Comparative review

Article Type: Comparative review From: The Electronic Library, Volume 27, Issue 3

Managing the Crowd: Rethinking Records Management for the Web 2.0 WorldSteve Bailey,Facet Publishing,London 2008,192 pp.,£39.95,(hard cover),ISBN 978-1-85604-641-1

Understanding Data and Information Systems for Recordkeeping,Philip C Bantin,Facet Publishing,London 2008,352 pp.,£44.95,(soft cover),ISBN 978-1-85604-627-5,

Keywords: Records management, Relational databases, Decision support systems, Worldwide web

Records management may not, on the face of it, seem like one of the most riveting of topics. However, it actually offers some of the most significant and demanding possibilities in current information science. A formula that looks something like:

Transparency + RecordsManagement = GoodGoverence

begins to explain the importance of the topic. Transparency bids fair to become an overused cliché,yet the way it evokes conditions that can make democratic society and ethical business function is not to be ignored. Transparency without access to documentation is of limited value. It is documentation that reveals the lines of responsibility that can be the basis of restoring balance to troubled systems of state and corporate governance and putting better systems in place. Yet documenting transactions in the electronic age is an enormously demanding exercise. In the days of paper records, there was need for little more than storage space, a set of filing categories and a clerk to put the documents in their right places. Today the documentation is immense in quantity and elusive in form. The professionals who grapple with this are potential heroes of the information age. Two recent books from Facet Press make this abundantly clear and do so in contrasting ways.

Bantin, originally published in the USA, offers detailed and weighty coverage of a host of current issues that may not at first strike one as being obvious parts of the records management domain. They include relational databases,decision support systems, data mining, email, metadata and many related topics. Bantin seeks to bridge the technical information that the modern records manager needs to understand to meet the requirements of modern governance. He moves from an account of the creation of modern records through to the systems for record keeping that are available. The laws and regulations which impact on record keeping are also dealt with in detail. Thus, for instance, the USA Patriot Act is well-known in the information world because of its use to obtain reader data from libraries in the hope of identifying subversive activity. Other, less well-known laws such as the [US] Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which addresses corporate fraud by requiring high levels of accountability from publicly listed companies,have global effects. The law also requires compliance from non-US companies whose shares are traded in the US markets. This has deep reaching implications for corporate record-keeping in the US and elsewhere. The same process in reverse can be seen with European data protection laws such as the UK Data Protection Act. The Act’s Eighth Data Protection Principle requires that personal data will not be shared outside the European Economic Area, except where it receives adequate levels of protection. Only US companies that have signed up to “safe harbour” agreements can participate in this necessary sharing, creating another need for compliance work and record-keeping. Because such detail is handled clearly and effectively, Bantin is extremely impressive as a reference source and basic text on modern records management.

Bailey is much more an ideas book. It offers a challenging thesis regarding coming to terms with web 2.0 via records management. The intention is to set out the problem that web 2.0 content presents for records management and develop guiding principles for those whose job it is to come to terms with it. Applying the firm controls that records management has traditionally offered to web 2.0 may seem like trying to herd cats. Bailey does not really seek to deny this. Instead he offers guidance intended to help records managers include challenging forms within some sort of zone of control. These principles amount to an advocacy of flexibility and constant reassessment. For instance, he suggests that records management for web 2.0 needs to be scalable to meet the need for comprehensive coverage of material that appears in new and changing formats. In his view there can be no dependence on specific hardware, software and physical storage locations. Most controversial of all, he believes that users need to be attracted into the records management process and offered benefits to encourage them to participate in making content archiveable. Bailey himself points out that this is not necessarily an optimistic message. Indeed, the requirements he sets out may not actually be practical in any immediately conceivable information environment. However, this does not mean that bold and imaginative thinking should be ignored, even though it may only serve to develop a debate. At the very least, Bailey is a readable and stimulating entry into the field. With Bantin also appearing from the same publishing house, Facet Press can be considered as having the basis of a substantial records management list for the electronic age.

Paul SturgesDepartment of Information Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK