First, thanks for all the comments. I hope this causes some discussion
between the RM and IT factions in your organizations.

I asked because we have a couple of different moving parts here and I think
as more and more information is created electronically, and in point of fact
has no analog equivalent (databases, dynamically generated information, and
so forth), it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the system from the
record.

I asked the same question of a colleague and we had a brief discussion of
what protections are put into place for vital records - offsite storage,
multiple copies, fireproof rooms/vaults, etc. My premise is that when we
talk about electronic records, it's fundamentally different that with analog
records for a couple of reasons.

1. There is no such thing as an irreplaceable digital record. We don't have
things like notary seals, wet-ink signatures, thumbprints, and the like. We
have digital signatures, but those get to the same place using a different
mechanism. We don't have electronic records typically that are of historic
or archival value specifically because of the format - there is no "master
archival" copy of the electronic version of the Declaration of Independence
or the Constitution. And if there were, we could make unlimited exact,
undetectable copies of it because that's how digital information works.

2. Until VERY recently, there was no mechanism for backing up many
enterprise data stores that allowed separation of the record from the
underlying system. In the case of email, it's because backup tapes back up
the data store as a stream of 1s and 0s, not as individual messages. In the
case of transactional systems (ERP, SFA, CRM, etc.) the individual records
carry no connotation outside the data store and the underlying schema.

Note that the advent of ILM solutions promises to make this more readily
doable, and in the case of email, email archival systems can provide a
solution to this as well.

3. In the same vein, it is not individual emails or individual transactional
records that are of vital importance to the organization. I will posit that
there is no single email message in your organization without which the
organizational mission cannot continue. This is a bit of a straw man in that
in most organizations there is no one vital record without which the
organizational mission cannot continue. My point here is that it is the
electronic system, not the individual record, that is the focal point. The
transactional database must be able to complete transactions and rollbacks.
The email system must be able to send and receive email. In those cases
where the entire system is a record unto itself, such as for example the
payroll system, this makes sense. Email certainly does not rise to that
level.

Several posters indicated that one approach to vital records management is
the idea of duplication and dispersal. On an individual digital document
this makes a lot of sense; indeed, some of you may be familiar with the
LOCKSS ("Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe"; http://lockss.stanford.edu/)
approach to digital preservation. But the sheer volume of electronic data
being created by organizations on a daily basis makes this unwieldy at best
for the systems above. At a recent seminar I delivered one attendee
indicated her organization receives 3 million email messages a day. If these
messages average ONLY 10KB each, that's 28GB of incoming messages a day -
plus outgoing, forwards, etc. After 6 months (120 business days) that's 3.4
terabytes that has to be duplicated and dispersed. Not all of it's vital;
maybe not even 1% of it is vital. But it doesn't matter because it's not
readily separable as noted above. So when the disaster hits, the
organization now has to restore several terabytes worth of data, which will
take an extraordinarily long time.


The poster who indicated that this question underpins the disconnect between
RM and IT is correct. But it's an issue that I submit everyone on this list
who is a practitioner of one or the other of those disciplines should be
thinking about (and legal folks should take note as well). If RM doesn't, IT
will continue to build systems that do not take these issues into
account...and RM will continue to write policies requiring solutions to
intractable problems.

Regards,

Jesse Wilkins
CDIA+, LIT, EDP, ICP
IMERGE Consulting
(303) 574-1455 office
(303) 484-4142 fax
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http://www.imergeconsult.com
Yahoo!:  jessewilkins8511
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