At this point, I would say it will be difficult to strengthen this Standard unless the NFPA themselves decide there is some benefit to the Standard.  As we have seen over the last 14 years, who NFPA allows to be a members of the Technical Committee determines whether the Standard become more stringent or more lax.

For those only lightly familiar with the Standard, there were once two Standard (232 and 232 AM which dealt with archives)  and everyone was happy.  Like the Garden of Eden pre-apple.

But then the OMB decides to let commercial records storage companies bid on government records storage.  NARA sprang into action to defend their turf and placed a representative on the Committee to combine the two Standards.  Their goal was to make storing government records so costly and unique that Commercial Records Centers would stay out of the arena.  Archival Standards were placed on typical records centers and compartment sizes were limited to 250,000 cubic feet of records.

The Standard was rewritten to the new highly restrictive size, which the NFPA was happy with, the insurance companies were happy with as they made losses be potentially reduced and insurance losses reduces  by simply limit what could be exposed.

All was well........  Until corporations, commercial records centers and others calculated the costs in construction and efficiency of staff.  Then the fight was on.

Originally ARMA and NARA were on the same team and with the insurance companies and fire protection engineers.  But NARA didn’t have the stomach for a big fight because in the end government is run by lobbyists. So NARA took their ball and went back to DC and voila!  36CFR was born and even here they were thwarted as the commercial records centers decided to just build a few centers to meet the 36CFR and government records continued to flow out into commercial centers.

ARMA was also lured away from the fight. Who knows why.  Sponsorship dollars and so on. The most knowledgable guy about Standards, who served and headed ARMA’s Standards committee was told that they would just let Staff handle it. Then it got fuzzy because ARMA’s staff really isn’t records managers or CRM’s or ICRMs or even RM’s they were merely convention people who would sell their soul for a few more booth rentals at the annual show.  They were encouraged to de-emphasize Standards and they did.

And low and behold they no longer paid for anyone to attend the NFPA meetings and their influence there became even less.

And at the same time the Government was writing all sorts of laws talking about the need to protect records from destruction and even spoliation, and HIPAA, HITECH, PII, and many others laws talked about punishing corporations and hospitals for loss or exposure of vital information assets, the Standard which was titled “Protection of Records” has been left to founder.  It is almost a conspiracy novel except it is truly non-fiction.  (Grisham  pay attention. We have had one mysterious disappearance and other strange doings. Threats to members. Unfortunately no beautiful heroine to champion for the good guys.)

So now we move to that part of the book where we find out if the good guys can stand up and save the day.  The NARA of National Treasure Fame no longer exists.  The records managers who could make a difference by joining the 232 Technical Committee simply don’t have the time to attend the meeting and battle for truth, justice and the American Way. It requires two days of meeting twice in a year and then 3 years off before the next two days. 

Maybe if NFPA converted to “Go to Meeting” format so those who could not travel could participate electronically we could grow the committee with good guys.

Larry, is that about right?

Hugh Smith
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