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This article outlines the development of a records continuum model initially developed as a teaching tool to communicate evidence‐based approaches to archives and records management. The continuum is being used in Australia as a metaphor to assist in getting records management ‘right’ in recordkeeping environments built around electronic communications, and the model supports this endeavour. It extends the concept of the continuum beyond metaphor, representing the case for viewing it in its fuller spacetime meanings as a worldview. In this form, the continuum is potentially a technologically driven paradigm shift within all information management and systems practice. There is a new game developing and the concept of the continuum can help us re‐organise our knowledge for that game. This article will discuss the diversity of records management theory and practice. It will look at the meanings of the continuum and my own model of it, including the differences between a worldview and a detailed view. Three other continuum models are presented. A continuum ‘patrol and control’ strategy for analysis is outlined briefly, and represents a point at which my own approach to the continuum is taking off into more detailed practical considerations in records management education and training.

In this commemorative issue of Records Management Journal, milestones from the last 20 years of recordkeeping practice are being celebrated. This paper aims to provide a retrospective of the records continuum and examine its evolution, its impact and its influence, and to reference some of the controversy it has inspired.

The paper is based on a review of literature and a historical assessment, which are intended to contextualise and explain the continuum.

The continuum has a long history in Australian recordkeeping culture, but significant international research and theory have also fed into its development. The continuum has an enduring relevance and remains a fundamental tool for assessing and realigning recordkeeping practice today.

The paper is strongly supportive of the continuum approach, and as such is not an impartial assessment of the model and of the criticism that has been levelled against it.

It is hoped that the paper helps to foster further understanding and use of the records continuum model.

While owing a great deal to Sue McKemmish and Frank Upward, the paper aims to present a fresh perspective on continuum theory, in a way that helps to explain and encourage the adoption of continuum‐based approaches to recordkeeping.

The electronic document and records management system model (EDRMS) served for most of the noughties (the decade from the year 2000) as an orthodoxy that united the records management profession. The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: “Does the stagnation and retreat of the EDRMS model towards the end of the noughties call into doubt the theory that lay behind that model, namely DIRKS and the records continuum?”, and “Is a new records management orthodoxy likely to emerge over the course of the next five years, and if so what form might it take?”.

The paper looks back at the author's readings of DIRKS and the records management continuum at different times over the period 1993‐2010, and links those readings with the prevailing fortunes of the EDRMS model that was build on top of that theory. It gives a personal perspective of a consultant/practitioner on the chances of a new records management orthodoxy arising in the course of the next five years.

The loss of momentum of the EDRMS model does not invalidate the insights of DIRKS and the records continuum. Both frameworks support alternative readings from those that underpinned the EDRMS model. But any future orthodoxy is likely to be less directly derived from theory. One possible future orthodoxy is the “records repository model” – where a business classification scheme is held in a back end system, and applied to content held in the various applications used by colleagues. However this model has not yet received sufficient practitioner attention, and there are unanswered questions as to how it would work in practice.

The paper looks at the ways in which the records management community has used orthodoxies in both theory and implementation models to keep itself united during an extended period of upheaval and change since the commencement of the networked digital age. It outlines the challenge of finding a records management orthodoxy that is both consistent with record keeping theory and also workable and sustainable in the rapidly changing world of enterprise computing.

Social media posts have been an integral part of our society’s communication and serve purposes from the personal to the national, from the mundane to the silly to the momentous. This study aims to examine social media posts as records, discussing how social media technology serves, perhaps unexpectedly, to reinforce traditional archival understandings of issues such as provenance, custody, access, disposition and preservation.

This study follows a four-step methodology. First, this study analyzes literature for a matching definition of the social media record. In the second step, we appraise three social media postings previously curated and cited in news articles by journalists to determine their characteristics – Are these social media posts “records?” Third, this study evaluates the sample records against two dominant theoretical record models, the life cycle and the continuum and attempt to apply the model specifications to the data samples. Finally, this study proposes appropriate records management solutions to address governance issues from the study findings in the conclusion section.

