I share Deidre's concern at the misuse of 'archive' but like Philip I've
decided that it's a lost battle.  I'm more concerned, as an English language
nerd, at the tendency to create transitive verbs out of nouns - e.g. to
archive, to impact, etc.

However, in this specific case, it creates a particular difficulty.  As a
practitioner and a consultant, I've tried to persuade colleagues and clients
to remove 'semi current' from the process.  In traditional terms, that would
leave you with current(in office), non-current (out of office) and archive
(in the original sense)/destroy.  In fact in later years, I've used 'active'
and 'inactive' as the drivers to get round the problem of records, such as
customer loan files, which are current but inactive, being accessed only
once or twice a year. Once records are inactive they will seldom be looked
at again.  Moving them from a filing cabinet to the basement or store room
and then to the records centre (archive in this discussion)is wasted effort.
These distinctions apply to both paper and electronic records, allowing
paper records to be held off site and electronic records to be held off
line.

Two logical inconsistencies also emerge here and in some of the responses:

* This is presented as a storage problem.  It isn't, except in the short
term; it's an activity problem.  Space can always be expanded by, for
example, using commercial providers.  Activity requires more people or
better systems.

* Digitisation is seen as a solution.  It's unlikely to be.  Once hard copy
exists, it's very costly, and often long- winded, to convert to a different
medium. That expense is only justified by business benefits other than
storage.  Paper reduction needs to be about birth control - don't produce it
in the first place.

Make a virtue of necessity.  Almost 20 years ago, my colleagues and I
persuaded the property services dept of the bank for which I then worked, to
remove all secondary records storage space from the new offices and branches
that they were then developing.  We worked with the new tenants to
streamline their processes and to set in-office records retention periods
based on measured activity levels.  In the case of branches, transaction
records were identified for transfer after about 6 months (instead of 3
years) in line with the 'usual' retrieval cycles, though in practice the
main retrieval effort fell away in line with the statement cycle - about 6
weeks. Doing this enabled the bank to use 'shop front' branches instead of
the Victorian and Edwardian branch buildings, built on three subterranean
levels of paper, which now make splendid pubs and wine bars.  Frontline
staff were also released to do their primary job rather than maintaining,
and occasionally retrieving, inactive records.

Earlier transfers meant that records centre activity levels rose by more
than 1500 per cent while storage volumes rose by only 440 per cent and the
number of staff roughly doubled.  We also took on a very high-speed, high
activity process, with relatively low volumes, taking in regular payment
mandates, 3 days after they'd been processed.  That required dedicated
space, systems and staff as well as some degree of mechanisation, but it
rescued the processing unit from disaster.  It effectively turned the
records centre paradigm - high-bulk, low activity - on its head.

We reinforced these developments by using techniques such as activity based
costing which showed how much more efficient and effective it was for the
work to be handled by a small group of staff dedicated to the task than it
was for local staff to do it. We encouraged customers to see the service as
an extension of their own recordkeeping not as a distant grave yard where
records went to die.

Your colleagues are improving their cost base by unloading their costs onto
you.  You need to be able to convince your own management that you should be
allowed to use some of those savings to meet the additional costs that you
are now carrying and then be more proactive in extending it to others.  Of
course, an understanding of your costs and the impact of new activity on
them would be a good starting point.

Obviously this only an illustration.  I can't provide detailed guidance on a
discussion list and as I'm no longer in business I'm not making a pitch.
However, if anyone would like to discuss it further then please respond to
me off list and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.


Peter Emmerson

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