>How confident am I that the people who sit at my desk in 10, 20, 30 years
will have the interest, expertise, resources, governance, staff time, and
budget to accomplish renewal of electronic records?  
>In general, I am not willing to oblige successive generations to records
maintenance if a minimum-maintenance storage option is currently available.

>>
>>There are two separate issues:
>>Managing/Policy - How long to keep specific content - this is an RM issue
>>Procedural/Practical - How to keep the content accessible. (Here is were
it is easy to conflate the two because at some point this is also "managing"
the media.) Be it paper or on cd, or fax, or ZIP drive, 5.25, SD, thumb
drive, whatever....this is an RM and IT issue
>>
>>We'll need to roll the content forward onto new media or new technologies...
>>
>>The firm decides on the policy, it is my responsibility to see that the
records are viable for as long as that policy states.
>>


Actually it's correct to state the firm/organization/owner of the
information makes the decision based on the value or necessity of ensuring
the information remains persistently accessible for as long as it is
required to be retained to meet obligations, whether these are legally
mandated, of a business need, or for some intrinsic enduring value of their
content.

The organization assigns responsibility for implementing the practices to
meet the policy to someone in a position on their staff- that might be the
Records Manager (if there is one) or some cadre of Administrative Staff, the
IT Department, who knows? Some organizations assign these responsibilities
to a contractor or consultant- but it's still policies and practices that
establish the course of actions that need to be taken.

Conversion and migration is inevitable for information that has to be
retained for extensive periods of time, and plans need to be made to ensure
this happens proactively (including quality control and validating content
following conversion/migration) in advance of any degradation or
obsolescence occurring.  And as much as some people hate to hear it... in
some cases this may include a hard copy option for a minimal group of records. 

I guess what I'm getting at is it doesn't matter what the individual in the
role wants or thinks is appropriate, it's what the organization needs to
meet their requirements and objectives for managing their information
assets.  The decision isn't up to an individual to 'oblige others' to do
certain things, or to select the easiest option available now- it's to make
plans for the future to remain in compliance with the policy and obligations.

Larry
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[Yes, it's really me =) ] 

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