On November 09, 2005 Maarja Krusten said:
>As people on this List have said, records management involves "predicting
>the future."

Maarja, you may be confusing listserves.  I've reviewed past postings and
haven't come across any records manager implicitly stating this.  As a
records manager (20+ years experience) I have a hard enough time predicting
this week's football picks let alone what someone cares about 20 or 30 years
down the road. :>)

Now archivists, that seems to be a different story.  They appear to have the
ability (or so I have been told) of predicting what historians and other
researchers will be looking for, say 25 or 50 years from now.  Some
archivists I've come across who (I assume are not as good of forecasters)
believe we should keep everything because there could be someone in the
future who might want it for a study, book, research project, etc.

Now back to the original question.  As a records manager, I would consider
the archivists (as with all parties involved) views as it relates to the
retention of the records.  But they should not be dictating format or filing
system; that's the responsibility of the business user(s) with (I hope)
advice from the records manager.  The archivists' primary role is to
organize (2% to 5% of volume, depending on the organization) whatever the
business user provides them.  They are in essence at the end of the document
food chain.

My own experience is that if a filing system (whether paper or electronic)
doesn't meet the business users' needs they won't use it.  If that's the
case, why have one at all.

My opinions my own...

Bruce L. White, MBA, CRM, PMP

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