Friends,

The ARMA-SAA Joint Committee exists to help archivists and records managers
find and explore their common interests, and there archivists who  belong
to ARMA and records managers who belong to SAA.  Yes, there are differences
in educational backgrounds and values focus, but if we move up the chain
from everyday concerns (e.g., what kind of paste to use), we can see that
both disciplines focus on the records of an organization created in its
normal course of business to document a transaction or a decision.

The focus or paradigm of the field of medicine is the human body.  From
medicine as an ancient discipline devolved specializations (e.g.,
cardiology, neurology, dermatology, etc.).  Further sub-disciplines
continue to emerge.  Doctors realize that they have in common the human
body and that they went to medical school first to become physicians, later
specialists. Can archivists and records managers do the same? Rodney King:
"Can't we just get along?"

There is the American Medical Association--it's very powerful, and it's for
all doctors.  If I were king, I would create a new and powerful association
that serves archivists, special librarians (corporate), records managers,
and related interests in the IT domain.  A problem with this thinking is
that we would need to adopt a convergence model rather than a divergence
structure (as in the medical example).  Most fields spin off new
sub-disciplines; we would have to create a sense of convergence among all
the information professionals with records as a focus. We do see a
continuing convergence of technologies.  I also see many information
professionals learning how much they have in common with one
another:  information created, acquired, indexed, stored, retrieved,
disseminated, evaluated for disposition.  Call it a "finding aid" or a
"catalog" or "box list" whatever, an index is an index is an index.

Some "fool"osophy for the day.

Mike Pemberton

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