I need the wisdom of the Listserv in what shouldn’t be such a problem.  
 
Part of my job is what I call a records management evangelist, trying to get our state’s city and county governments to develop their own records management programs.  Then I have to train them on how to do it.  But how does one start a program from scratch?  
 
It seems that everything I find in books and articles deals with training a records manager for an existing program or strengthening or promoting an existing program, but surprisingly very little on how to actually start one.  
 
This is the basic outline of what I have so far:  
 
	* Appoint an overall records officer (manager) and records liaisons for each department. 
	* Fund the records management program.  In our state, local governments can elect to charge an additional $1 to any document filing fee for their RM program.  
	* Conduct a records inventory.  
	* Identify and prepare storage areas for both active and inactive records. 
	* Make an initial purge of records already eligible for disposal.  (We issue statewide retention schedules, so local governments don’t have to create their own.)  
	* Establish policies and procedures.  
	* Train all employees in basic records procedures. 
	* Develop a disaster recovery / COOP plan that includes vital records.  
 These steps may not be in perfect order, but some can be done concurrently.  
 
It seems like I’m still missing something.  Any ideas?  
 
Tim Barnard
Local Government Records Office
Miss. Dept. of Archives and History 
 
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