2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

Records Management for the Librarian: Part One
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BEST PRACTICES 2012
By Ellen Ensel, Knowledge Manager, Information Services, United States Institute of
Peace
In which a Knowledge Manager with an MLS learns a thing or two about the field of
Records Management.
I’m a Knowledge Manager with responsibilities for knowledge management, library
services and records management at my organization. I’ve been juggling the first
two for some years now, but records management is a new assignment for me. It
coincides with the departure of our Director of Administration who handled this area
previously (mostly by keeping everything) and the Presidential memorandum of
November 28, 2011, calling for better records management across all federal
agencies.
I had no training in records management, of course, but now I was responsible for
developing a records management program for my organization. Which brings me
to my attendance in a class at the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) in College Park, MD. I’ve just completed the first of five courses to receive
NARA’s Certificate of Federal Records Management Training.
Knowledge Area 2: Creating and Maintaining Agency Business Information
(KA1 is an Overview and not part of the Certificate Program), is a two-day course
devoted to helping us understand what federal records are (almost anything
created or received by an agency in the course of business), who is responsible for
various levels of managing records (almost everyone), how to plan and execute a
records inventory (tougher than it looks), and elements of, and tools for, managing
and organizing information. The course included instructional material, group
activities and some sample handouts.
One amusing exercise called “Watch Your Lingo” directed us to look at different
definitions for the same word (archive, file, etc.) coming from the records
management or IT perspective. The same could be said about library science or
knowledge management. Although most of the people in my class were already
involved in records management in some way at their respective agencies as
Records Liaisons or Records Officers, the language and topics of the course should
be familiar to those of us with library science backgrounds and experience in
knowledge management. For example:
Understanding the business processes of an organization (knowledge
management)
Applying metadata to records (cataloging)
Conducting a records inventory (inventory of print or electronic collections)
Disposition of records (weeding or de-accessioning)
Understanding the limitations of electronic media and the need to migrate
data to new formats (digital collections)
Electronic information systems (online catalogs)