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Can't resist adding my mite... When I'm approached by EDM companies offering their wares I ask 2 questions: 1. What about legal admissibility of scanned documents? 2. What about medium to long term storage of electronic records? Usually they say: 1. That's the organisation's problem. How true, but if we are going to scan everything and destroy the paper it's a major one. A Professor of Internet Law who gave a paper at one company's presentation said that lawyers will have a field day with scanned documents because it is so easy to sow doubts about their authenticity. I know about BSI PD 0008, but are we really going to have time to scan every document to that standard? Or are we expected to keep the paper as well, just in case? What case law has there been so far? (He also, incidentally, said that hard copies of email would not be legally admissible in court....) 2. Bung it on a CD because CDs last forever (forever to an IT company, as we all know, usually means 6 years). Uh huh. I expect a bit more awareness about these problems if I'm going to advise the University to shell out trillions for an EDM system. When staff here talk about the paperless office I advise them that an EDM system will require even more records management than paper, because EDM can't work without proper R/M e.g. we will have to have registration, standardised terms, version control, email management, retention schedules etc etc etc. That usually horrifies them into silence. I also point out that we are going to have a hybrid system here for many years yet, because we don't have the money at present for an EDM system. More discussion! It's all been most useful. Clare Cowling University of London Records Manager