Managing Electronic Records: Methods, Best Practices, and Technologies

PREFACE

After more than five years of e-records research, and an intensive year of detailed research, consultation, collaboration, writing, and editing, this book has come to fruition. It represents a truly collaborative effort by a number of experts and highly skilled practitioners in electronic records management (ERM) and the broader information governance (IG) field. I am fortunate to know them: Some of the contributors I have known for decades; and this is a lesson for students and young professionals—that lasting business relationships are a vital resource that can yield career rewards over the long term, but also offer lasting friendships that are a reward in themselves. This is only possible if you immerse yourself in your chosen field and strive for excellence day after day, year after year, and hold respect for your work and the work of your colleagues. No one can know everything, but if you know key people who have specific expertise, you can always find the answers you need. Of course, you will also need to be able to return the favor.

We strove to extensively document our work so that researchers, analysts, practitioners, teachers, and students wishing to delve further into particular topics will have a head start in knowing where to find additional information. This was a difficult and tedious process, which yielded over 600 citations. We tried to distill the massive amount of information into clear, understandable, actionable terms. We also to confirm and document ...