Records Management For Dummies

Introduction

Records and information management isn’t a new concept or discipline. From the moment one cave person grunted to another or scrawled the first picture on the inside of a cave wall, information and recordkeeping was born. That first cave person probably had not been assigned the title of “Records and Information manager” or official scribe for the cave community, but nonetheless felt a need to communicate and keep what we know today to be records.

Over millions of years, the information grunt has grown — not only into structured languages that are spoken, but also into an exponential increase in the documentation and transmission of information. Most of this increase has occurred at a staggering rate over the past 15 years — you guessed it, we have computers, e-mail, and the Internet to thank for our information overload. The reality is that information is a good thing. However, if not managed appropriately, you may never realize its true value, and someday find yourself in a corner curled up in the fetal position mumbling “Delete”!

About This Book

Hold onto to your seat; you’re about to enter the riveting world of Records and Information management. Okay, riveting may be embellishing a bit, but the truth is whether you’re a small-business owner or work for a global corporation, you deal with information on a daily basis — you receive it, you send it, you determine what’s relevant, and you make decisions, whether consciously or subconsciously, as to what information ...