Records Management policy

There is much from this week’s readings that applies directly to my personal experience in the insurance business. In this paper I will cursorily compare my experience of setting such a policy and relate that to the key principles highlighted in the articles assigned.

Early in my career, I was not very cognizant of the importance of, or even the need for, keeping good records; although my job functions as a claims adjuster were almost entirely dictated by that need. Procedurally, I was guided into a path of following the records management policies, without really understanding them, the impact of not following them (except that my job would be in jeopardy), or certainly why they existed in the first place. As time went by and I progressed in my experience and responsibilities (and after more detailed training was given), it became more and more clear that there were many legal and good business practice reasons to follow the records management policies of my employers.

The real understanding and recognition of the importance of establishing and following such policies came after opening my own business, a small insurance agency. Then I realized it was my own livelihood on the line if I failed in this records management activity. When I had to purchase my own professional liability insurance to cover me against my own errors and omissions in my professional practices, it became more apparent that records management policies were very important and that I had better put some down on paper and start following them.

Tracing phone conversations, email communications and other customer requests became paramount in daily activities. No slip of paper could be discarded without first verifying that every detail was documented electronically, and then in most cases the paper was saved in a customer folder just to be sure. Being able to reconstruct the transaction, should there ever be any doubt what the customer did and did not request (adding or removing coverage) was the key objective.

The principles described by Shepard and Yeo are the foundation for good records management. To be sure, it was these principles that guided me in the process of establishing a records management policy in my small agency. I had to first recognize the need for a policy and then, as Shepard and Yeo suggest, I established broad parameters from which I could build a policy statement and procedures.

As I think of it now, it is apparent that saving space and cost reduction are real concerns for any business, but as a small fledgling business these were not very key considerations at the time. There weren’t any records yet and space was no problem. The real motivation for writing my own business procedures is found in the Lee article. Lawsuit avoidance can certainly be a strong motivator! I suppose altruistically, I hope there was some sense of wanting to do a good professional job for customers, too, but admitting the truth, fear of not doing it right was a more powerful force behind my taking action.

The eight components set in the Australian Records Management Standard (Shepard & Yeo, pg. 249-50) are exactly the steps I followed, albeit less formally and, to some extent at least, unintelligently. Just sort of stumbling through the process, some things are obvious. There has to be some investigation and analysis of an entity’s business practices in order to determine where a policy or procedure is needed. Identifying records handling and archiving requirements and matching that against existing procedures is the only way to figure out what needs to be changed or newly established. But, it is worth noting that these components work in the real world and are not untested academic or professional theory.

Records management policies are established to enable an entity to function professionally and to protect that entity against charges of malpractice or malfeasance. Maintaining proper records allows a reconstruction of a transaction and the events leading up to that transaction. The ability to accomplish these tasks timely and easily makes all the difference between an entity following good professional standards and one that does not.

Lastly, as a question for more thought on the subject, using my little scenario as an example, I wonder if it really matters what is the overriding motivating factor in the development of a records management policy, or is it simply sufficient that a policy has been established, for whatever reason?

Week 3 Readings

Managing records in the electronic age: Geoffrey Yeo and Elizabeth Shepherd. (2000). London: Library Association Pub. Chapter 8 (e-reserves)

Hunter Gregory S. (1995). Developing and maintaining practical archives: A how-to-do-it manual. New York: Neal-Schuman. Chapter 2 Conducting a Survey and Starting an Archival Program (e-reserves)

Lee, Andrew R. “Keep or Toss? Document Retention Policies in the Digital Era.” Louisiana Bar Journal 55 (December 2007/January 2008): 240-247.

Laurie Fischer, “Condition Critical: Developing Records Retention Schedules,” Information Management Journal, Volume Number 1, (January/February 2006), 26-34

Abstract from DSAL Preservation Project Grant Proposal

This project creates a significant new and previously unavailable corpus of digital materials that will be of interest to scholars of all disciplines in the humanities, particularly those students, scholars and researchers interested in doing groundbreaking work in the emerging field of digital humanities. By making available a combined total of over 24,000 early audio recordings, survey maps and postcards from the British India, this project will immediately greatly expand the scope of available historical resources from the Indian subcontinent. It will also nicely complement resources currently available through the University of Chicago’s Digital South Asia Library (DSAL), which include over 100,000 photographic images, statistical abstracts, books and journals, dictionaries, and a myriad of other reference resources. DSAL provides digital materials for reference and research on South Asia to scholars, students, public officials, business leaders, and other users and is the most significant central repository of digital reference materials on South Asia.

