The basic assumption of records management.
There’s a concept in anthropology called the “basic assumption.” basic assumptions are the assumptions that are such an entrenched part of a culture that we don’t even realise that they’re there. The classic way of explaining it is to say that fish don’t know what water is.
The most important thing that records management hasn’t adjusted to, is that records are is in use and important for known things right now - while they’re under the control of records management.
Instead, there’s a basic assumption that by the time it gets to us, the useful life of a record is over - and it’s now our job to keep it.
The assumption comes from custodial records practice - which was all records practice until about 40 years ago. Now it’s a tiny percentage.
Practice though, is incredibly persistent.
So the basic assumption that records is cold storage is present in all our professional tools, and the actions we take - and it’s so hard to see, that mostly we don’t even realise it’s there.
Take the use of business classification schemes - what are they designed to classify records for? So that we can manage their lifecycle - meaning their destruction. This is someone’s first interaction with the records system, and already the primary job of what they’re interacting with is to make the thing they’re working on easy to dispose of.
How do we design that classification? Functionally of course! Functional classification assumes that in the timeframe that the record is needed, the structure of the organisation will likely have changed. Then we encourage everyone to put their records in the system as soon as they create or use them - because we know that filing later doesn’t happen. When they try and do this, they’re presented with a structure that assumes that the organisation they work in and their job don’t exist anymore - and so they get confused, and do something else.
While they’re filing the record, good practice has prompted us to ask them for metadata considering all possible future uses of the record. Not their usage - they who will likely represent 100% of the usage of the record across its entire lifecycle (destruction doesn’t count).
What would happen if we changed the basic assumption of records so that we assumed that our job was to help people do better work?
And really removed the assumption that’s in all our tools and techniques - that the useful work is over by the time we get the record?
You have some very good points. But, lifecycle (for those who still follow lifecycle theory) doesn't equate to destruction; it includes storage, access, and use. And so, records managers should absolutely be catering to use of the record for the lifecycle of the author (which records frequently outlive) and organisation.
I do believe that more should be done to educate end-users that the job of a records manager is not the same as an archivist (whose primary job is to manage legacy records) - and that it includes supporting the business of the organisation - not just through managing the records but also through supporting the staff and the associated business processes that the records originate from and move through.
definitely agree that record quality doesn't get the attention that it needs. There's little value (and in fact, a disadvantage) to caring for your dirt the same way as your diamonds. Much more needs to be done to move organisations away from the "just keep everything" philosophy. There might be even be some standards that cover the issue.