Tragedies, controversies, and opportunities: redefining RIM's role in a turbulent time: given recent issues and critical developments, the central importance of information to the operation and progress of organizations and institutions is even more apparent.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.
• Position: Records and information management

At the Core

This article

* discusses recent examples where information has played a critical role

* defines future RIM challenges and issues

Systematic management of information, an area where records and information management (RIM) professionals naturally excel, is gradually gaining recognition as being central to the success of business and other institutions. While information as an abstract term may mean little to many, specific examples of information's critical role in institutions are dramatic and instructive. Evidence mounts every day in the media, but some selection and interpretation is needed to identify and appreciate the significance of information for the RIM field. Critical incidents and issues where information plays a central role are instructive for RIM and non-RIM professionals alike. There are several recent examples.

Using Information to Catch Killers

At the end of October 2002, Maryland police arrested two men for a month-long murder spree. Good police work deserves credit, but creative use of information was also essential. Early in the investigation, uncoordinated systems, outdated computers, and information overload threatened to overwhelm the investigation whose "tip line" at one point logged some 400 calls per hour--much faster than the information could be sorted and processed. More than a dozen local, state, and federal police agencies in two states and the District of Columbia formed a task force to coordinate their efforts, which included pooling and sharing information. According to U.S. News & World Report, "A dizzying array of law enforcement databases" frustrated police at first. In the end, however, "databases ... were the key to catching the snipers--and they offer the best chance to protect us against terror in the future."

Computerized fingerprinting was the stellar information technology that enabled a print found on a gun magazine to be matched to an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) database and put authorities on the investigatory trail that quickly led to the killers' arrest. At the same time, according to a Newsweek report by Jonathan Alter, the case illustrated the need for better information sharing, (tracking a pattern of the snipers' traffic stops and violations in the first few days of their crime spree might have sped up their arrest), the potential of misinformation to mislead and confuse, (police and the public mistakenly believed the killers were using a white van), and led to a discussion of even more effective (but controversial) use of technology, (e.g., a "ballistic fingerprinting" database made up from the rifling "signature" of each gun taken by manufacturers before sale). This case is certain to give rise to further discussion of how to use information to prevent crime and apprehend criminals more quickly.

Cabinet Officers in Contempt

In September 2002, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton was cited for contempt of court for her failure to reform a trust fund for Native Americans that was established in 1887 and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The problems are longstanding and billions of dollars are potentially at stake. Norton's predecessor and a former secretary of the treasury also were cited for contempt in the same case some years ago. The judge indicated that the Interior Department's administration of the Individual Indian Money trust has been "the gold standard for mismanagement by the federal government for over a century."

This case, which was in the courts for several years, is an outstanding example of the essential role of systematically created and efficiently managed records as the basis for accounting, determining entitlements, and evaluating overall administration. "Document management is the single biggest issue that must be comprehensively addressed if plaintiffs are to be assured [sic] any practical prospective assurance that their trustees [Department of the Interior] will be able to give them an accurate accounting ... the records are the base for the entire trust operation," the court noted in Cobell vs. Babbitt, et al. in 1999. The case is replete with reprimands from the judge for missing records, destroyed documents, electronic systems that...