Anne, The expertise of a professional is required to provide input to this inventory, and it is generally not very useful unless an interview has accompanied the collecting of data. Sending a "form" to every duty station would provide very shallow, and perhaps inaccurate, data for the purposes it is being gathered for. An inventory requires a skilled professional since all records management activities proceed from it and the level of accuracy it represents. This data is going to be analyzed for many different purposes, possibly including the construction or revision of records schedules, so it needs to be very reliable in terms of function analysis, etc. Hope this is useful. Elizabeth A.S.Elizabeth Fairfax, MA, CA Island County Records and Information Management Program e-mail: [log in to unmask] x5569 -----Original Message----- From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mckeage, Anne Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 8:38 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [RM] Question re records inventories I am an archivist who has been asked about records management so I need to ask the experts. I am wondering if records inventories are still compiled using paper forms from which data can be inputted into a database or is there a piece of software that could be sent to the desktop of every person being asked to participate in the records inventory? Thanks for your help with this. Anne Anne McKeage Archivist/History of Health and Medicine Librarian HSC 1B31 Health Sciences Library, McMaster University Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: x22928 -----Original Message----- From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven Whitaker Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 11:42 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [RM] New York Times article on Digital Archivists Sounds like records & information management. Best regards, Steve Steven D. Whitaker, CRM Records Systems Manager; City of Reno >>> [log in to unmask] 2/9/2009 6:07 AM >>> http://tinyurl.com/begyrf Could see a whole new job series in the Federal Government records arena. Regards, Jim Cassedy James Cassedy Archivist, Work Group 4 Leader LifeCycle Management Division (NWML) National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740 [log in to unmask] (301)-837-1584 301-837-0380 (fax) List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message. mailto:[log in to unmask] List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message. mailto:[log in to unmask] List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message. mailto:[log in to unmask] List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message. mailto:[log in to unmask]