Your local County or town records office should be able to offer advice, even if they cannot take in your records. You could try the Public Record Office's records management department (for consultancy advice), or speak to almost any central government department's DRO - many have already out-sourced records storage (following a Prime Minister's Efficiency Unit & PRO initiative back in the mid-1990s).
You are not far from Aberystwyth (OK, you spell it!) university, where they have an RM course - they may be able to help with advice, or even provide a student to work with you as a course-related project? Presumably, most universities face the same problem(s), and bench-marking is always useful.
Any records storage company worth its salt will probably be a member of their professional / Trade association. Take a look at Professional Records & Information Services Management (PRISM) International's website at http://www.prismintl.org They have lots of good guidelines for potential customers, and a handy little booklet "Why Go Offsite?". They can also provide you with a list of their members in your area. Several are also members of the RMS of GB of course.
Regards, Mike (Marsh)
-----Original Message-----
From: Janet Peters [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: mercredi, 19. février 2003 17:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Outsourcing
Another new member for the list ...
I am struggling to set up a proper records management system for my
institution (small to medium sized university), but am faced with the
fundamental problem of not having any spare space anywhere to set up a
centralised storage area, or at least not without spending huge sums of
money to convert basements. Another option might be to digitise, but I am
not keen at the moment to go for wholesale digitising of records because we
are new to this game, and I think we need to get our paper records in order
first. So, I am seriously considering outsourcing either just the storage
element (and employing a Records Manager/Officer to maintain the collection
and organise van transport) or the whole records management service. I am
looking at a 5 to 10 year retention period for most of the records.
If any of you have done this, I would be very interested to know what you
included in the specification for the work, and in any success/horror
stories you are aware of. Perhaps I should add that I have already
approached our County Records Office, but they do not have much space
either, at least at the moment.
I will circulate responses to the list in due course.
Janet
Janet Peters
Head of Library and Information Services
University of Wales College, Newport
Caerleon Campus
PO Box 179
NEWPORT NP18 3YG
Tel./Fax/Minicom: +44 1633 432108
email: [log in to unmask]
website: http://library.newport.ac.uk
|