Records Continuum Model

Louise Spiteri
School of Information management
Louise.spiteri@dal.ca
Records Continuum Model
CNSA 2012 Conference

Recordkeeping
Recordkeeping is a process involving both record management and
archival management. Records are:

Recordkeeping Theory
In traditional recordkeeping theory, records have different
values:

Definition of Record
• ISO 15489: “Information created, received, and maintained
as evidence and information by an organization or person,
in pursuance of legal obligations or in transaction of
business.”
• The evidential value of a record can exist only if the
content, structure, and context are preserved. The context
is the link between different records that belong together
and also to the process where the record was created.

The Records Life Cycle: History
The Records Life Cycle Model was conceived by Phillip
Coolidge Brooks and Emmett J. Leahy of US National
Archives in the late 1930s and further developed by Ira
Penn.
Based on the concept that a record has a life similar to that
of a biological organism:
It is born (creation phase)
It lives (maintenance and use phase)
It dies (disposition phase

Linear Concept of
the Life Cycle Model
The initial model
postulated that the
record life cycle is linear
and sequential

Circular Life Cycle
Model
Today, the life cycle model is
considered continuous and
circular, as demonstrated by
this representation from
Library and Archives Canada.
Note, however, that each
stage is separate.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/007/
002/007002-2012-e.html

Underlying Premise of the Life Cycle Model
The life cycle model is based on the idea that records
become less important as time passes.
Active or Current records: Used regularly and frequently in day-
to-day work of the organization.
Semi-active: Not in use as frequently as current records, but
must be kept for legal or operational reasons to be retained.
Required for compliance with procedural, statutory, or financial
requirements.
Inactive Records: Records no longer required for the work of
the organization. Subject to appraisal procedures for final
disposition

Demarcated Phases in the Life Cycle Model
The life cycle model is divided between the records
management and archival phases

Records Management Phase
Creation or receipt of information in the form of records
Classification of the records or their information in some
logical system
Maintenance and use of the records

Archival Management Phase
Selection/acquisition of the records by an archives
Description of the records in inventories and finding aids
Preservation of the records
Reference and use of the information by researchers and
scholars.

Stages in the Life Cycle Model, 1
Creation and Capture of Official Records (RM)
The first phase of the Records Life Cycle involves records being
created, collected or received through the daily transactions of the
agency that detail the functions, policies, decisions or procedures of the
agency.
Records should be captured to ensure that they are accessible to all
who require them, subject to any restrictions that may apply, and
managed in accordance with policy and procedures secured against
tampering, unauthorized access or unlawful deletion, and disposed of
promptly in accordance with legal authority.

Organization, Maintenance & Use (RM)
This can include filing, retrieving, use, duplication, printing,
dissemination, release or exchange of the information in the record. This
stage is managed by records managers.
Management of official records includes the following:
Standards and procedures for classifying, indexing, labeling, and filing the
records and information to ensure their ready access and retrievability for the
conduct of the agency's business;
Establishing and documenting file locations; and
Standardized procedures for retrieval and refiling of records and information.

Disposition (RM)
At the disposition phase, records are assessed to determine their
retention value using records retention and disposal schedules. This
leads to either the preservation or destruction of the record. This stage is
managed by records managers.
Permanent records are those records that have enduring historical or
other value and will never be destroyed. When records are determined
to be of permanent value they need to be transferred to archival storage.

Preservation (archival management)
Archival records are protected for the use of present and
future generations.
Different measures are taken to minimize the risk of loss of
records and to slow down, as much as possible, the
processes of physical or virtual deterioration which affect most
archive materials.

Value of the Life Cycle Model
The life cycle model has been seen as an effective to
manage records:
Without this model, vast quantities of inactive records clog up
expensive office space and servers, making it difficult to retrieve
important administrative, financial and legal information.
Without a model that controls records through the earlier phases
of their lifecycle, those of archival value cannot be identified and
preserved.

Demarcation of Roles
The life cycle approach draws a clear demarcation the
functions of the records manager and the archivist.
The division of activities into records management and
archival phases, with the consequent division of
responsibility between the records manager and the
archivist could be seen as artificial and restrictive.

Concerns with this Demarcation, 1
In 1958 Ian Maclean, the Australian National Archivist, toured North
American and European archival institutions looking for best
practices and suitable patterns for structuring archival services.
Maclean concluded that records managers were the true archivists,
and that archival science should be directed toward studying:
the characteristics of records materials,
the past and present recordkeeping systems, and
the classification problems associated with these.

