I'm sorry I started this now and I would really like to end it. It's all been soooo depressing! Perhaps I'll try to draw out the threads into a more considered piece for publication and to relieve the pressure on the list (mea culpa, Dick) if anyone feels the need to respond further please do so off list.
I was trying to make a valid (and non-controversial) observation in response to Janet Foster's message and clearly touched a few insecurities - particularly, it would appear, with Russell Joyce. Unfortunately, as Len MacDonald hinted, his response highlighted a common and continuing misunderstanding of the archival roots (until very recently largely outside central government) of records management in this country. Elsewhere in the English speaking world these roots are even deeper and many of the most exciting developments in, for example, electronic records management have been led by archivists in countries such as Canada where links remain very close. [The concept of records management as a discipline separate from archives and/or administration is almost unknown outside the Anglo Saxon tradition. They're all les archives in French].
Underneath it all, there's common ground and it is right that we should look for what joins rather than what separates. It also means that we should leave our shoulder chips at the door. What is most in common, is that, unlike our library and museum colleagues, we deal with organic materials which, uniquely, grow out of the activity of which they form a part. I share our Tyne and Wear Colleague's view - we are all records people irrespective of where we sit in the value chain and need not only the same technical skills and personal attributes, but the same understanding of records, how and why they are created and the functions they perform, how they are used and organised and what value they have to the creating organisation (and ultimately to others), in terms of the evidence and information they contain, at different points in the lifecycle or within the continuum. I've spent a very enjoyable working life (though not quite as long as Len) evangelically promoting this view and enthusiastically putting it into practical effect, though I'm no longer able to swing on the chandeliers.
Embracing the technology, as with the development of standards, is a means to an end - accountants, doctors, lawyers and other professionals (even archivists) have embraced technology but no-one would suggest that this is what defines them professionally. Nor would anyone suggest that skill at carpentry and plumbing would enable someone to slip seamlessly into surgery (although a paediatrician friend of mine always described his surgical colleagues as 'the plumbers and carpenters') without acquiring more than a smattering of medical education. What defines them is their common education, knowledge, understanding, and ability to interpret as well as apply the underlying principles to what they do. It's what distinguishes accountants from book keepers, radiologists from radiographers and lawyers from legal executives. It represents the difference between experience and knowledge, between the professional and the technical.
Peter Emmerson
Peter Emmerson
Director
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