Simone, your posting represents one of the reasons I post to this listserv:
I get great leads and ideas in response. I will follow up on HCI (which I
have had some exposure to), and hope you will find the time to share with
us some of your own experiences.

When we think of records management as primarily an exercise in risk
mitigation, it makes sense to reduce that risk to the greatest extent
possible through the imposition of "macro" organization standards at the
"micro" level. Generally speaking, the goal of those standards is to reduce
risk by ensuring records are disposed of as soon as possible in the "normal
course of business", or are readily available in response to discovery
requests. The principle custodial duty, therefore, of the individual at
their work station becomes compliance to those standards, to ensure that
regularity.

However, when we think of records management primarily as the development
and support of trusted records keeping systems, the above becomes self
defeating if Mr. Bailey's insights are accurate (and I believe they are).
In a nutshell: the individuals at their desktops are either unable or
unwilling to perform their custodial duties as defined by the
organization's standards. Those standards are undermined, and the system is
no longer trusted.

Perhaps we need to rethink records custodianship as both a set of
responsibilities, and as a set of needs - the closer we can align these,
the more trusted our systems will be. One way to do that is to align
custodial responsibilities: generalized organizational needs get met out at
the macro level - functional retention scheduling, SAP archiving, digital
repositories, email archiving, etc...; individual/small group needs get met
out at the micro level: consistent tagging, knowing what to delete,
appropriate use, organizing a shared drive, etc....

If a records system is trusted by the individual custodian, it would seem
that there is a greater likelihood that the aggregate of such systems could
be trusted at the organizational level. This implies empowering individuals
with the tools they need to develop their own individualized trusted
systems - trusted because such systems are responsive to their own needs in
carrying out their job duties. And most individuals will define a trusted
system as one that meets their operational, legal, fiscal and historic
(memory) obligations. They need help, though, in how to meet those demands
in a way that is meaningful to them, and that's where we step in.

-- 
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Multnomah County Records Management Program
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
ph: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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