Dear Stephen and Luciana, I think it is important in relation to this
discussion to differentiate between:

1.  Areas of practice - primarily what these threads have been referring to.
Practitioners need associations and resources, may or may not refer to
theoretical discussions on topics as published in peer-reviewed journals,
and work in a number of jobs with often obscure and very uninformative job
titles that may encompass records management (and many other things
besides).
2. Fields of knowledge - which is what a peer reviewed journal could help
evolve with respect to records management.  Right now, records management
draws very heavily on archival theory, and rightly so.  Archival theory has
grown and developed because there are universities devoted to teaching and
researching in this field and peer-reviewed journals devoted to publishing
research and providing a forum for theoretical discourse.  There is no such
place for discourse on records management as a field of knowledge in NA.
The question arises as to whether, as a field of knowledge ( separate from
an area of practice) records management is distinct from archival science.
Luciana would say no, but the fact still remains that for an academic who is
doing research purely on records management i.e., questions of how to manage
records in organizations or how the management of records affects
organizations or societies, the archival journals are not a good fit.
Unless you can somehow make your research speak to questions of archival
appraisal or say something about the definition of records or expound on the
theory of provenance, there is not a very good chance your work will find a
comfortable place in an archival journal. Research on records management
that addresses how it affects the operation of organizations will find a
happier home, I would suggest, in journals devoted to the management
sciences.  

To me, this situation suggests that there is an academic conversation to be
had amongst all those people who write about records management research
from various perspectives.  Rather than trying to find homes in archival
journals, or management journals, or the many other disciplinary journals
that may be relevant, a journal that could bring RM researchers together in
a conversation would be ideal to help evolve an understanding of records
management as a field of knowledge. It has been pointed out that the RMJ
fulfills this role for an international audience.  I'd hope that at least
one NA archival journal might be persuaded to broaden its mandate, at least
for one issue, to publish more research on RM in the NA context.  I also
support the idea of at least an e-journal in North America to supplement the
many other journals that are out there.  I think ARMA should help fund it,
and suggest that a consortium of universities that teach RM in NA could
contribute to managing/editing it.  I also think that ARMA should try to
broker arrangements to provide its membership with access to other RM
journals, such as RMJ - there is good content in these (it's not all
abstract ivory tower theorizing).  


Dr. Victoria Lemieux
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
1961 East Mall
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6T 1Z1
(604) 569 1160
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www.ciferresearch.org

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