Yes, there are a few companies that will do content level tracking of
physical records and have enhanced interfaces to allow their customers to
access records' content remotely. And that can be a very good option for
internal RM Programs with limited IT support. However, Records Managers need
to be clear that all of the content metadata has to (usually) be created by
themselves or their organizations at a cost to their internal staff
(time/staff's ability). If the outsourced storage vendor does the indexing,
they may or may not have personnel knowledgeable about the clients' files or
subjects. Any major subject level content indexing or metadata creation
would need to come at some cost received back from the outsourced storage
vendor (time/staffing available) - which would be a reasonable expectation
on their part.
The idea is garbage-in/garbage-out. Nothing-in/nothing-out. Someone needs to
understand the records sufficiently well to be able to provide content
metadata, and the in-house creators of the records and the records
management personnel are usually in the best position to create that
information. Since there is today a major push by internal IT systems
support and software vendors to have Records Management functionality be
either 1)a retention module of Content Management system that is "capturing"
electronic records, or 2) a business rule that assists an application like
e-mail archiving, it will be increasingly difficult to justify having
"record-at-a-time" indexing of either paper or electronic records by anyone.
For valuable physical records that have been created or received, there will
be for some time a need to consider creating enough content metadata to
recall them from wherever they are - internal or off-site.
John
********************************
John T. Phillips
MSLS, CRM, CDIA, FAI
Electronic Records Management
Consulting, Education, Research
Information Technology Decisions
www.infotechdecisions.com
865-966-9413
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Dean Sturtz
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 11:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Tracking your inactive records.
As an owner of a Records Management Company I recognize my larger
competitors in your statements and the truth of the historical storage
business model.
However, we do exactly the kind of services that you are talking about, at
no charge and in fact they are part of our regular, daily service. I
believe there are many companies like us out there that are much smaller
than the gorillas in the industry, but much more responsive in servicing a
companies needs.
The kinds of services we offer our clients to help them manage the records
include but are not limited to:
1. Web based access system to view the box and or file information.
2. In addition to Barcode, Client Carton #, Department, Expiration
Date, From Date, To Date and Department we can offer up to 9 additional
reference fields that the client can name to help them track their records.
3. At the file level we can do the same thing.
4. Access to this data base is managed by the client with varying
levels of ability.
5. Training (in person and phone) and access is at no charge. Our
thinking is that the more you do on the web, the easier your life and ours
will be.
6. You can add new cartons/files for us to pick up directly through
the web
7. You can track a carton/files historical access record to
determine who has been in it.
8. Plus a number of other services that would be of value to any
records manager.
I am limiting this because I do not want to be a commercial. We are not
CRM's and in fact have used the threads on the listserve to improve our own
education and understanding of what people like your selves need.
We also have clients that do exactly what you depict, a box number aligns
with our barcode, and their descriptions and detail stays in an access or
excel spreadsheet in their office. This is a decision they have made for
their internal risk assessment, not a limitation of our system or
capabilities. We love it when an entity has a person like yourself that has
that metadata detail for us. With less than a thousand CRM's in the world,
we are fortunate to get to talk, much less work with one or two.
Just to answer the question before it comes up, we use DHS Total Recall out
of Jacksonville Florida and have been very happy with its capability and
their response to our customizations. We have been in business for
3 and 1/2 years and have over 160 clients, have a Firelock Vault: yes we are
disciples of Hugh Smith ;) and love this business and working with our
clients!!!
To sum up I believe there are many smaller companies like us that can and
want to do exactly the kinds of things that you would be looking for!!!
An argument might be that a smaller company is more expensive in our storage
costs being smaller, and I would argue that if you sum up your wish list for
all these services that you want, and received a cost from that big storage
company, a company like us would be a very economical buy.
A. Dean Sturtz
Vice President
Advantage Records Management & Storage
Phone: 319-363-2727
Cell: 319-533-3706
Fax: 319-363-4050
[log in to unmask]
www.AdvantageRMS.com
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