I agree (not for the first time) with Bernadette. Here in Oz we haven't yet
got any legislation that I know of requiring retention by type of media. But
I constantly struggle with IT people particularly, asking how long emails
have to be kept.

Seen from afar, it seems to me that regulators in a couple of financial
sectors in the USA have become exasperated with the inability, for whatever
reason, of some firms to teach their staff how to recognise when a document
(email, IM) is a record. So they have simply ruled that all such messages
must be retained for a specified time, regardless of content or context.

Is this a trend? I think so.

So maybe the time has come - not for us to "give up" in some way or other,
but for us to adapt to the current and future environment, especially if we
do it in a way that RM'ers have always been good at: being practical. If
retention by media type and/or process isn't the way to go, what is? Because
whatever we are doing now isn't working. Frankly, if we don't adapt, as
things become even more electronic, and as storage becomes so cheap, and as
some rotten apples continue in their greed to flout the law and or basic
ethics, regulators will increasingly specify retention solely by media type,
data management will replace document and records management, and there will
no longer be any role for records managers.

And it's only Monday up here. Phew!

Glenn

Glenn Sanders MRMA
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Australia

These views are mine alone. They may or may not be those of any
previous or present employers or clients. I don't know. If I'd asked
and they'd agreed, I would have signed it "Harry Peck and Co and
Glenn". Or whatever. But I haven't, so I didn't.

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