Managing Electronic Records

Managing Electronic Records a compilation of essays addressing strategic, tactical and operational aspects of managing e‐records. It will be valuable reference for information specialists in a variety of settings.

McLeod and Hare have put together a collection that is balanced in its coverage and scope. The contributors are senior experts in their fields, with varied backgrounds; consultancy, academia, archives, knowledge management, IT and organisational development. The editors provide a concluding chapter which draws together the fundamental points made by each contributor and provides a context for moving forward with the determined management of digital assets.

Access to specific areas of interest is helped by the addition of an index. To make it easy to follow up on references provided in the text, there is a companion web site at www.facetpublishing.co.uk/managingelectronicrecords

There are three case studies, two French, set in the private sector and one Australian, based in local government. These encapsulate the overall themes of the collection; that managing electronic records is a strategic challenge, and that the issues are the same all over the world. Each case study describes the implementation of records management systems, and each case the system is applied in the context of a knowledge management approach. In each case the benefits include elimination of labour‐intensive processes for hard‐copy documents and other workflow improvements.

Implicit in this approach is a recognition that records managers and archivists are not the only players in the game. One of the goals in publishing this book was to share expertise and experience across domains. This volume has much that will help practicing records managers to further the working alliances and power networks that are so critical to good practice in recordkeeping. Records management players include IT and systems administrators, general strategists such as executives and managers, as well as everyone who contributes to the creation and use of electronic records. While its not likely that the collection as a whole will be widely read outside of the recordkeeping world, it may well be that individual chapters will serve well to introduce non‐records specialists to some of the specific challenges involved in managing electronic records.

Throughout the rest of the book, the editors have sought to maintain this focus on how and why records are of value in today's workplace. Thus the chapters on metadata, standards, preservation technologies and legal issues each provide concise overviews of their area without losing sight of the practical and strategic challenges from a wider organisational perspective.

In the first chapter, McDonald identifies a set of infrastructure components required for an advanced management environment. There include; standards and practices, systems and technologies, human resources, management frameworks, and leadership. He identifies the major factor impeding the development of records management infrastructures as being the absence of policy frameworks that codify accountability for information and records.

Without a wider organisational framework that supports the required transformational changes, records managers will find it very difficult to be effective players at the policy level. Laeven's chapter challenges the tacit assumption that records managers have the necessary competencies to move their organizations towards ISO 15489. The main job of records managers is to engage with other IT, organisation and information specialists who are not generally concerned with records, in order to defend the interests of recordkeeping. An EDRMS project is a good opportunity to implement a competency management plan which goes beyond the specialist skills to include organisational competencies. The learning cycle proposed by Laeven is designed to explicitly empower records managers, in part through helping senior management to understand and define what records and records management mean to the business.

In general, the 12 contributing authors are concerned with managing records in the short to medium term. Marciano and Moore's chapter reviews the development of data grids to provide preservation environments in which digital objects may be managed in perpetuity. They describe technologies being applied across several very large collections (the Electronic Access Project and National Science Digital Library persistent archive) as well as in smaller repositories.

A chapter by Xiaomi An outlines emerging global research agendas and takes a closer look at the key elements in the success of the InterPARES projects.

Every chapter in this volume is thought‐provoking, however Harris's chapter, “Ethics and electronic record‐making”, raises some very serious concerns and should be essential reading for all records managers.

Both Hare and McLeod have a depth of experience in developing and delivering learning programmes and innovative training in records management, and they have put together a collection that will provide key readings for records management courses at all levels. What sets Managing Electronic Records apart from standard texts such as Shepherd and Yeo is that it is contains much that will assist records managers with their key task, that of influencing others and leading change initiatives in the organizations. Those looking for immediate advice on selecting and implementing one of the products currently in the marketplace will not find it here, rather, the readings in this collection taken together deliver a salutary reminder that this is a long game with evolving rules. The volume provides much encouragement for everyone facing the challenges of creating an environment for better exploiting the value of organisational records.