An Integrative Document and Content Management Planning Model.

• Author: Taylor, Sheila
• Position: Book Review

Today's organizations must manage recorded information in many formats, including paper documents, e-mails, images, drawings, and Web content. At the same time, the risks of mismanaging recorded information are high, and the need to 'align technologies for managing recorded information with enterprise-planning initiatives is great.

Recognizing those imperatives, Len Asprey and Michael Middleton wrote Integrative Document and Content Management: Strategies for Exploiting Enterprise Knowledge to present their planning model for integrative document and content management (IDCM). Their planning model combines the development of an IDCM management framework consisting of policies and change management strategies with the definition, development, and implementation of systems to support overall document lifecycle management in alignment with enterprise planning imperatives.

Integrative Document and Content Management was written for:

* Business managers responsible for managing different types of recorded information (e.g., engineering managers and personnel responsible for managing engineering drawings)

* Information professionals responsible for implementing and managing systems to organize and disseminate documents to meet organizational objectives such as facilitating knowledge sharing (e.g., document controllers, records managers, librarians, and archivists)

* Information management/information technology students seeking to explore the business applications of information management

The book is divided into four parts. Part one, "The Business Context," begins by tracing the evolution of document types and discussing the role of documents in today's organizations. It also briefly reviews the technological developments that impact document management and how organizations manage different document types without the benefit of IDCM systems.

Recognizing that many large organizations have implemented a mix of systems to address specific recorded information management needs (e.g., an imaging system to manage digitized images, a drawing management system to control drawings, and a correspondence tracking system), the authors examine the subsystems that can be elements of an IDCM system. Part one also examines the capability of IDCM systems to interface with an organization's operational and administrative systems.

The next part, "Preliminaries," discusses the planning aspects of an IDCM project and typical project deliverables during the...