Do you think Mail should be a part of Records Management?
Again No!

In my previous posting I also should have mentioned that the office of yesterday, where mail was a part of the records management function, does not exist any longer.  In the traditional office most employees used to be located in the same building, part of town, etc.  Today we are not all even located in the same province, state or country!  

Manager's are not even sometimes located on the same floor or sometimes building.  I am even finding that in some organizations the new Records or IM Managers of today are not even required to be subject matter experts, but rather good administrators!  

So in saying that, the traditional mail room, where mail was opened, classified, originals filed and copies sent out to offices will not work.  Organizations who are stuck in the old way of thinking about records management will be left behind.  Ask any professor who teaches IM and RM and they will tell you just how much has changed.  We have to grow with the times, evolve, adapt and be proactive instead of reactive. 

We communicate differently today, quicker and more expediently then ever before.  There are no state/provincial or even national borders to slow us down.  We communicate, like this list serve instantly around the world, using a cornucopia of varying technologies and devices.  The onus is more and more on each individual employee to capture records into a structured repository themselves.  This includes paper based records, such as mail and electronic mail/information.  

We as records folks have to provide the methodologies, processes, policies, guidelines, standards, tool kits, technologies, training and awareness to assist employees in doing this themselves.  Cheers.

John A. Gervais
Program Manager
Policy and Guidelines Section
Information Policy and Governance Division
Statistics and Information Management Directorate 
Corporate Strategies and Business Development Branch 
Canada Revenue Agency
320 Queen St., Place de Ville, Tower A, 6th Fl., 
Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1A 0L5 
Tel: 1-613-946-0245
Facsimile: 1-613-941-9649
E-mail: mailto:[log in to unmask]
 
 

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