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Industry Analysts
We contacted a number of industry analysts and records management consultants regarding state-of-the-art practices for managing e-mail messages as official organization records. Our questions regarded state-of-the-art policies, procedures and technologies for managing e-mail; why these practices were effective; why related literature focuses on conceptual models for managing e-mail rather than case studies; and whether some industries more effectively manage e-mail due to the litigious or regulated nature of the industry. We also asked Richard Barry of Barry Associates, Derek Miers of Enix Consulting Ltd., and Kimberly Barata and David Bearman of Archives and Museum Informatics to make projections regarding the future of e-mail management.
Our experts agreed that organizations and users rarely consider the evidential nature of e-mail and rarer still have a policy in place relating to management of electronic messages. Informal corporate policy or culture often dictate printing significant e-mail to paper, though many organizations lack a paper-based records management program, leaving users without guidelines for determining the nature of the record or its required retention. More commonly, all e-mail regardless of its significance is either backed up or deleted en masse. "State-of-the-art" in practice, therefore, was defined as simply recognizing the need to develop policies and procedures for capturing e-mail as records within an electronic environment. Respondents cited numerous sources detailing the requirements for effectively managing e-mail as a message, mentioning, in particular, Australian Archives and New South Wales government as having developed comprehensive and effective guidelines and policies. The analysts also identified Ann Balough's "Managing E-Mail" in The Records and Retrieval Report and Michael Sutton's book Document Management for the Enterprise as innovative approaches to developing policies and implementing procedures for e-mail, as well as David Bearman's 1996 article "Item Level Control and Electronic Recordkeeping," and his book Electronic Evidence: Strategies for Managing Records in Contemporary Organizations. Barry and Associates also maintain an informative website that covers the myriad of issues surrounding this topic.
Although the requirements for effectively capturing e-mail as a record are well-developed, the respondents agreed that case studies are lacking. Document management systems (DMS), workflow software, and records management applications (RMA) promise a powerful combination of features to manage e-mail, but few, if any, studies of their effectiveness have been completed. Furthermore, according to industry expert Ann Balough, no off-the-shelf system delivers all the needed functions (1996, 12). Unfortunately, many organizations believe DMS fulfill their records management requirements in spite of the fact that these systems lack most records management functions. Rather, organizations must customize a distinct RMA to their DMS and workflow software. While feasible, integrating DMS with RMA can prove difficult and costly, especially if users are not given adequate training and knowledge of the records management requirements of the organization. Kimberly Barata also expressed the need for more developed metadata to identify, control, and maintain access to records within DMS and workflow applications (1997).
The analysts also discussed the disparity between the status of records management in organizations and the organization's expectations for managing electronic documents, including e-mail. Many organizations do not adequately support records management of traditional media, yet expect simple, comprehensive solutions to the increasingly complex problem of electronic records. Kimberly Barata states," ...You cannot cope well with electronic recordkeeping systems if you can't cope well with records in general (1997)." To effectively manage e-mail as a record, one needs to combine organizational goals and needs with user behavior, technological systems and characteristics, and the larger records management functions of the organization. As with any successful records management program, all levels of the organization must be involved.
All respondents expect the use of e-mail to rise exponentially as electronic systems become increasingly sophisticated, further complicating the management of e-mail. David Bearman describes a likely scenario if public and private organizations, records managers, archivists, and information professionals together fail to meet the challenges of electronic records, "If the paper world is any indication, most of the systems will be inadequate, unprotected, and poorly architected and will cost more than they should and as much as an organization is willing to pay." (Bearman 1997)
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