The thesis is based on an extensive survey of users at different levels
(including records professionals), and is based on their personal
approaches to retention / destruction at home and at work; it is not a
study of organizational practices as such.

I'm quoting from memory here, but I think it was Terry Cook who pointed out
that the opposite of 'practical' wasn't 'theoretical', but
'impractical'. And as someone who walks both sides of the academic /
workplace street, I can say that I have come across some pretty impractical
situations in the workplace, where policies and procedures have totally
ignored Alison's psychology of filing along with the psychology of much of
the rest of individual and organizational behaviour ...

It is often perceived as a problem that research findings rarely seem to
offer any immediate usable 'solution', but it seems to me that part of what
the research is actually telling us is that some of the problems we grapple
with are essentially insoluble, at least in the terms that practitioners
hope for. The best scenario is surely a cross-fertilization between the not
insignificant bodies of both academic and professional research now being
carried out and the strategic and day-to-day business context. There may be
no direct and simple way to integrate the insights gained by good research
into practice, or those gained by thoughtful practice into theory, but that
doesn't mean that it isn't worth the attempt.

Regards,

Rachel
(Taking a break from all those retention schedules to do some more work on
PhD ;-)

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