The Digital South Asia Library (DSAL) places utmost importance on making its resources available to the public for the long term. By ensuring that the collection, preservation and presentation of these newly digitized materials is compliant with the most recent standards and accepted practices and that DSAL has a well-articulated and coherent long-term preservation strategy, we will make certain that DSAL digital resources are available for the long term. The work plan, methodology and standards adopted for the ingestation, migration, preservation and presentation of the over 24,000 early audio recordings, survey maps and postcards funded through this grant will be extended to the entirety of the DSAL digital collection.

The primary objective of this project is to present these materials to a diverse community of teachers, researchers, and students with a shared interest South Asian studies and to provide a framework for the long term preservation of this materials. This will be accomplished through delivering these materials through the World Wide Web and assembling a structure of bibliographic descriptions and supplementary resources to provide the context necessary for understanding these materials. It is our objective that this will provide for both the physical and intellectual access to these materials. This access will be provided for by making use of existing frameworks within the University of Chicago and unique frameworks that will be developed during the period of the grant. Because of this, the approach developed during the course of the grant will allow for the long term access and preservation of these materials, beyond the initial grant period.

(Full Grant Proposal available in Kent R. Palmer curriculum vitae.)

DRAMBORA Tool Evaluation

The DRAMBORA toolkit document appears to me to be very thorough and well thought out, and the progressive steps of the audit process are straight forward. It makes sense to me to follow in sequence from identification of risks, to assessment of those risks and finally to the establishment of risk treatment strategies. I found the toolkit it to be an easy to follow and self-explanatory guide for auditing digital repositories. It seems also to be flexible enough to handle almost any repository. Further, I believe the concept of basing a repository audit on risk assessment principles to be ingenious. Why else would one audit a digital repository, if not to safeguard against any and all risks of loss of the usefulness of its information?

My praise should not be taken to suggest that all is well. At times, the process in DRAMBORA seems a bit redundant, and I suppose one could argue for a consolidation of some of the worksheets. Tasks 8, 9 and 10 come immediately to mind. Each of the final three worksheets repeats the preceding sheet’s information and then adds a new step. However, it is important to take things one step at a time in such an exercise as auditing a repository. By waiting to assess risks until all risks have been identified and logged, for instance, keeps one focused on the whole of the repository at the time of assessment. In this manner it seems much easier to keep perspective about the comparative impact of a single risk when assessment comes in an organized functional sequence. Ultimately, in my view, combining the identification, assessment and evaluation of risks into the same functional step is too much to deal with at once and may overwhelm an auditor.

There is some minor repetitiveness in some of the other worksheets as well, for example where repository objectives or mandates may include initiatives that address legal issues, such sources of information may be included in multiple worksheets. We found that the same information may be listed in worksheets 2, 3, and 4, for instance. In our group we decided to handle this repetitive entry by listing the same sources of information in multiple worksheets, as long as the focused perspective of each worksheet was the cause of listing the item.

The repetitive issues did not seem that significant to me, and certainly they were not so problematic that it interfered with or belabored our audit process.

I did not find the audit project particularly difficult, but it was rather laborious and tedious, which I suppose was to be expected for audit work. All of my working experience with audits, performing them and being the subject of them, tells me this is so. But, the step by step approach of DRAMBORA keeps everything organized and very simple to follow. In the end, I liked the toolkit document, and I think the approach is a good one.

There are some aspects of IDEALS that are somewhat inflexible because of its affiliation with a University. This is especially noteworthy in the face of severe budgetary confinements. A corporate repository may have different capabilities and freedoms to respond to audit findings, and in fact, may encompass an entirely different need for an audit in the first place. With limited abilities to respond to the audit findings, IDEALS may find itself in a position of foregoing action on certain recommendations. However, this should not preclude the repository from undertaking a thorough audit of its processes, obligations and risks. It is important to understand the risks and to take action where possible. Even if some glaring risks cannot be addressed, at least the repository management becomes aware of them and can anticipate needed future changes to eventually handle the potential risk. By bringing these risks to the attention of the University’s provost and other executive leadership, such leaders will not be caught off-guard about potentially substantial financial losses as a result of the occurrence of certain events.

