Marissa Christman
LIS513 – Fall ’10
Assignment #5
It is a problem that the college’s personnel is not educated or motivated to change its
records situation. My next step would be to educate and inspire department heads. Management
will need to be involved in the program design and implementation so they will need to get on
board at this early stage. They can subsequently influence the rest of the employees by
mandating them to cooperate or by conducting/participating in educational programs. This
promotion of records management as a discipline will be an ongoing affair but an introductory
meeting with department heads would be helpful so they know what to expect as the college
converts to a centralized records management program. After I am convinced that management
personnel are on board with the undertaking I am pursuing, I would establish a project committee
to initiate general policies. At this early stage, I would establish, with the committees help, what
actions will be taken henceforth.
The most immediate problems must be addressed first. Records that are obviously
disposable (the criteria of which can be agreed on in the aforementioned committee meeting)
must be destroyed. It is a waste of time and money to inventory records that are clearly
disposable. I would create and implement an interim disposal procedure, approved by
management, so that this could be done as efficiently as possible.
My next step as records manager at Seneca Shores College would be to conduct a records
inventory. I need to understand the current state of the college’s records so that I can employ the
most effective solutions. This data can only be collected by conducting an inventory of the
college’s paper and electronic records. This would be a very labor-intensive, taxing process but it
must be done before I can establish and efficient system.
After I conduct an inventory, I would need to prepare a needs assessment and present it to
people who have authority within the college. I would present the needs assessment to the
department heads and to the committee I have created. I would then work with management and
other employees to establish a plan of action based on the conclusions that I have reached in the
needs assessment.
Likely to be at the forefront of this plan of action is the creation and implementation of a
comprehensive filing plan for paper and electronic records. Each department would need to
subsequently assist me in creating individualized filing plans specific to their office. After these
plans are approved by management, they must be implemented. I would need to interact with
office personnel and perhaps I could conduct seminars to introduce the new filing plan to the
employees who will be responsible for executing them. I would involve the IT department in the
implementation of the electronic filing plan.
As part of executing the filing plan, I would assist in transferring inactive files to storage.
The development office, for example, no longer needs to house the large volume of fundraising
records that are rarely referred to. These may be transferred to the storage facility. By this time, I
would have a firm grasp on which other files are active and inactive based on the results of the
inventory conducted earlier. I would also consider records series that are candidates for digital
imaging. One such candidate would surely be the security office’s incident investigation case
files. The office can no longer accommodate the volume needed, they are referred to often and
they must not be moved. Another good candidate for digital imaging would be the Finance
department’s ledgers. They are referred to often and are, presently, difficult to retrieve. For the
past 14 years, the ledgers are already in an electronic format, so digitizing the paper ledgers that
also referred to often might be a good idea. The electronic versions could possibly be the official
version of the ledgers, making the paper copies the preservation copy.
The electronic filing plan would help to make these digital files accessible to all who
need them but I may, at this time, consider investing in an ECMS. The college seems big enough
to make the cost of an ECMS worth it but this step would have to be discussed with management
personnel and I would have to conduct a costs/benefits analysis to determine whether an ECMS
is the right choice for Seneca Shores.
Once the active files are in order and functionality is restored to the department offices, I
would initiate the development of a college-wide retention schedule. This would involve the
committee of department heads and perhaps additional personnel from each department.
Developing a retention schedule is made easier by the information I already have from my
records inventory. The retention schedule would establish the difference between records and
non-records, establish which records are transferred to storage and which are disposed of after
they are no longer needed for reference, as well as establish which stored documents are
destroyed and when. At this point, I would inform the director of development that the various
publications and printed materials are non-records. Since they are not produced during the
normal course of business, they can be disposed of once they are no longer used. At this point I
may want to create, propose and impose some document destruction procedures.
Once each record series is assigned a retention period, I may create and execute a filing
plan for the storage unit. This would involve purchasing storage supplies so that all records are
stored in appropriate, like containers. I would also, at this point, install a system to regulate
temperature and humidity within the storage units, paying special attention to the units housing
permanent records. I would create and implement this filing plan with the understanding that the
filing scheme should lend itself well to the retrieval techniques I will need to employ. Thus, the
next step would be to create and implement a retrieval system for inactive records.