Setting the Standard for RIM.

• Position: Records and information management - Brief Article

A significant event this year is the expected adoption of an international standard for records management programs and practices. Committees in 80 countries have reviewed this 11-part standard, ISO 15489-1: Information and Documentation -- Records Management -- Part 1: General, which has been in development for more than two years. This is the first widely accepted standard for records management programs, and it will have significant impact on records professionals and on the development and evaluation of programs around the world. Recognizing its importance and value, ARMA International has participated in the process and endorses the standard.

Jim Connelly's "The New International Records Management Standard: Its Content and How It Can Be Used" provides an overview of the standard. Connelly sees the standard as an opportunity for alert information professionals to improve existing programs as well as develop new ones. The availability of such a widely recognized benchmark may offer the persuasive ammunition needed for management endorsement. Information management professionals whose organizations do business outside the U.S. will often be expected by business partners to comply with this standard as well as those others that carry expectations of quality in information handling (e.g., ISO 9002).

Can an ancient educational model be welcome in an era infatuated with a technological future? In "RIM: A Liberal Arts Model," Charles Chase asks that we consider the records and information manager's future not in terms of an ever-increasing specialization in information technology (IT) but in having a sound -- if not comprehensive -- knowledge of four areas: records and information management (RIM), business process design, law, and IT. These are Chase's four cornerstones in his liberal arts model for RIM. The liberal arts approach to education is credited to Aristotle, but it is quite viable today: Each educated person should first have a general knowledge in several areas rather than a deep knowledge of only one field. The former paradigm allows us to see larger issues, to interact more effectively with those in a wide range of occupations, and to coordinate intelligently the work done by those from different fields.

Chase, himself a systems specialist, wonders why such a high percentage of IT projects either have to be redone or fail completely. Having seen the phenomenon at close range, he suggests that the problem is not a lack of IT...