E-records for government doers.

• Author: Gable, Julie

TITLE: Electronic Records Management

EDITOR: Julian Mims III

ISBN: 0-87326-147-X

PUBLISHER: International City/County Management Association (ICMA)

PUBLICATION DATE: 2006

LENGTH: 146 pages

PRICE: $55

SOURCE: http://bookstore.icma.org/

Electronic Records Management states that it is for "everyone who is responsible for the management of records in local governments: elected officials; city and county managers; and senior elected and appointed department heads, particularly those who are responsible for the management of the records of the jurisdiction, including clerks and heads of information technology departments." This is a potentially large and diverse audience with varying levels of pre-existing knowledge about electronic records.

True enough, the book does try to take its audience from novice level to an advanced grasp of electronic records management in a relatively short span, supporting its contention that it "presents a road map to accelerate and facilitate the transition to electronic records." As with any fast ride, however, it is sometimes a bumpy experience, and those who hoped for a cookbook approach to managing electronic records in government may be disappointed. However there is some practical information aimed at the doers rather than the deciders.

The book covers ground familiar to more experienced records managers such as city or county clerks--those whose responsibilities may include running elections as well as overseeing records and archives. Five authors are responsible for eight chapters. Each author sets the context for what he presents in his chapter. This sometimes results in redundancy, as when the contrasts between paper records management and electronic records management appear more than once, but perhaps this is unavoidable.

In Chapter 1, "Electronic Records Enter the Mainstream," David O. Stephens discusses the current environment for electronic recordkeeping in government, outlining what local government officials need to know and what needs to be in place to do electronic recordkeeping. His chapter on content management technologies offers descriptive overviews of document imaging, text retrieval and search engines, electronic document management systems, electronic records management software, workflow automation, data warehousing and data mining, enterprise information portals, content classification and taxonomy, as well as a sidebar on geographic information systems. It does not cover how the...