WHAT IS

RECORDS
MANAGEMENT
Short introduction to records management
Definition

■ Record: A document regardless of form or medium created, received,

maintained and used by an organisation (public or private) in the transaction
of business, of which it provides evidence.
FORM OF RECORDS

■ Paper – egs: correspondence, minutes, reports, memoranda (normally filed

systematically), ledgers, registers, notebooks, appointment diaries, maps and
plans (cartographic records), architectural and engineering drawings,
pictures (iconographic records) or computer printouts.
■ Non-paper – egs: roll microfilm, microfiche or computer output microfiche
(COM) formats (microforms); photographs, including prints, negatives,
transparencies and x-ray films; sound recordings on disk or tape; as moving
images on film or video (audiovisual records); and also ELECTRONIC
RECORDS
NATURE OF RECORDS

■ Static
■ Authoritative
■ Unique
■ Authentic
STATIC

■ If a record is changed or manipulated in some way, it no longer provides

evidence of the transaction it originally documented.
■ For example, if someone alters the minutes of a meeting after they have
been approved, the minutes can no longer be considered an accurate record
of the meeting.
AUTHORITATIVE

■ Records provide the ‘official’ evidence of the activity or transaction they

document.
■ Records must be reliable and trustworthy. The reliability of a record is linked
to its creation.
■ Who generated or issued the record? Under what authority? Can this
authority be proved? Signatures, letterheads, seals and office stamps are
obvious indicators of the official nature of records.
UNIQUE

■ Records are unique in the sense that, maintained in their appropriate context,
they are a component in a unique compilation or sequence of transactions.
Records are not isolated bits of information.
■ They have meaning because they were generated during a particular
transaction or business process.
■ The records make sense within the context of the overall functions and
activities of the individual or organisation that created or used them.
■ They have a relationship with other records that makes them unique.
AUTHENTIC

■ It must be possible to prove that records are what they say they are. The
authenticity of a record is derived from the record-keeping system in which it
was created or received, maintained and used.
■ A record is authentic if it can be verified that it is now exactly as it was when
first transmitted or set aside for retention.
■ Think again of the minutes. In order to prove that the ‘official’ minutes are in
fact authentic, it is necessary to be able to show that they were produced,
approved and then filed appropriately in the organisation’s record-keeping
system.
ISSUES

■ One of the dangers today, with the advent of sophisticated information

technologies such as computers, is that information can be extracted from
the record that originally conveyed it and taken out of its context.
■ An electronic version of the minutes can be altered and could replace the
original version without anyone noticing the difference. Similarly, new
versions of the minutes could be made using electronic technologies, just as
in the examples earlier, and as a result no copy can be guaranteed to be
authentic.
CATEGORIES OF RECORDS

■ Public records: Records created or received and maintained in any public

sector agency.
■ Private records: Records created, received and maintained by
non-governmental organisations, families or individuals relating to their
private and public affairs.
RECORDS AND ARCHIVES

■ Archives: Records, usually but not necessarily non-current records, of

enduring value selected for permanent preservation. Archives will normally
be preserved in an archival repository.
■ Archival institution: The agency responsible for selecting, acquiring,
preserving, and making available archives. Also known as an archival agency,
archival facility or archives; sometimes referred to as an archival repository.
■ Archival repository: A building or part of a building in which archives are
preserved and made available for consultation. Also known as an archives.
RECORDS MANAGEMENT

■ Records should be well managed in order to ensure they are protected for
both administrative purposes and to serve as evidence of the organisation’s
work. The process of caring for records is known as records management.
■ Records management: That area of general administrative management
concerned with achieving economy and efficiency in the creation,
maintenance, use and disposal of the records of an organisation throughout
their entire life cycle and in making the information they contain available in
support of the business of that organisation.
PHASES OF RECORDS

■ Current records: Records regularly used for the conduct of the current
business of an organisation or individual. Also known as active records.
Current records will normally be maintained in or near their place of origin or
in a registry or records office.
■ Semi-current records: Records required only infrequently in the conduct of
current business. Also known as semi-active records. Semi-current records
will normally be maintained in a records centre or other offsite intermediate
storage pending their ultimate disposal.
■ Non-current records: Records no longer needed for the conduct of current
business. Also known as inactive records.
RECORDS MANAGEMENT ACTION