This study shows that, even by the most traditional of definitions, social media posts are records. The paper also demonstrates that platform mediation transforms simple narrative documents into records whose provenance, custody and control are dictated by platform logics and governance, outside of the control of their creators. Through appraisal of a small sample of “important” social media posts, this study illustrates that, rather than obsolete, traditional records management concepts and approaches are necessary to ensuring the ongoing accessibility, usability and evidentiary character of social media posts in the broader “platformized” context.

This is exploratory, theoretical work. In future works, this study plans to expand and validate aspects of this study.

This paper tests existing theoretical frameworks, namely, the Records Life cycle and the Records Continuum for applicability to the social media record. The paper also offers a view of the potential for traditional archival and records management concepts in service of a just and inclusive recordkeeping, because such concepts allow us to demonstrate the centralized, elite-serving, bureaucratic structures which underpin social media records are obscured by the seemingly decentralized, participatory nature of social media.

The purpose of the paper is to study the development and implementation of metadata schemes in Swedish governmental agencies, in order to gain a better understanding of recordkeeping practices in contemporary organisations and of the use of metadata and practical implementation of metadata schemes.

The study is based on two case studies. The data have been collected through qualitative interviews, e‐mail correspondence and analysis of documentary sources, and analysed with help of the records continuum model and the conceptual framework presented in the international standard for metadata, ISO/TS 23081.

The results from this study show that the agencies had similar reasons to develop metadata schemes, namely to established a unitary and consistent description of records, to enhance retrieval and exchange of information, and to provide external users access to records in compliance with the 24/7‐agency vision. The agencies have, however, chosen different approaches to metadata and based their schemes on different models. This has affected the possibility of capturing contextual relations and transactionality, and thus of guaranteeing the evidential properties of records. The agencies are to various extents covering the different aspects of recordkeeping. None of the agencies are, however, acting in all dimensions of the records continuum model.

The paper shows how the records continuum model can be used as an analytical tool in the study of recordkeeping practices. It further contributes with empirical findings to a field where still little research is done. The paper can also be of value to practitioners seeking to develop and implement metadata schemes for records.

The purpose of this article is to explore the documentation work in pre‐trial investigation performed by the police from the records management perspective. The study, undertaken as doctoral research, is meant to give answers to the questions: what kind of information is recorded in the pre‐trial investigation process, how are recordings made, and what are the regulatory and statutory requirements for the recording processes? The aim is to produce new knowledge of the Finnish recordkeeping field and of the relationships between work processes, record management and information systems.

This study presents findings from a qualitative explorative case study. Data collection methods were based on triangulation of data sources. Data were collected for the period 1999‐2004.

Documentation of activities proved to be a coherent part of pre‐trial investigation. Various activities in the investigation process are reported exactly, with information on criminal cases captured as a record or recorded in registers. Diverse information systems are used in the pre‐trial investigation process. The relationships between tasks, information systems and information management proved to be slight. Information systems do not serve the pre‐trial investigation process in the desired way. Several different legal and statutory requirements concern operations in pre‐trial investigation and their documentation. There are divergences in compliance with legal norms and guidelines depending on types of norms, actors, tasks and cases. The records management norms are not very well‐known, and compliance with them is poor.

There is an obvious need for studies aimed at examining the relations between task performance, information systems and documentation.

The Information Age during the transition from the paper era to the digital one saw the fracturing and fragmenting of the information-based specialisations. More recently, professional norms for governance have been swept aside within new business models based on information based business applications. This paper aims to support an advance towards networked cohesion based on informatics, regenerating professionalism for the complex networked age.

New regulatory approaches will have to manage monistic diversity, connecting the deeper logic of continuum thinking in which information governance exists as part of a simple whole (the monistic component) with a recognition that the parts of information governance are much more complex than the whole (the expanding diversity). A continuum approach of this type involves studying things in motion as part of evolutionary processes.

The production of information is galloping ahead of its authoritative management, and this is at the heart of many of the failings of the post-truth information era. Informatics with its emphasis upon the joint operation of technologies, social processes and knowledge forming and its ability to be an umbrella term for many specialisations can be a cohering force.

The alignment of thought, action and ethical information governance across inter-connected practices for individuals, groups and organisations can be supported by the deeper logic and grounded experience of continuum thinking.

