Ellis has brought up an important issue, where does records management begin and end?

I began my career as a real records manager in a law firm where all we dealt with was document control, creation processes and maintaining the complete record of activity for a matter. The only conversation I ever had with the attorneys about retention was to suggest that files created by attorneys who had died for clients who were dead were good candidates for saving space.

I argue quite often with "content management" analysts about what a real records manager does. They are always surprised to hear we have anything to do with intellectual property, business processes, and how to handle the information of employees who have left the organization.

My own opinion is that we should be responsible for managing the full life-cycle of information whether we call that records, documents, or data. When managing that information requires us to deal with document management, content management, records management or word processing applications we should be up front about how it works.

Just my opinion. What do you think?

Best wishes,
Carol
Carol E.B. Choksy, Ph.D., CRM
CEO
IRAD Strategic Consultant. Inc.
(317) 294-8329

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