Managing electronic records in modern business.

• Author: Holland, Michael E.
• Position: Electronic Records Retention: New Strategies far Data Life Cycle Management - Book Review

TITLE: Electronic Records Retention: New Strategies far Data Life Cycle Management

AUTHORS: David O. Stephens and Roderick C. Wallace

ISBN: 1-931786-08-9

PUBLISHER: ARMA International

PUBLICATION DATE: 2003

LENGTH: 196 Pages

PRICE: $51 U.S. ($35 for ARMA members)

SOURCE: www.arma.org or 888.241.0598

Electronic Records Retention: New Strategies for Data Life Cycle Management is David Stephens' and Roderick Wallace's second book-length publication addressing the management of electronic records in modern business. Their previous work, Electronic Records Retention: An Introduction, published in 1997, served as the foundation upon which this book is based. New Strategies takes a more managerial approach in the control and disposition of electronic records and devotes more attention to developing practical electronic records policies. These differences make New Strategies a more useful tool for the records and information management (RIM) practitioner and the classroom instructor.

The first two chapters of this new volume constitute the authors' prognostications on the future domination of business and government documentation by electronic formats. The case is a familiar one: a prediction of the paperless office and the inevitable loss of culture and commerce if the management of electronic information is not aggressively and comprehensively addressed. While there is much to the plea for attention to be given to electronic records management, it is overstated. Few who work in commerce or government see the disappearance of paper as an impending state of informational evolution.

As is the case with many other chapters, this first chapter provides an interesting and useful model--this one for a general records retention policy that shows how to unify electronic and traditional record formats into a single information management policy.

Chapter 3, "Legal Issues," is one of the most interesting and timely chapters in New Strategies. The authors make the traditional case for controlling both electronic and traditional organizational records. Compliance with record creation and maintenance legislation and reducing organizations' exposure to nuisance legal actions are treated in a balanced fashion. In addition, federal records legislation such as the E-Sign Law, the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are digested and analyzed in a concise and precise manner. A case study on the Enron and Arthur Andersen debacle is followed...