Thanks to everyone for your insights and comments. Carl Weise wrote --- Make it Permanent - get out of my office.  From this I came up with the meaning of Permanent - we don't know what we are doing and we don't care. Have any of you experienced this initial reaction of not taking records management seriously from management? I have witnesses everything Carl mentioned in the past. Thankfully, this mentality is dying off fast with upper management(Thank You SOX) but many times the underlings don't realize it's a new day.

My main issue with "permanent" is how most of the non-records world uses it which mirrors what Carl described above. I have seen the joy in people's eyes when permanent retention is discussed. They no longer have to consider such tiresome subjects as retention and records management or even records professionals. The dialogue has ended at what they consider some abstract concept and there is no need to consider it further. I have seen this behavior repeated time and time again regardless of industry. "Permanent" retention seems to be a tried and true method to avoid records management entirely especially when it comes to electronic records.

Most of us know better. Managing terabytes of records/information is no picnic. Storage space is cheap but maintenance, bandwidth, and first tier server access are not let alone dealing with classification and indexing.

The reason I ended up in this quagmire was to cover records with retention that exceeds "Life of the Organization". These are records associated with possible CERCLA/Superfund/hazardous waste issues and successor organization liability. Those who have more expertise on Superfund liability can give a clearer explanation than I can about these issues. If your organization doesn't have these types of records, discussions about permanent retention has a much different tone than it does for organizations with these records.

I hit a raw nerve on the history issue. It was not my intention. I think there is a lot of focus on what has been preserved and that's wonderful. However, people have always wanted to keep their "important" records of business, life, and history so where are those records? Why aren't all of us in possession of our own collection of records/information artifacts instead of them being locked in exhibit cases in archives, libraries, and museums? With all of the history of the past 5000 years, why isn't there more than enough to go around? Surely not all of it was day to day mundane material.

I often wonder how big The Great Library of Alexandria's collection had become and the records of history and literature it contained that we will never know. The saga of the lost digital images of the first moon landing are a testament and warning about lack of practical consideration about "permanent" retention in our own time. If a civilization can't preserve the records of such a monumental event, what are the odds of preserving anything else for 300 years let alone "permanently"?

Rob Seibolt
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Senior Records Analyst
Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, MO
http://www.mriresearch.org/


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