<But when speaking of electronic records one must define the type of
e-record  being discussed. Are they structured, i.e. a database or
unstructured i.e. word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations and other
desktop applications?>

Definitely need to define the type of e-record (nice term) when looking
at applying RIM principles.  As I said earlier, unstructured e-records
(word-processing, spreadsheets, scanned images, etc.) behave more like
hard media records than structured e-records do.  It is easier to adjust
hard media methodologies to apply them to the unstructured e-records,
but they still do need to be adjusted.  There is metadata to take into
account, as well as setting rules for defining document properties (that
funny box one opens in MS documents), indexing criteria (is it software
driven or a separate e-record), naming conventions for the
e-documents/files (size limitations or truncation), and so on.

Ginny Jones
(Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI)
Records Manager
Information Technology Division
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities
Newport News, VA
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