>
> Larry, one of the notable things about this particular situation is the
> lack of involvement by any records management professional.
>
> An editorial today on this......<Beaverton officials> were incompetent and
> negligent for allowing
> the city's least experienced technician, who had a record of losing
> data, to extract files in the Nike case from a computer drive....


And this is what we've spoken about here time and time again, the lack of
the understanding of IT to manage information effectively. And don't
misunderstand this comment to mean they should be able to do it on their own
and it's their fault if they don't... the problem is they don't know how to
ask for assistance when they DON'T understand the request and they assume
they understand what to do.

And this isn't ITs fault alone... the city attorney is who probably received
the request, and rather than taking the time to analyze it and involve the
proper parties, the knee-jerk (operative word here is JERK) reaction was to
go to IT and say "give me all of this information pertaining to this/these
subjects".

And going even deeper, this is a perfect example of the problem with the
recent penchant of IT to implement what they call "ILM" with respect to
electronically stored information repositories.  The focus is on usage
patterns and moving what is less frequently accessed to less expensive means
of storage to result in "more efficient use" of storage.  This doesn't speak
at all to the need for retaining like information with like retention
periods in similar environments to enhance the ability to access and use
information that is related when you need it. The fact that you haven't
accessed something for 2-3 years has no bearing on it's value or it's
required retention... but it certainly has a bearing on the ability to
produce it when it's needed.

Thanks for keeping us abreast of the developments in this case, Dwight.

Larry

--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance