Finding common ground.

• Position: A Message from the Editors - Editorial

Last fall, the International Council on Archives held its quadrennial congress in Vienna, Austria. It offered a rare opportunity to see and hear firsthand of the growth of records management in much of the world outside North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Archivists the world over are gaining a new appreciation for and a new understanding of the principles of records management and how the two professions fit together. The two professions have more in common than many may have once thought.

This issue of The Information Management Journal features several articles that examine the role of records manager and archivist in the global marketplace, pointing out the commonalities, the differences, and the potential. Australia's Sue Myburgh sets the stage in her article "Records Management and Archives: Finding Common Ground":

"Changes in the environment have necessitated changes in the practice of both professions as they come to terms with concomitant issues such as privacy, security, intellectual capital, and digital preservation. These changes are also drawing the professions closer together."

An international perspective on the changing role of records managers is next offered up in "Records Managers in the Global Business Environment" by Mike Marsh, Ineke Deserno, and Donna Kynaston. The authors focus on how the role has changed, particularly as a result of changing technologies, and the resulting change in the relationship between IT and records management.

Sharon Alexander-Gooding and Sonia Black give us a glimpse of records management in the Caribbean in "A National Response to ISO 15489: The Jamaican Experience." They recount how a small group of records and information management (RIM) professionals in Jamaica joined forces "to see how they could best capitalize on the status of the international records...