At the 1985 meeting of the Association of Canadian
Archivists, Jay Atherton questioned the logic of the linear
sequence of the life cycle model:
Is the management of current records the first stage in the administration of
archives?
Is the continuing preservation of valuable records the last step in records
management?
Does the archivist have no role to play in serving the creator of the records, in
determining disposal periods, or developing classification systems?
Does the records manager have no responsibility in identifying permanently
valuable records or serving researchers?

Atherton postulated that all stages of records are
interrelated, forming a continuum in which both records
managers and archivists are involved, to varying degrees,
in the ongoing management of recorded information.
As they progress through their life cycle, records experience a
series of recurring and reverberating activities within both
archives and records management.
The underlying unifying or linking factor in the continuum is the
service function to the creators and all users

Symbiotic Record Manager/Archivist Relationship
Effective management of recorded information requires
ongoing cooperative interaction between the records
manager and the archivist to:
Ensure the creation of the right records, containing the right information, in the
right format;
Organize the records and analyze their content and significance to facilitate
their availability;
Make them available promptly to those who have a right and a requirement to
see them;
Systematically dispose of records that are no longer required; and
Protect and preserve the information for as long as it may be needed.

The model was developed in the 1990s by Frank Upward, senior
lecturer in the School of Information Management and Systems at
Monash University in Melbourne,who was influenced heavily by Jay
Atherton’s theories about the relationship between records
management and archivists.
The records continuum is a consistent and coherent regime of
management processes from the time of the creation of records (and
before creation, in the design of recordkeeping systems) through to
the preservation and use of records as archives.

Upward’s Underlying Principles
Records are used for transactional, evidentiary, and memory purposes, and should
be handled by a unified approaches to archiving/recordkeeping, regardless of
retention periods.
Records as logical rather than physical entities, regardless of whether they are in
paper or electronic form.
The recordkeeping profession needs to integrate recordkeeping into business and
societal processes and purposes.
Archival science is the foundation for organizing knowledge about recordkeeping.

The role of Recordkeeping in the Continuum
Model
To facilitate governance.
To facilitate corporate, social, cultural, and historical accountability.
To capture corporate and collective memory, especially insofar as
records capture experiential knowledge.
To provide evidence of both personal and collective identity.
To provide value-added information that can be exploited as assets,
with new records being created in the process.

Contributions of the Continuum Model
The model brings together records managers and archivists under an
integrated recordkeeping framework with a common goal: to
guarantee the reliability, authenticity, and completeness of records.
The model provides common understanding, consistent standards,
unified best practice criteria, and interdisciplinary approaches in
recordkeeping and archiving processes.
The model provides sustainable recordkeeping to connect the past to
the present and the present to the future.

http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publica
tions/frank-u-rmj-2001.pdf CNSA 2012 Conference

Dimension 1: Creation
Involves:
a creator(s)
the transaction in which they take part, of which a document is a result
the document itself (with or without archival characteristics)
the trace (or representation) of that transaction embodied in the document.
The model identifies accountable acts and creates reliable evidence
of such acts by capturing records of related/supporting transactions.
Records of business activities are created as part of business
communication processes within the organization.

Dimension 2: Capture
Involves:
the personal and corporate recordkeeping systems that capture documents to
support their function as evidence of the social and business activities of the
units responsible for the activities
Records that have been created or received in an
organization are tagged with metadata, including how they
link to other records. With characteristics from the second
dimension, records, now attest to evidence of action and
can be distributed, accessed and understood by others
involved in undertaking business activities

Dimension 3: Organize
Involves:
investing the record with explicit elements needed to ensure that
the record is available over time.
Records become part of a formal system of storage and
retrieval that constitutes the organization's corporate
memory.

Dimension 4: Pluralize
Involves:
The broader social, legal, and regulatory environments in which records
operate
Records required for purposes of societal accountability become part
of wider archival systems that comprise records from a range of
organizations.
Ensures that records can be reviewed, accessed, and analyzed
beyond the agency for social, legal, and cultural accountability for as
long as they are required.

Axes, 1
The recordkeeping axis represents the state of the record and is the
closest axis to the traditional Life Cycle model, as it follows a record
from creation to description, then to organization, and then to
incorporation in a general body of information.
As a record moves out to each stage, it does not lose the previous
quality; an individual record within the cultural memory is still a
document that has been created.
The axis is still about context rather than about the passage of time.

