Byrne Tony Byrne

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When an archive is not a records repository

1-Mar-2006

Tags: , Building Business Case, Industry Standards

It falls to records managers to point out important distinctions between a simple archive and a true RM system. It falls to the National Archives and Records Administration to set standards for both archives and records for the U.S. federal government. But as longtime observer J. Timothy Sprehe points out, NARA's recent recent "Federal Enteprise Architecture Records Management Profile" seems focused very much on "A" and very little on "R." Meanwhile some federal website managers complain about guidance suggesting that all .gov web pages are records. But if everything is a record, good luck managing it; the whole purpose of RM is to distinguish and label the truly important stuff. In an article on this site today, Alan Pelz-Sharpe makes the case for lighterweight "retention" in a world where enterprises cannot implement formal RM schemes across all their bulging content stores. But as Alan points out, the goal here is not to retain everything, and deciding what to keep is...a records management exercise.

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