Tim, obviously these fellas are not attorneys, if they claim that
everything must saved.  The best place that I can think to look for
additional information would be the ARMA web site.... at
http://www.arma.org/legal  There may be some additional good sources for
your review available through the site.

Douglas P. Allen, CRM, CDIA+

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Tim Barnard
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 9:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] E-Mail Archiving - RM vs. IT again

Well, I knew this would come up sooner or later.  I just hoped I would
be better prepared when it did.  

Background:  In 1996 the state created an office within state archives
to help local governments manage their records, along with a committee
to meet quarterly to review and approve retention schedules submitted by
or through that office.  Ideally, fine.  Reality, it's a one-man office.
Once the core schedules were approved, he's spent more and more time
directly helping the smaller cities and counties sort through their
years of records, since only a few counties and cities have formal
records managers.  The committee now rarely meets.  In the meantime we
can't dispose of any unscheduled records.  Correspondence, including
e-mail, hasn't yet been scheduled.  

Our situation:  Our minimal Internet policy, developed by IT, doesn't
address e-mail retention.  Since e-mail goes through the main server
directly to the user's PC, most people I've seen either save everything
or delete everything.  Most people consider records management to
involve only the old boxes and books in storage (what else is new?).  

I was eating lunch yesterday when a "roving meeting" moved into the
lunchroom.  It was among our IT head, our imaging system's vendor, his
IT head and two people from the ECM software company they use,
discussing an e-mail archiving system.  I listened in, then inquired
about it with both our IT head and our vendor's IT head later.  The good
news is that the archive will save only one copy of every e-mail coming
or going through the server; the bad news is that they believe that we
must save every e-mail forever.  They haven't gotten to retention issues
yet, but didn't agree with my opinion on the matter ("The courts say you
must save everything," they said).  

I know we shouldn't be deleting emails that could be considered records
until we get retention schedules, but in the meantime I see no need to
save junk mail, personal mail, Listserv mail and such.  I need something
in writing from a reliable source to show them that we don't have to
save everything and shouldn't save most e-mail beyond a certain point
("normal course of business").  And, unfortunately, that has to be more
"official" than a Listserv response from Larry or Peter.  I've found two
books in the ARMA bookstore, "E-Mail Rules" -- one author is a
consultant to the software vendor -- and the ANSI/ARMA standard
"Requirements for Managing Electronic Messages as Records."  Can anyone
recommend something that would directly address the court issue?  

Tim Barnard, Records Management Clerk
Harrison County, Mississippi
[log in to unmask]
Phone (228) 865-4121 Fax (228) 865-4140

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