Dear all:

I thought it would be a good idea to answer Sue's thoughtful questions. I do hope all of you are making your own comments in the ARMA Forum section on our international strategy. People like Sue have worked hard for years to help us understand our short-comings with regard to addressing the "International" in our name.

What does internationalization mean for you, as North American members?
* Do you think that increasing international membership will assist you? Yes
In what ways? First, by giving a fresh perspective on problems, second, by providing me with information about what is going on in other countries that will affect my clients, third, by bringing up new problems that I knew nothing about.
* Do you think that collaboration between the ICA and ARMA is useful? Yes
How? The ICA keeps us grounded in the most fundamental problems of records management: how do we make order out of chaos and support all stakeholders interests with no money, few people, and no political support.
Should other similar liaisons be developed, and if so, with whom? With whomever finds common cause with us.
* Do you think that ARMA should become an international umbrella body for the records profession, or should it remain the US professional association, leaving another professional association (or association of associations) to act as an international forum?  (Like the languishing International Records Management Council, or IFLA, for those of you familiar with the librarianship world). Personally, no. My experience with uber-associations is that such bureaucracy stifles creative solutions.
* Is internationalization of ARMA important to you? Yes, please see my previous post on ARMA being “international.”
* What does internationalization of ARMA actually mean to you - i.e. what do you understand by this term? That we begin the dialog with non-anglophone people who have problems records management can solve.
* What role do you think ARMA might play in internationalization in Majority World countries, where ARMA fees, in US dollars, are prohibitive, and such members have the same chance of attending an ARMA conference in the US as flying to the moon?  Let's face it, it's expensive even from Australia! Having now eaten dinner in Tromso, Norway where a Burger King meal for one adult and one child cost US$30, I have much less sympathy for the first world’s ability to attend ARMA conferences in the U.S. than I did at the beginning of the summer. Third world countries, where, for example, one Sri Lankan rupee is worth about a penny, have more of my sympathy. I honestly do not know what solution we can provide, but I know that we have many very smart people on the board and HQ who can figure out a way to make this work. There are other perspectives, though. Why must we meet only once a year and only in North America. Why can’t we do what the ICA does and have a meeting on a differen
t continent or region every year?
* In order to be international, should ARMA allocate funds to the translation of all documents and publications into languages other than English, and, if so, which languages? Where there is a demand, we should translate. I believe there is some demand for Spanish, French, and Chinese. Because of colonialism, most of the world reads those languages. Because of the Internet, much of the world is learning to read English. We do, however, need to translate with some judiciousness. I don’t believe translating everything willy-nilly will be useful for anyone.
Which non-English journals do you read regularly? I read nearly everything on the ADBS web site relating to “documents.” That includes four or five French journals.

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

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