<snip>
Imagine having this discussion with your grocery store... "What you LIKE
chocolate ice cream?  Well, if you eat this VANILLA tofu-based ice cream
like product long enough, you'll get to like it, and it's easier for ME TO
BUY AND MANAGE so give up your chocolate ice cream, because it isn't
convenient for me."
</snip>

Larry, are you referring here to the "5-buckets is us" storage vendors or
the "classically-developed, several thousand-bucket with 5, 7, or more
levels, and all but incomprehensible to casual users, process analysts, IT
administrators, and even many records managers" records managers? 

'Cuz the response I hear most often when this topic comes up is NOT from
storage vendors but the latter - or rather, the users who have to interface
with them and are expected to file stuff appropriately in such a system.

<snip>
well, the way I see it is they're providing a service, so what they need
doesn't really matter... it's their job to provide what their client needs.
And seeing as their clients fund what they do, then it should be incumbent
upon them to learn a bit about their clients business model and find a way
to develop products and services that meet their needs, not to develop their
own and spend time trying to convince their client's they're doing things
the wrong way.</snip>

Hear, hear - and too many of US on this list could be the "they" you
describe. If you go back through the archives, every time this has come up,
at some point someone notes that the schedule/file plan/classification was
developed by experts who know information, know records, know the business -
and know better than those users. And those users better wise up and do what
they're supposed to do. I'm paraphrasing of course, but that theme comes
through quite often on this topic. Users are supposed to do what they're
being paid to do - and THAT AIN'T RECORDS MANAGEMENT (not applicable to
actual records managers or staff). 

As I have repeatedly noted in these threads, I don't have a magic number of
buckets, but I'm a big proponent of Einstein's approach: "Make everything as
simple as possible, but no simpler". If you make 5 buckets for a complex
organization, that may be too simple. I have not been a global records
manager, but I have trouble envisioning how to make sense of 4,000 buckets -
and I have a pretty good imagination. Where's the happy medium between? Ah,
there's the million-dollar (or more!) question. 

I think the combination of bigger buckets, metadata both manually and
automatically collected, and full-text indexing and search can be very
effective from both a usability and a retention perspective. I didn't get to
attend Dr. Cisco's presentation but I would be surprised if she didn't make
similar points. And I heard from people on the list the last time this went
around that they had taken a similar approach and were quite successful. 

I am not here disparaging any individuals on the list, any individuals NOT
on the list, the retention schedule development traditions, or the
profession at large. But when lots of groups from lots of backgrounds and
with lots of agendas are all rethinking the traditional approach, including
the profession most immediately affected by it, I think it is incumbent for
all of us to look at it dispassionately, thoughtfully, and considerately.

And as I got Larry's follow-up before I finished this missive, let me
respond to that note with this question: Who is going to take the time to
sift through tens, dozens, or hundreds of documents per person per day to
determine which ones are records?

Respectfully submitted, 

Jesse Wilkins
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