Dear Patrick:

In light of what you write and of my entirely subjective and biased view, a RIM prescriptive standard is unattainable and a non- prescriptive one is useless for a simple reason: records management is neither a specific activity or a technological requirement, but a field governed by a discipline made of theory, methods and  practices. There can't be an effective holistic records management standard any more than can be an effective holistic archival standard that regulates the entire archival endeavour. Some records management activities within each records management function can be standardised the way one can standardize archival description, but not the entire archival field. This is why the creation of an updated 15489 standard was destined to fail, in my view. The original one came at a time when the discipline was not completely developed or recognised in many countries, but now it is established and its body of knowledge is substantial and substantive to the point that it cannot be constrained in any one standard. In fact, an entire master's program could be developed only to deliver such knowledge, though I believe that archival programs which deliver records management and archival knowledge in an integrated way are much more effective as the theory of the records is one, as is appraisal theory, access etc. 

A standard professional behaviour in records management is the result of professional education in the records management discipline and can only be achieved by organizations through the hiring of competent and qualified records managers. The hiring of RIM specialists is not obtained by issuing a records management standard, but through other standards requiring organizations to create of a RIM office with specialised RIM officers, such as the Canadian Standard Board's 72.34 standard on Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence, which, incidentally, has just been revised and whose new version will be published before the end of the year. Such standard contains entire sections on RM program, policy, manual, etc. and a clear relationship between RM and IT. 

Lobbying the appropriate ISO and national standards committees for the inclusion of RIM requirements in the standards they issue is in my view the best way to go.

My two cents, 

Luciana

Dr. Luciana Duranti 
Professor, Archival Studies
School of Library, Archival, and  Information Studies
The University of British Columbia | The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
470-1961 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Phone 604 822 2587 | Fax 604 822 6006
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Director I Centre for the International Study of Contemporary Records and Archives
www.ciscra.org
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