In my opinion, the DRAMBORA approach works fine for IDEALS. I did not perceive any significant challenges employing the audit methods for this repository. The audit steps are not complicated nor are they restrictive in their application. This flexibility, I think, allows wide-spread applicability of DRAMBORA.

As to the DRAMBORA project being useful to me in terms of its educational value, I think of some other experiences that give me reason to say confidently that is was very supportive of excellent learning outcomes in this class. For instance, in March, I participated in the GSLIS’s alternative spring break program and spent a week at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. I mostly did some job shadowing in five different departments at this brand new facility (opened in May 2009). My experience in the digital preservation department was very rewarding, as I observed ingest, migration, audit, and archiving of text, audio and visual digital objects, some born digital and others taken from analog documents. In class, we had just finished our grant proposals in which we constructed a workflow for a digital preservation project. As I sat with the manager of the DP department at CHL, he described the workflow that his staff follows every day, which was exactly what we had just written in the group assignment. He, as did we, used the OAIS document as the basis for the workflow.

I cite this experience for two reasons. First, it is only one, but perhaps the best, example that I have found everything we have done or discussed in this class has been right at the forefront of the digital preservation world. When I discuss the concepts and principles with DP professionals, those discussions have confirmed their pertinence to real world issues. Based on that track record, I have no doubt that DRAMBORA likewise has contributed significantly to my understanding of the digital preservation process.

Second, I mention the CHL experience because it, as well as the DRAMBORA project itself, is another example of how learning through experience is the best way to learn. My experience at CHL went a long way in transitioning my understanding of the information presented in class into to real and memorable experiences in my mind. I will remember what I learned about OAIS much better for having some hands-on experience with it in a digital preservation department.

In an article about the constructivist learning theory, Cooperstein and Kocevar-Weidinger point out that learning comes from experience, and not the other way around. So, the experience of DRAMBORA (among other things in this class) has contributed greatly to my education. If we were to simply talk and theorize about auditing repositories, some of us would show up for work one day and still not know how to perform an audit. Now that we have actually completed an audit, we will be more confident, capable, and prepared to do the next one.

For a first iteration of the risk assessment based audit method, I found DRAMBORA to be quite comprehensive, and yet, user-friendly. As an old insurance guy turned librarian, I noticed DRAMBORA’s adherence to the same risk management principles used by organizations, large and small, to manage their physical exposures to loss. With that in mind, I expect DRAMBORA will only get better as new iterations are released, revised according to experiences with the first and succeeding versions.

Works referenced:

DRAMBORA, Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment. Digital Curation Centre and Digital Preservation Europe. Toolkit document, Release: Version 1.0, 2007.

Cooperstein, Susan E. and Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger. “Beyond Active Learning: A Constructivist Approach to Learning.” Reference Services Review 32 (2004): 141-8.

AUTOCAT Forum Essay

There were actually six different AUTOCAT forum threads to review in the past 5 weeks with email subject headings involving series. Three of those threads are included in this summary. Since they are all relatively short, consisting of an initial question and one or two responses, it seemed appropriate to combine them together for this review. The lesson learned from tracking these emails is that AUTOCAT, or any similar open response informal catalogers forum, is a very useful and timely way to get assistance from a broad cross-section of cataloging practitioners. The email threads will be summarized here under the subject heading of each thread. A concluding paragraph of this summary will synthesize some general thoughts on the AUTOCAT Forum.

“Is this book really in the stated series?”

Jack Hill, manager of cataloging services at the University of Houston Libraries asked about a book he was cataloging. The book is apparently part of a series, but he could not find the name of the series on the book, but he did find it in the OCLC record. He asked for verification that the book was truly in the series as indicated in the OCLC database and whether or not someone could tell him that the volume actually mentions the series somewhere.

The only response came from Kimberly Montgomery, Electronic Resources Cataloger at the University of Central Florida Libraries. She cited a bibliography website, where she found the book and confirmed that it is in the series, but also identified a misspelled word in the series title that jack had shared. Thus, additional sources of information beyond the book in hand were apparently consulted to complete this catalog entry.

AACR2 rule 1.6A2 allows use of information recorded from the chief source of information or from any other source prescribed in the following chapters. AACR2 2.0B1 allows information from any part of the publication. Using information from an online bibliography seems to be outside of the sources of information rules in chapters 1 and 2.

