As one of the people who posts regularly to this august forum, and one of
the view that has "a variety of initials", I'm gonna respond. No idea if the
shoe is perceived to fit or not, but here goes. A lot of the posts that I
make question those basics of records management, not because I don't
understand them, not because I've never cracked a box (or the pile that used
to be a box after full boxes were stacked 8 boxes high), and not because I
wanna "gotcha" anyone else on the list. 

I want to think about how those basic principles apply when we create
several orders of magnitude more information than was created when those
principles were established. 

I want to think about how those principles apply when we store more
information in a year than was created in 100,000 years of human history. 

I want to think about how those principles apply when the paper is
inseparable from the typewriter used to create it (to torture an analogy for
e.g. databases, data warehouses, perhaps even email with attachments). 

I want to think about how filing changes given a) an unlimited capacity to
classify using a variety of techniques and b) an unlimited pile of stuff to
classify. 

I want to think about how filing changes given that electronic stuff doesn't
distribute the same way as physical. For example, term digit filing doesn't
make sense in my world. Neither does the distinction at the margins between
vital records and non-vital records in the electronic environment. (No, this
is not an invitation to begin a thread nor a flame). 

In short, I want to think about how the principles that were set forth by
really smart people who were in or ahead of their time apply in our times
and moving forward. I am not a big fan of buggy whips. I don't want to throw
the baby out with the bathwater, but I also don't intend to take at face
value those principles that don't seem to work in certain circumstances. And
I certainly don't intend to follow those principles merely because they are
promulgated either by people with OTHER letters after their names (CRM, CA,
CDIA+, FAI) nor because they are espoused by practitioners with 20, 30, or
more years of experience in something that may not apply in some cases. 

This is not meant to be an attack on Larry. I simply disagree with his
assertion that those who ask must be ignorant of even the basics of RM. The
basics of RM ain't the same as they were 30 years ago. 20 years from now I
expect I'll be on this list lamenting the fact that people don't understand
the basics of XML or the basics of e-discovery or the basics of records
management as I envision them c. 2007. But it won't be any more valid in my
opinion - and I hope that someone else on the list will question those
"basic principles" as I have and will continue to do. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Jesse Wilkins, CDIA+, edp, LIT/ERM, LIT/EDIM, LIT/ECM, MIT, ICP, e-Biz+,
i-Net+, ERMP, ERMS, ERMM, ECMP, ECMS, ECMM
[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance