17. Functions of records

Information is recorded with a view to a supposed re-use at another time and often in another place. Information generated by work processes, is linked to those work processes in order to enable retrieval at another time and place within the context of those same work processes. Records function as the memory of individuals, of organisations and of society. Individuals keep records in order to remember, to remind and to be reminded. An organisation needs a corporate memory to allow the organisation to keep running, to be able to make itself accountable and to document its own history. Society as such does not create any records, but encourages the creation and preservation of them. It is, after all, important to society that organisations operate well, that individuals and organisations be accountable for their acts, and that records of enduring cultural value are preserved over time. For an organisation, records serve in the first instance to support operational management. Binding the information to the work processes ensures the necessary continuity and opportunity for communication in those work processes. Without records, the actions and transactions that together establish a work process could not be harmonised with each other nor could the work processes be harmonised with each other. Without records, policy making would very soon be of an ad hoc nature. Without records, no satisfactory answer can be provided to questions such as: what do we have to produce and how, what means are available for doing this and how can they be used, what agreements have been made and what commitments have been taken on and how did these come to be, which commodities and services can we offer and do these products and services meet the criteria that have been set. Records should not only ensure that the work is done and that it is done efficiently and effectively, but also enable others to check whether the work has been done and how. Records also serve as agents of accountability and evidence. Trustworthy records contain reliable evidence of decisions taken, rights acquired and commitments made. Without records, no assessment can be made of whether individuals, private organisations and public organisations have actually carried out the actions and transactions that they had to execute, or whether they made these actions and transactions meet the criteria of efficiency, legitimacy or the principles of good governance, and whether they have done things which they were not supposed to do. Reliable records make people and organisations accountable, within their own organisations, to each other, to suppliers and customers and to society. Individuals and organisations also create records because they do not want to be forgotten. Thus diaries, photograph albums and visitors' books are kept and saved to document one's own history for posterity. This cultural historical function is sometimes also attributed to records that are not deliberately created as a reminder of the past. A fairly small portion of those records that by aging have lost their evidential functions, are preserved because they are regarded as part of cultural heritage and as a potential source for historical research. In this context a distinction is made between the primary and secondary functions of records. The primary functions of records are the functions that the actor had in mind when creating them and in particular the evidential functions. In their primary function records play an active role: they document and regulate social relations. The secondary function of records is the function which the actor generally does not have in mind, and which records only acquire once they have fulfilled their primary functions: the cultural-historical function or the function of source for historical research.