Editorial
Welcome to the 2003 international issue of the Records Management Journal. The theme this year is records management in the private sector, which is potentially a huge topic, as it covers the full range of commercial businesses and across the world. Given this context, which is characterized by gaining and maintaining competitive advantage, there is potentially a reluctance for individual organizations to share in detail their individual practices. Also one might imagine that practice in one sector in one country might have limited application to other sectors elsewhere in the world, not only because of different legal systems but also because of different business cultures, not to mention linguistic differences.
However, the issue brings together an opinion piece and a series of articles which, while each has a particular sectoral or geographic context, provide key learning points and, I hope, new ideas for all records professionals wherever they are practicing. Four of the items come from Europe and one from China.
The opinion piece comes from France, although this is almost incidental. Susan Vaillant, Records Manager of Quintiles, a global contract pharmaceutical organisation, presents her views on the challenges of being in the records management business. Quintiles provide services to pharmaceutical companies who outsource management of their clinical trials and one of the key services is records management. But it is not just a question of filing and storing clinical data records, which are then returned to the clients at the end of the trial. It is also about ensuring that the appropriate processes are documented, which means not only those relating to the trials themselves, but also those to do with Quintiles business transactions and liabilities for the trials. And all this happens across different jurisdictions. Susan underlines strategic,tactical, as well as operational aspects of managing records in this context.
Ceri Hughes, from the UK, picks up the theme of the strategic opportunities for records managers in the corporate environment today. She explains the link between records management and knowledge management and promotes the potential of ISO 15489 (ISO, 2001a, b), the international records management standard,which will just have celebrated its second anniversary as this issue appears. Although writing from the UK context, many of the issues Ceri raises are universal in their application.
There are then a pair of articles from very different parts of the world; one from China and one from France. Dr Wang Lan, from the State Archives Administration of China, describes and analyses the development, not only of records management in the private sector in China but also of the establishment of the private sector itself. He explains particularly how government archives administration is now charged with serving the private sector and how the position and status of the records manager is developing, if somewhat slowly, in the private sector. From the very different economic and political background of France, Pierre Fuzeau, Chairman of the Serda Group, which specialises in information and knowledge management, reviews the development of records management in France, which has been stimulated by the impact of the e-environment. But, in France, the public sector’s approach to, and practice of, records management is also affecting the way private companies are managing their records. Pierre also highlights the important role that ISO 15489 is playing in France in providing a framework for records management.
Staying in Europe, Antonella Bilotto and Mariella Guercio explore the Italian model for records management. They set their analysis in the wider context of the archival tradition in Italy and, as we saw in China and France, reflect on the way in which the public sector provides a model to follow for the private sector. They conclude with an interesting point that no model for records management system can ever cover what they call the “whole universe of records creation and management”.
The final article is from Finland and focuses on the Finnish Business Archives Association, BAA. Carl-Magnus Roos, who is currently the Secretary/Treasurer of BAA, analyses the evolution of records management in the private sector in Finland. He explains how BAA, through its education and training activities, its publications, the national conference which it organises each year and its promotion of records management, has been and continues to be an agent of and a catalyst for the development of records and archives administration in private companies in Finland.
We hope that this international review of managing records in the private sector will inform you and stimulate ideas. We hope also that it will encourage you to consider sharing your ideas, experience and views with the wider records management community by submitting an article for publication in the Records Management Journal. The 2004 international issue is taking for its theme managing records in the voluntary sector and relevant details can be found in the call for papers in this issue.
Catherine Hare
