21.Record-keeping functions and record-keeping systems

The differentiation in tasks within an organisation is in itself a reason for spontaneous creation and structuring of the information. A salary slip therefore looks quite different from a tender without any formal rules concerning their form. Decisions are noted in minute books, whilst documents related to one transaction finish up in one file. The more formal and complex an organisation becomes, the more an uncontrolled flow of information and spontaneous structuring of the records become a handicap. To permit records to carry out adequately their supporting functions with respect to the work processes (as a means of communication), measures are taken to regulate the document flow. Criteria are set to determine which documents are marked as records and which are not: the incoming brochures and birthday cards are separated from the letters with orders and the correspondence with the accountant. Records created by the organisation itself are given a prescribed form, unambiguously providing evidence of their function and authenticity. Document flow is regulated in order to ensure that the documents which are generated by the same work process are linked and remain linked so that they remain easy to retrieve and use. That latter point is probably the most difficult challenge. In practice the same information is used in various work processes, and information that has been generated once may later be used for an entirely different purpose. Consequently, each deliberate structuring of the archive, each filing system is a simplification of the complex reality. Whilst work processes may overlap each other, the criterion usually set for a filing system is that it should be as unambiguous as possible. In organisations of any scale the availability and reliability of the records can only be guaranteed by the appointment of a records manager or by setting up a registry, which must maintain the record-keeping system, keep the records in good order and quickly provide all other members of staff with the information they need in order to do their jobs. As a result, records management becomes a new work process endorsed by the organisation: the work process of systematic record-keeping. It is no longer the existing work processes which directly structure the records: the structure of the archive itself or the structure of the finding aid that gives access to it is therefore no longer a direct representation of the operations of the organisation that are manifested in the work processes, but rather an administrative interpretation thereof. In larger organisations such an interpretation is necessary to ensure effective information management. Sometimes, however, it leads to the logical structure of the archive only reflecting, to some extent, the structure of the work processes that it has to support, with all the damaging consequences this has on information management. The structure of the information can, to a great extent, be defined by general notions about information structuring which have little or nothing to do with the actual work processes. Certain applications of general classifications such as UDC can serve as examples. Records managers will in general be inclined to have the archival structure fit as well as possible into the work processes within the organisation. In the course of administrative history various systems have been developed for the filing of records. Each of these filing systems is tailored to a certain type of organisation and fits into a particular tradition of governance. Traditional autocrats (mediaeval kings for instance) independently carry out administrative and legislative activities and issue, as evidence thereof, diplomas that are recorded in special registers. Collegial boards of representative bodies from the ancient regime only take administrative and legislative actions after negotiations. Since they have to give account for their actions to their superiors, they do not only draw up deeds, as evidence of those actions, but they also document the decision-making process that has preceded these actions in their resolution books. As soon as government officials are delegated discretionary powers (in the constitutional civil service state of the nineteenth century) then their decisions are documented too, which causes the creation of archives consisting of series of subject files, chronologically arranged. Modern bureaucracies, democratic or totalitarian, document all matters: they create large-scale case files archives. The choice for a particular filing system is determined by the complexity and the nature of the work processes, but also by the degree of stability of those work processes, the size of scale, the level of communication technology, the knowledge available and the corporate culture. The filing system and the accompanying general classifications are the product of modern bureaucracy, but also of the growing complexity of managing efficiently and effectively large quantities of information and new technical devices like the Xerox machine.