Managing records and making knowledge: records management in the 21st century organisation

Conference 2008 Keynote 2 - Monday 14.00-15.00

Politicians and business leaders continuously remind us that we live in a knowledge economy and that information and knowledge are the life blood of modern organisations. Good records management is important part of managing that corporate knowledge, but often struggles to keep its footing against more fashionable tools; although generally within organisations, the effective use of knowledge and the quality of information literacy is not high. How is RM able to contribute to the transformation of knowledge organisations, and what are the barriers holding it back? How can it support better governance in a time of turbulent change?

Records management has traditionally placed an emphasis on structure and order, compliance and continuity; new networking technologies on innovation and agility, rapid change and reinterpretation. Both are necessary for making new knowledge, but these two countervailing trends give rise to some puzzling paradoxes. Users demand more flexible and direct access to records and the information they contain but, absent the help of intermediaries, they are no better at searching for and finding it. Managers simultaneously seek to control and make visible organisational information while retaining ambiguity and freedom of action themselves.

Perhaps by focussing less on the tools and more on the knowledge processes that create, shape and use records - the effective uses of collaboration, knowledge governance within and between organisations - we can see new ways to integrate the established disciplines of records management with the flexibility of network working.

2_keynote_Harries.pdf (.pdf, 109.2 KB)

Stephen Harries, Critical Information

Stephen Harries is an independent consultant specialising in the management of records, information and knowledge for public policy delivery. He previously headed the cross-government Electronic Records initiative - to establish EDRM in government departments - based at the Public Record Office... more...

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