MINUTES OF 2002 ANNUAL Meeting

SAA Records Management Round Table

Session Meeting, Birmingham, Alabama, August 24, 2002 8am-9:30am

Roundtable Chair Sarah Polirer welcomed those in attendance and introduced the new Steering Committee members - see the current list of Committee Members. Incoming chair, Elizabeth Fairfax, was unable to attend due to a jury duty commitment.

There were about 40 people in attendance.

Ed Galvin, Webmaster and Listserv Manager, asked everyone to sign in with their e-mail addresses so they can be added to the SAARMRT Listserv. The SAARMRT listserv now has over 300 members. He also announced a redesign of the SAARMRT website that was done by a student at Syracuse University. He asked for comments/changes by mid September. The website is at http://sumweb.syr.edu/archives/saarmrt/ and comments should be sent to Ed at elgalvin@syr.edu.

Randy Jones spoke about the SAA/ARMA Joint Committee. Some of the accomplishments of the Committee include getting SAA to admit ARMA members to the Annual Meeting at SAA member rates, and allowing ARMA members to buy publications at SAA member prices. ARMA has done the same for SAA members. The Joint Committee is working on a joint symposium, joint conference, collaborative efforts, standards, statement of joint purpose and getting the leadership of the two groups together. The Joint Committee meets at both the SAA and ARMA annual conferences and this year also met in Kansas City in April.

David Haury, Council liaison, explained things Council is doing including producing SAA publications and newsletters in electronic format, joint publications with ARMA, and a new definition of records management being written by NARA that is available for review.

Nancy Kunde spoke about the ARMA Standards Committee, which is working on a record retention standard. It will hopefully be available this fall and they are looking for review and comments form the Roundtable members. The standard can be found on the ARMA web site at http://www.arma.org.

She also spoke about Conversion and Migration Criteria for Records Systems which should be available late this year.

Diane Carlisle mentioned the Vital Records Standard which is now open for public review and comment. The Records Center Operations standard is being issued as a technical report.

Sarah announced that we missed the summer issue of our newsletter, GRIST, due to fallout from 9/11 and our newsletter editor Tom Heard changing jobs. She said that the next issue of GRIST will be available after the ARMA meeting this fall.

This year's session speakers, Phyllis W. Parker, CRM and Sandra K. Behel, Ph.D. spoke on the role of the records manager and the archivist in an organization and the relationship that must exist to ensure that the objectives of each are met. Both are part of the Energen Corporation, a oil and gas utility, located in Birmingham, AL. Phyllis works as the Records Management Consultant. Sandra is currently the Manger Corporate Records & Library Services. The challenges facing each professional in the corporate environment, include limited resources, electronic record keeping, staffing, and education of employees as to the concept and use of Records Management and Archives.
The main delineation between the records manager and the archivist is that the records manager is always looking at the legal and regulating requirements, especially in a utility company, and the archivist "looks beyond today". This keeps both the records manager and the archivist in balance. The intersection of their work is the Records Retention and Disposition Schedule.

By working together they can alert each other to potential records: records that are stashed in drawers for safe keeping, electronic records through electronic policy development with IT, long term records. The records manager finds herself looking to the Archivist to recommend long-term records preservation solutions and the Archivist relies on the Records Manager to stay abreast of legal and regulatory records requirements. By working together and understanding records they can now complete each other sentences. This understanding, relationship building, and building trust with other offices has enabled them to be invited to join corporate committees on Disaster Planning, Long Term records planning and "looking beyond tomorrow".
The Archives has been spurred on by 150th Anniversary Celebration, a book on the company history and creating documentary corporate materials from the little archival material was available prior to the creation of the Archives. Since Sandra was hired as the Archivist, she has since moved up the corporate ladder and is now in charge of Corporate Records & Library Services which includes the Archives. This has given her the opportunity to "empire build". She directly reports to the Chief Information Officer. She believes that it is important to add value to the services they provide. This includes doing the research, analysis and recommendation when responding to a request.