The two lenses for the future of Records Management practice

Each lens we take on a situation reveals something different.

The value of adopting a new lens, is two-fold.

First, we learn a different way of seeing a situation - of making sense of it, and how we make sense of a situation determines how we act in it.

Second, we come to understand our habitual lens - the way we see the world when we’re not thinking about it, and that can be just as revealing.

Mostly, we are totally unaware that we see the world of records management practice through an archival lens.

We can’t help it, because our practices come from archival science, we adopt the lens because it’s built in to the practices that we have. You can’t tell its there until you go back and have a look at the big debates that have consumed archival theory over the last hundred years - debates like whether functional or subject based arrangement is best, or curation vs. accumulation.

To me, now, with the state records management is in though, the two most important lenses are value, and efficiency.

How much value are we providing, and to whom?

How efficiently are we providing that value?

We do not have a monopoly on information as evidence.

Our ability to get funding, keep practicing, and ultimately survive as a discipline depends on two things -

1. People who can fund us finding what we do valuable.

2. Our ability to deliver that value at a cost that doesn’t exceed our value.

Value.

Efficiency.

This is what defines the future of records management.