As usual Larry, some very good points.  We have had people leave our 
organization and forward on their Director, floppies or CD's of the 
content of their hardrive and network space.  The point I was making was 
that most people (me being one) would not know where to start and 
certainly do not have the time or inclination to spend days looking for 
information.  Of course, this all depends on where that person fits in the 
pecking order of the company and their responsibilities. 

"You're right... if an EDMS, ERMS or CMS is in place and the user was a 
node
on the system, MOST information that reached the status of a record SHOULD
be there. However, there are systems that don't take in ALL content, and
there may be information that is stored uniquely on hard drives at the
desktop level."

In our EDRMS we distinguish between records and documents.  This was done 
for the very reason described above where information that does not meet 
record requirements and yet is still very important, will be retained. 
This is where policy and rules comes in place.  We discourage storage to 
the hard drive and encourage storage to the network or to our EDRMS.  If 
you follow this approach, you either have the backup of the network drive 
or the flexibility of being able to find information through searching 
within the EDRMS.
 



John Annunziello
Records Information Specialist
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
5 Shoreham Drive
Downsview, Ontario M3N 1S4
(416) 661-6600 ext. 5272
fax:  (416) 661-6898
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