This paper will look to expand the array of sympathisers who wish to get more in touch with studying things in motion, including those trying to cope with the need to develop more adequate ways for managing nanosecond archiving processes.

The purpose of the paper is to establish whether Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Records Continuum Model (RCM) frameworks could be used to mitigate long-term preservation challenges.

Qualitative research was undertaken using two case studies and interviews were conducted with the different categories of the municipal personnel to solicit answers to the research questions. The questions were designed using the lens of the RCM and its four dimensions that cover the creation, capture, organization and pluralization of records and prescribed factors of ECM which include business process management, enterprise architecture, collaboration, system integration, re-purposing of information, change management, knowledge management and the life cycle management of information. Not all the ECM factors are dealt with in this paper: the remainder have been dealt with in the author's earlier works.

Challenges of long-term preservation of information still persist despite the enormous research that has been generated over the years. The municipalities that were subjects of this research are still grappling with issues of lack of long-term information management policies, enterprise architecture, disparate information systems, collaboration and system integration. This is likely to work against the investments that are being ploughed into e-Government developments should the municipalities fail to espouse strong information and records management regimes. Embracing the ECM prescribed factors and the RCM thinking might mitigate these challenges.

The author's licentiate research proved that there was no discourse between records managers/archivists and ECM proponents. Therefore, the originality of this article lies in the application of the two frameworks of ECM and RCM. The findings confirmed that even within the records management framework the municipalities were addressing factors similar to ECM prescribed factors. Embracing both the RCM model and the ECM prescribed factors might mitigate the challenges of long-term preservation and hence the re-use of information and enhancement of the societal memory.

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the implementation of the electronic Court Records Management System (CRMS) at the Gaborone Magisterial District, Botswana, brought improvements in the delivery of justice as expected in the management of case file records.

Principally, a quantitative approach utilizing a research survey design, supplemented by a qualitative approach was used in this study.

The CRMS implementation led to improvements in case file management at the Gaborone Magisterial District; case files were successfully captured into the system; retrieval of case files became easier; and incidents of lost and misplaced case files went down significantly. Challenges included shortcomings related to the security of digital case files, digital records preservation and disposition, records appraisal, training, inadequate bandwidth and shortage of computers, as well as inadequate archives and records management standards and guidelines.

The findings of the study are limited to the case study and cannot be generalized to other organizations.

The findings should aid future implementation of court records management systems in the judiciary specifically and the public sector in general in Africa. Lessons learnt can enable the avoidance of pitfalls experienced in the implementation of CRMS by other courts.

This paper provides empirical evidence from an original study.

This paper aims to examine the role a recordkeeping informatics approach can play in understanding and addressing these challenges. In 2011, the Wind Tunnel located at the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DTSO)’s Fisherman’s Bend site in Melbourne and managed by the Flight Systems Branch (FSB) celebrated its 70th anniversary. While cause for celebration, it also raised concerns for DSTO aeronautical scientists and engineers as to capacities to effectively and efficiently manage the data legacy of such an important research facility for the next 70 years, given increased technological, organisational and collaboration complexities.

This paper will detail how, through a collaborative action research project, the twin pillars of continuum thinking and recordkeeping metadata and the three facets of organisational culture, business process analysis and archival access, were used to examine the data, information, records and knowledge management challenges in this research data context. It will discuss how this perspective, was presented, engaged with and evolved into a set of strategies for the sustained development of FSB’s data, information and records management infrastructure, along with what is learnt about the approach through the action research process.

The project found that stressing the underlying principles of recordkeeping, applied to information resources of all kinds, resonated with the scientific community of FSB. It identified appropriate strategic, policy and process frameworks to better govern information management activities.

The utility of a recordkeeping informatics approach to unpack, explore and develop strategies in technically and organisationally complex recordkeeping environment is demonstrated, along with the kinds of professional collaboration required to tackle research data challenges.

In embracing technical and organisational complexity, the project has provided FSB with a strategic framework for the development of their information architecture so that it is both responsive to local needs, and consistent with broader DSTO requirements.

This paper further develops recordkeeping informatics as an emerging approach for tackling the recordkeeping challenges of our era in relation to maintaining and sustaining the evidential authenticity, integrity and reliability of big complex research data sets.