“Series in record, not in book”

Gene Fieg, cataloger at Claremont School of Theology, was unable to identify the source of the series statement, since it was not given in the book in hand. He also wondered if the Cataloging in Publication (CIP) entry was more correct than the OCLC record or the Library of Congress (LC) record and notified the LC to check their copy. His reason for bringing it up in this forum was that he did not want to change the OCXLC record until he knew the source of the information.

Mark Ehlert, Coordinator of Bibliographic & Technical Services at the University of Minnesota responded by citing Google Books, where he found the first printing of the work. In that facsimile copy he found a series statement on the title page verso and gave the web link to it. Another responder, Rich Aldred, Catalog Librarian at Haverford College, also confirmed from a copy in Haverford’s collection that the title page verso did indeed include a series name.

Once again, this issue falls into the arena of having a verified chief source of information (CSI). The cataloger could not find the series name in a CSI, and was perplexed as to how the OCLC record could include the series name. He got his answer from an acceptable CSI from a digital copy of the work.

“Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures”

Gene Fieg asked another question in this thread. He was cataloging a serial publication that had a set of MARC 490 and 830 fields. He was a bit confused that the serial is shown as part of a series that also includes monographs. Combining two different types of bibliographic resources into the same series does seem a bit confusing.

Someone named Guy Frost, who did not leave a signature on his email, responded to say that this is not so uncommon. He indicated that there are many government publications that mix serials (usually annuals) in with their monographs in a series. Further, he went on to say that many of the federal government agencies, citing specifically the U.S Dept. Of Labor, also do it.

Jennifer B. Young, Serials Catalog Librarian at Northwestern University Library, observed, “It means that some libraries have chosen to treat this as an analyzed monographic series instead of a serial. Looking at the serial record – it has SrTp: m - which means it is a monographic series.”

Kevin M. Randall, Principal Serials Cataloger at Northwestern University Library, followed that with a comment or two of his own. He wrote, “While Jennifer Young appears to be correct in noting that "Perspectives on Hebrew scriptures and its contexts" is a monographic series, as noted in (OCLC)80561037, I think this particular situation is a bit more confusing when looking at the record Gene was referring to for "Perspectives on Hebrew scriptures", (OCLC)124120745. Jennifer's record says it's a title change from Gene's record; but Gene's record says that it is a subseries of the title cataloged in Jennifer's record.”

Kevin then suggests that obviously one of the records has to be wrong. He makes some guesses as to what is going on and what needs to happen, including the revision of the cataloging of one of the records. However, he can’t say for sure since he does not have the items in his collection. The thread ends without a final solution, since no one else has responded.

The AACR2 Glossary in Appendix D defines the terms series and monograph. A series is understood to be a group of separate bibliographic items related to one another by bearing a collective title in addition to each item’s own title proper. A series may also be each of two or more volumes of essays, lectures, articles, or other writings, similar in character and issued in sequence. The third part of the definition of a series is “a separately numbered sequence of volumes within a series or serial”.

A monograph is generally considered to be a resource that is complete n one part, but the AACR2 definition is expansive to include resources that are intended to be completed within a finite number of parts.

These definitions help to clarify how these two different bibliographic resources, monographs and serials, can end up being placed together in a series.

Conclusion

The experience of reviewing specific topical threads in the AUTOCT forum, not to mention the hundreds of additional email subjects not selected for this essay review, shows in a significant way the power of such a forum. Catalogers from around the world are using this forum to find answers to daily work-related issues that just don’t seem to be answerable when one person is focused on the task. Incorporating collaboration from hundreds of other interested and trained cataloging practitioners into one’s sources of information has to relieve a great deal of consternation.

The assignments in this cataloging class have at times seemed impossible to answer. A frustratingly large number of hours can, at times, be spent thinking, studying and poring over sources to find the answer to a complex problem. Perhaps, in some small way, working on class assignments has put members of this LIS507 class in the same position as work-a-day catalogers who face similar challenging problems without an instructor to “save” them with the right answer. What a relief it must be to have a forum with the power of collaboration of strong minds that can come together to aid a colleague facing that frustrating dilemma of not knowing exactly what to do about a particular problem.

Sources Referenced:

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2^nd ed., 2002 Revision, 2005 Update. Prepared under the direction of the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR, a committee of: the American Library Association … et al. (Chicago: American Library Association, 2005)