Hi everybody,
I've been off the List for over a year now.  Signing back on last week. I'm
delighted to see some old "E-friends" still in there fighting the battle
for good records management, and many interesting newbies too.    Perhaps
my first message in a long time will provoke some controversy...I've been
following this thread but haven't seen the following point of view.

The major flaw with printing e-mails in order to have a "copy of record"
for purposes of evidence...is that it is the easiest way to destroy any
valid evidence.
You lose the meta-data...unless you print off the E-record audit trail
(provided THAT is printable), you won't have a validated sender address,
valid time etc. But more important, you will not have a record of any
CHANGES to that e-mail content and won't be able to demonstrate that you
did NOT change the e-mail post-receipt.

If you are using Notes, for example, you can double-click on a message in
your inbox.  This puts you into "edit" mode.   Now type in some new
content, for example, delete the sender's words "you are a terrible
archivist" and type in "you are a wonderful archivist" (useful, isn't it,
for your next appraisal).
Now is the moment to print off the e-mail and "save" it in your ring
binder.  Forever in the ring binder, waiting for Discovery, it will say
that you are "wonderful".  There will no no evidence that this was not in
the original message as received.

HOWEVER, you cannot save it in your electronic system as is.  In order to
"close" the message after "edit", you must agree to "save the change".  In
that case, the fact of a change, as well as its date and time  will be
recorded in the audit trail/meta-data attached to the message.

It is just this absence of any post-receipt manipulation of the message
that you want to be able to produce and stand by, should there be any
discovery.
Much better to archive your entire e-mail "box" onto long-term
non-rewritable E-storage media, (and let the "discoverers" shoulder the
burden of coming up with the software to read it years later...)

That's my two Euros' worth from Strasbourg, France

Susan
Susan Vaillant
Director, Data Protection Compliance & Records Mgt
Quintiles Europe
[log in to unmask]
phone: +33 (0)388 77 44 52
cell: + 33 (0)683 379 389
mailing address: B P 306, F-67832 Tanneries Cedex, FRANCE











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