I agree with John Dowling and Jay Maechtlen that records may be used in more
than one context. They are, as John notes, "official" in whatever context
they are being used. I personally think the term "Official Record" is an
unfortunate usage that so far as I'm aware is largely confined to the US and some
international organizations, very possibly because of US leadership in the
creation of several international organizations. I first came upon the term when
I inherited the archives and records management function in the information
services division of the World Bank in 1987. It had a very special meaning in
the Bank not related to anything yet noted in this thread but more to do
with making distinctions between certain legal documents and other Bank records.
(Again, the term "legal" implies that other records might not enjoy legal
status, which of course isn't and wasn't the case.) I would like to have
abolished the term, since it gave rise to the question: if these are "official
records" then do we also have "unofficial" records? But it was a practice too
deeply established to do that.
Copies of records are every bit as much "official" as "originals". Their
authenticity and integrity may be challenged when they exist outside of a
trustworthy recordkeeping system, but then so can records maintained within the
system. This is particularly true with electronic records. The Federal Rules of
Evidence, affords originality to all electronic incidences of the same
record. Thus, it recognizes multiple originals. Though not exactly the same
concept, it is reminiscent of the medieval concept of "exemplifications" such as
there were with the many originals of Magna Carta. John Dowling is saying in a
nice way that we should be controlling all incidences of a record, not just the
ones in the recordkeeping system. What is the point if we say we have a
system to properly control records in our organization and that they are
properly disposed of in accordance with established disposition management
schedules, if there are great numbers of copies all over the organization after the
fact? I believe that an opposing attorney could make mincemeat of an ARM system
that was managed this way, and likely along with it the organization's legal
case.
It may not be so clean cut with paper records. Coming to Jay Maechtlen's
question: might different copies of the same record be considered distinct
records in their own rights. This happens in special cases. There is the obvious
situation in which a record comes into an organization from the outside --
e.g., an email to an employee in support of one or another of his/her
organization's business processes. It can be an original record in both organizations
maintained in different file plans, subject to different retention schedules,
etc. Another example, much more prevalent with paper records, is where there
is important marginalia written on the recipient's original but not on the
creator's "carbon copy". Historically, and very much contingent on the
established ARM procedures to handle records, the creator's version of the record is
considered the original, not the recipient's, of which there may be the TO
addressee and possibly many CC addressees. But where an executive has written
an "OK" or "Disapproved" in the margins, that clearly becomes an important
copy of record. In such cases, both such records should be captured and
preserved together.
With electronic records, we don't often see cases of embedded comments in
electronic documents other than drafts, though this could very well change over
time. What is more common is that there is a separate response (and separate
record) indicating action to be taken or not. For example, there is the
famous John Poindexter email to Oliver North that said simply, "GOOD WORK. LET’S
DISCUSS AT LUNCH." Lunch-date junk-mail? Not quite. It was in reply to Oliver
North's earlier em: "Done. I believe we have succeeded. Deposit being
made tomorrow [today is a bank holiday in Switzerland], release of hostages set
for week of 19 May in sequence you have specified. Specific date to be
determined by how quickly we can assemble requisite parts. Thank God - He answers
prayers. Y/t, North"
Poindexter's reply clearly confirmed North's assertion about Poindexter's
role in setting the sequence of events and gave sanction to North's actions.
And also got both of them a criminal conviction for which they received
presidential pardons. This exchange might be seen as a precursor to the modern
alternative for marginalia. Two separate records, no doubt. Much of this will give
way to the trend toward integrating recordmaking and recordkeeping within
business processes, including many approval/disapproval or other decision
actions as part of workflow processes that are, or are embedded in, the business
processes. In the meantime, I think we have to do our best to ensure the
proper disposal of all records according to established schedules.
Regards,
Rick
Rick Barry
_www.mybestdocs.com_ (http://www.mybestdocs.com/)
Cofounder, Open Reader Consortium
_www.openreader.org_ (http://www.openreader.org/)
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