While I appreciate the postings about the Big Bucket Theory, my question
was directed at the practice of managing all ESI as records for
discovery and FOIA purposes, regardless of your definition of a record.
Is that a sound/necessary practice?
Bill Manago, CRM
Director, Records Management Practice
CA, Information Governance
Tel: +1-954.482.2977
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Tod Chernikoff
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Everything is a record until it is not
During another discussion about the GAO about a month ago I posted the
following from my notes at my local ARMA Chapter meeting. It is the
basics of the GAO BBT schedule. IIRC for those records which do not fit
into any of the buckets, they rely on the GRS.
Mission - 5 year retention from the close of the case/file * This bucket
holds Testimony, Engagement & Investigation Case Files, Engagement
Management Files
Policy & Special Collections - Permanent or Long-term retention - This
bucket holds Agency Reports & Publications, Legal Decisions,
Historically Significant Engagement Files, Agency Directives,
Senior Executive Files
Administrative - 7 year retention from the close of file or end of year
- This bucket holds * Budget, Building & Property Management,
Congressional Relations, Equal Employment Opportunity, Finance,
Freedom of Information Act, Library Services, Human Capital, Information
Systems & Technology, Procurement, Safety, Travel, Etc.
Tod Chernikoff, CRM
[log in to unmask]
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Jesse Wilkins" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 12:36
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [RM] Everything is a record until it is not
Let me also make one other point. IIRC, records management started out
as space management - in other words, since organizations couldn't keep
everything for forever due to space, there had to be a way to
distinguish between "stuff to keep" and "stuff to get rid of". That's a
fundamental first principle of records management.
Many of the classification schemes we've created over the years - Dewey
Decimal, LOC, etc. have then been used as a mechanism to provide
metadata to the physical world. Indeed, the analogy for poor
metadata/indexing is often that of a library with all the books piled in
the middle of the floor, or with the books on the shelves but their
covers ripped off, etc. A filing cabinet really isn't much more than
record+metadata - why is this paper put in this folder, drawer, cabinet,
room, etc.
So put these two together and you end up with the traditional
paper-oriented records retention schedule that is doing double duty for
retention and findability. If you dissociate those two things, and I'd
argue in the electronic world you not only can but should, then
retention goes back to being what it started as: what to keep and what
to get rid of. Sure, you could make hundreds or thousands of rules based
on the specific requirements of dozens or hundreds of statutes and
regulations - or you could say here are 3 buckets: Short-term (less than
a year), mid-term (1-10 years), and
long-term/undetermined/permanent/whatever. Make it 4 buckets. 5 buckets.
Whatever. The point is, and the point I think most of the BBT proponents
make, is to use the right tools for findability and to make retention as
simple as possible. Again, that may mean a slightly higher storage cost
and a slightly increased risk that you'd produce something that might
have been disposable earlier. But those risks in most cases and for most
organizations are acceptable compared to the benefits of understanding
and complying with retention requirements.
Regards,
jesse
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already
present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of
the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
|
