Setting the Standard for RIM.

A significant event this year is the expected adoption of an international standard for records management programs and practices. Committees in 80 countries have reviewed this 11-part standard, ISO 15489-1: Information and Documentation -- Records Management -- Part 1: General, which has been in development for more than two years. This is the first widely accepted standard for records management programs, and it will have significant impact on records professionals and on the development and evaluation of programs around the world. Recognizing its importance and value, ARMA International has participated in the process and endorses the standard.

Jim Connelly's "The New International Records Management Standard: Its Content and How It Can Be Used" provides an overview of the standard. Connelly sees the standard as an opportunity for alert information professionals to improve existing programs as well as develop new ones. The availability of such a widely recognized benchmark may offer the persuasive ammunition needed for management endorsement. Information management professionals whose organizations do business outside the U.S. will often be expected by business partners to comply with this standard as well as those others that carry expectations of quality in information handling (e.g., ISO 9002).

Can an ancient educational model be welcome in an era infatuated with a technological future? In "RIM: A Liberal Arts Model," Charles Chase asks that we consider the records and information manager's future not in terms of an ever-increasing specialization in information technology (IT) but in having a sound -- if not comprehensive -- knowledge of four areas: records and information management (RIM), business process design, law, and IT. These are Chase's four cornerstones in his liberal arts model for RIM. The liberal arts approach to education is credited to Aristotle, but it is quite viable today: Each educated person should first have a general knowledge in several areas rather than a deep knowledge of only one field. The former paradigm allows us to see larger issues, to interact more effectively with those in a wide range of occupations, and to coordinate intelligently the work done by those from different fields.

Chase, himself a systems specialist, wonders why such a high percentage of IT projects either have to be redone or fail completely. Having seen the phenomenon at close range, he suggests that the problem is not a lack of IT talent. Rather, it arises from an escalating usurpation by IT specialists of business process design. Lacking in detailed IT knowledge themselves, business generalists have permitted a classic case of functional authority, one in which advisory staff specialists take over decision making from line authority.

Chase's solution is sound: Based on the four cornerstones, RIM professionals are in a unique position to move into the center of management decision making. We can do this by using our knowledge of all units of the organization to facilitate strategic planning, communication, and cooperation among all those who are stakeholders in information systems. These include an understanding of the business process needs of the affected department, the essential IT issues, the legal concerns about the system, and the essential RIM issues.

In "Electronic Records and the Right to Privacy," Charles Booz challenges records and information managers to step forward and assert the value of personal privacy in an electronic age. Privacy must be balanced with access, and the information professional is often in a better position to address that issue than IT specialists. Booz explores the philosophical, political, and legal roots of personal privacy, with some emphasis on the strengths and weaknesses of The Privacy Act of 1974 and The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1994 as instruments of privacy protection.

As electronic records systems developers become more aware of records management issues, we should push for built-in functionalities to protect individual privacy. Standards, such as the U.S. Department of Defense DoD 5015.2, should be examined for their commitment to privacy protection. Here, a review of the privacy canons in ARMA International's "Code of Professional Responsibility" would be in order.

Also in this issue of The Information Management Journal, Mike Faber reports on the emergence and development of the commercial information services industry. From Emmett Leahy's pioneering work in the 1940s has arisen one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the records and information management industry: the commercial records center. Here we find RIM leaders who have pioneered in records management software, electronic vaulting, secure Web-mounting of customers' records, and now radio frequency identification technology, which, with global positioning satellites, make it possible to know precisely where a record, file, box, or reel of magnetic tape is located. What is the health of the commercial information services industry? At the 2001 annual conference of Professional Records and Information Services Management (PRISM), Richard Reese, CEO of Iron Mountain, told attendees that, including the international scene, some 90 percent of the market for commercial information management services remains to be explored.