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In teaching AIIM’s ERM course, considerable time is spent on records retention and disposition.  I find it interesting that members of management in organizations can so easily talk about long term retention of content.  I, personally, do not consider PERMANENT an appropriate retention period (it does not bring into consideration the practical issue of who is going to pay for the boxes of records in storage and the storage and migration of content on the servers), but certainly some records will need to be retained for the life of the organization.  For government identities and many businesses, that means for a very long period of time.  To manage and retrieve records over long periods of time, there is a need for consistently labeling content.

For the many of us who have taken over Records Management departments, we are well aware of the situation.  As new Vice Presidents, Directors or Managers of these functions, we improve policies, procedures and operations in these areas.  Really, this is no different from taking over any other operation in the organization.  What is unique for RM professionals is that we are also still responsible for all of the records that have been previously captured or stored in the past.  Quite often we are asked why we can’t find the records that were captured and stored years earlier.

During these prior times, it is evident that there was not the records management discipline that we are currently instilling across our organizations.  In regards to documentation covering the previous holdings? – Quite often, there isn't any.

Where there is previous documentation, it often becomes apparent that descriptive terms they were using varied across departments and/or locations.  We often notice that, over time, the descriptive terms used by a department or, perhaps, even an individual has changed.  From this experience, we clearly understand the need for consistency in how we describe and label our records and other content.

I smile when I hear that we are trying to make all staff records management professionals in managing their content.  Clearly, many people don’t have the management, analytical skills and technology awareness required to manage content properly.  What is necessary is that employees’ awareness and perspective of their work products – records and information, must be broadened.  Do employees appreciate that records and information are important assets of the organization?  Do they understand that to find this important information in the future, effort is required up front?

It is imperative that employees use consistent metadata – descriptive terms, to identify their physical and electronic records.  A major business driver of electronic records management is the sharing of information across divisions/departments and locations.  The employee in Los Angeles that is looking for important business information should know and understand the metadata that was applied to the content in Chicago and New York.

Getting back to our long term retention of records, employees need to know and understand the metadata that was applied years, and decades, earlier.

A metadata model is a collection of metadata that will be used across the organization and over time.  This metadata are often called the “official terms” that will be used to manage and retrieve content.

From experience, we know that establishing a structure for managing records and information – a metadata model, is often difficult.  Individuals want to use their own jargon and terms they are comfortable with.  This is where the broader perspective of records and information is important.  Content belongs to the organization and needs to be shared by other staff and be retrievable years later.

In condensing the metadata model, having strong senior management support and insuring that all parties share the pain of compromising for the good of the organization are important.

 It is important to recognize that having a metadata model in use in your organization does not preclude other descriptive terms from being used.  The ERM solutions allow additional fields to be created that can hold jargon and favorite terms (tags) applied by the users.  In addition, synonym rings can be designed in the systems so that non-preferred terms can be associated with the official terms used to manage the content.

As I have travelled to many cities across North America, I am delighted to know that there are leading companies that are not only talking about the need for a metadata model, but that have actually undertaken efforts to build and use them.

What has been your experience in developing a metadata model within your organization?

What are your thoughts on the need to develop controlled vocabularies to manage your records?