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for the organization and covers all aspects of the operation of the
organization. Within document management, a retention schedule
provides a listing of all of the types of documents used by the
organization. For each document type (record series) the retention

schedule lists the following: the owner, creator, use, description, method
of indexing, location, retention period, and reason for the retention
period assigned. Further, records may be placed in subgroups and groups

to further classify records.
One of the record series includes the already listed metadata meta-
documents. This metadata maps easily onto the metadata repositories of
digital systems, for example, data dictionaries in databases. Another

example is the EAD (Encoded Archival Description), which maps
archival finding aides into XML (eXtensible Markup Language). The
metadata for active current documents is often stored in a system that is

incompatible with the long term storage systems used for records
management. And, the metadata storage system for records management
is often incompatible with the metadata storage system for the archive to

which documents are transferred if they have permanent value to the
organization beyond the operational and legal requirements for the
documents. Viewing the previously unnamed information about the

documents as metadata is the first step in seeing that all document
management systems contain the same types of information, and that by
making the systems compatible, the effort of managing documents can
be greatly reduced.

Digital Documents
Digital documents are often digital versions of existing paper
documents. Maintaining intellectual control over digital documents is

just as important as maintaining intellectual control over paper
documents, and is often overlooked by people skilled in the
management, movement, and storage of digital data. Digital data has not
had a meaning component, until the introduction of digital documents.

To use a digital document, the exact format of the document’s digital
representation must be known (e.g. it is a PDF (Adobe Portable
Document Format) file), and every single one of the stored bits must be

read perfectly from the storage medium. These two absolute
requirements are mixed in with the operation of an organization’s
computing environment. The organization’s computing environment is

dependent on the function and evolution of the world wide computing
environment. A records manager that is responsible for digital