results he shares are generalisable, the findings are hard evidence from the specific contexts and the learning is potentially transferable to other similar contexts. Hopefully professionals will be inspired to use the Impact Calculator, which is freely available on the web, in their own organizations in similar or different ways.

The final case study comes from Malaysia and the focus is the existence, or not, of records professionals in government-controlled companies. Drs Aliza Ismail and Adnan Jamaludin of the Faculty of Information Management, University Technology MARA studied six companies and the findings show that none has a professional records manager. This is disappointing but the authors suggest it is not surprising in Malaysia, where the professional role has not been established and where archivists are recognised in the country’s National Archives but not elsewhere.

This issue also includes two resource reviews. If you would like to review something in the future do contact me; and if you would like to contribute an article then please visit our online submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rmj

Last year’s anniversary volume attracted some very good publicity as usage statistics indicate. There were 59,679 downloads last year which was an overall increase from 40,228 in 2009. David P. Best’s article “The future of information management”, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 61-71 and Luciana Duranti’s article “Concepts and principles for the management of electronic records, or records management theory is archival diplomatics”, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp 78-95 had particularly positive download responses in the first six months following publication. I hope this year’s volume continues this positive trend. During the year we welcomed five new members to the RMJ’s Editorial Advisory Board and I am delighted to say that we begin the new volume with two more. Ms Sarah Wickham, Records Manager at the University of Huddersfield, joined the board late last year and Mr Martin Sanderson, Independent Consultant, has just joined. I know that both Sarah and Martin will bring their own experience and expertise, new contacts and ideas to the journal.

By the time you read this the severe sub-zero weather conditions experienced by many of us in the UK, and their consequences, will hopefully be but a memory and we will be seeing the signs of spring. Hopefully we will also have weathered the worst of the economic conditions but, if not, then perhaps they will be providing us with new opportunities to make positive contributions to our organizations through good information and records management.

Julie McLeod