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Fig. 1.7 Document Repository

Text 6

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DOCUMENT STORAGE INTO
RECORDS MANAGEMENT
6
By David Fathers
The number of companies claiming to provide records
management services continues to increase daily. Indeed it would appear
anyone with a warehouse is offering this service. But what do we mean

when we actually discuss the “Records management”?
Before we can really discuss the difference between Records
Management and basic Document Storage, we need to identify what is a
“record” versus what is a “document”?

The terms record, document and data are not interchangeable.
According to BS15489, a Record is “Information created, received and
maintained as evidence and/or information by an organisation or person,

in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business”. A
record has to be retained as long as it has value and is destroyed at the
end of that period. A Document therefore, is everything else so “does a

‘document’ really need to be stored at all?”
Today with the advances in technology, courts have adapted to
change and in certain circumstances are accepting emails and other

electronic forms of documents or correspondences as ‘best evidence’
where bone-fide hard copy originals are not available.

6
Fathers D. The Transformation of Document Storage into Records Management /
David Fathers. – Available at : http://www.crownrms.com/rms/article.records.html