Axes, 2
The identity axis indicates what entity that record is associated with.
The transactional axis is concerned with the use of that record.
The evidence axis is about the record’s state as evidence.
A record may be involved in any of the axes, depending on when it is
considered, and in what context.

Benefits of the Continuum Model, 1
The Model’s primary focus is the multiple purposes of
records.
Its goal is the development of recordkeeping systems that
capture, manage, and maintain records with sound evidential
characteristics for as long as the records are of value to the
organization, any successor, or society.
It promotes the integration of recordkeeping into the
organization’s business systems and processes.

Benefits of the Continuum Model, 2
Instead of being reactive, managing records after they have
been created, recordkeeping becomes proactive.
In partnership with other stakeholders, identify records of
activities that need to be retained, then implement business
systems designed with built-in recordkeeping capability, to ensure
that records of evidential quality are captured as they are created.
With appropriate metadata to ensure that they are accurate,
complete, reliable, and usable, these records have the necessary
attributes of content, context, and structure to act as evidence of
business activity.

Integration of records management and archiving
By focusing on:
similarities rather than differences
qualities and quantities of records rather than quantities alone
cohesive ways of thinking of records rather than disparate or passive
ways
integrated policy making rather than fragmented frameworks
integrated control of policy implementation rather than separate control
integrated rather than disparate approaches to problem solving
meeting customers' needs through collaboration rather than by
duplication and overlap

Archivists in the Continuum
The traditional role of archivists posits that their work begins once
records enter the archival repository, i.e., at the end of their life cycle.
The records continuum removes the distinction of records in use and
records in their archival (dead) state, since records are used in their
archival phase.
The records continuum allows archivists to intervene in the creation
stage of records to ensure their reliability and authenticity over time
and space. This requires knowledge of the activities that give rise to
the creation of records with evidential properties. Archivists must be
able to indicate which artefacts are, in fact, records.

Model
Aspect
Life Cycle Continuum
Origins • evolved from the need to
effectively control and
manage physical records
after World War II
• evolving from the more demanding
need to exercise control and
management over electronic
records for digital era
Elements of
records
definition
• physical entity • content
• context
• structure
Major concerns
in records
management
• records-centered, product-
driven
• focus on records as tangible
physical entities
• the physical existence of
records themselves
• purpose-centered, process- and
• customer-driven
• focus on the nature of the records,
the recordkeeping process, the
behaviours and relationships of
records in certain environments
Records
movement
patterns
• time-based: records pass
through stages
• time sequence: records
processes take place in a
given sequence
• multi-dimensional: records exist in
space/time not space and time
• simultaneity: records processes
can happen at any point in the
record’s existence.

Model
Aspect
Life Cycle Continuum
Recordkeeping
perspectives
• exclusive
• single purpose
• organizational or collective
memory
• current or historical value
• inclusive
• multiple purposes
• can be organizational and
collective memory
• can have current, regulatory, and
historical value from the time of
creation simultaneously not
sequentially
Time of archival
appraisal
• end of records movement • from beginning to end
Role of records
professional
• passive and reactive
• locked into custodial role and
strategies
Proactive post-custodians:
•recordkeeping policy makers
•standard setters
•designers of recordkeeping systems
and implementation strategies

https://www.arma.org/bookstore/files/xiaomi_0703.pdf

Conclusions, 1

Conclusions, 2

Bibliography
Atherton, J. ( 1985). From life cycle to continuum. Some thoughts on the records management- archives relationship. Archivaria, 21, 43-51.
Flynn, S. J. A. (2001). The records continuum model in context and its Implications for archival
practice. Journal of the Society of Archivists, 22 (1), 79-93.
Government of South Australia. (2011). Records life cycle. Retrieved from http://www.decd.sa.gov.au/rmp/pages/cg0000941/lifecycle/?reFlag=1
International Standards Organization. (2001). ISO15489-1. Information and documentation and records management part 1: General.
International Standards Organization, Geneva.
McKemmish, S. (1997). Yesterday, today and tomorrow: A continuum of responsibility. Retrieved from
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/publications/recordscontinuum-smckp2.html#fig1
Northwest Territories. (2002). The life cycle of records. Records Management Bulletin, 6.
Upward. F. (1996). Structuring the records continuum - part one: Postcustodial principles and properties. Retrieved from
http://infotech.monash.edu/research/groups/rcrg/publications/recordscontinuum-fupp1.html

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