Records Management for Dummies

by Blake Richardson

Here's what you should know to manage data records efficiently With proper electronic data management, your business can lower costs, improve efficiency, eliminate duplication, and be protected in the event of a lawsuit. This book provides an overview of records management solutions and implementation strategies in plain, non-technical English. Step-by-step instructions show you how to begin managing records and information and how to maintain the program once you have it established. Sample forms for inventory, scheduling, and necessary documentation are also available on the companion website.Electronic records management offers cost savings, greater efficiency, and protection in case of legal action; this book gets you started on an effective data management system This plain-English guide helps you determine what constitutes a record, shows you how to inventory records and create an efficient way to file both electronic and paper copies, and explains how to create a retention schedule Walks you through switching to electronic record-keeping, what to look for in a records management system, implementing best practices, ensuring that your system will stay current, and using the system effectively Helps you assure that the destruction of any sensitive information is conducted and documented correctly Records Management For Dummies helps your business save money and improve efficiency with effective electronic records management.

Genres: Nonfiction

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 18, 2012

Reviews

[Eva Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book will tell you almost everything you need to know about records management, except for how to actually manage records. More specifically, it touches on everything from why side-to-side-filing is much better than front-to-back-filing and to make sure that the vendor that shreds you records does drug-tests on their employees, but the thing that start the whole thing off, the initial appraisal and inventory of the records is only mentioned briefly. Basically it tells you what methods you can chose between and then you have to sit down with representatives from other departments like Legal, Tax and Compliance and then a complete appraisal will apparently fall out of your behind.
Just to contrast, this is a book that also tells you how to make a subfolder in Windows and how to delete items from the recycle bin and deals with every subject in great details. Just not this.

I guess, if you're already doing records management and need tips on a specific subject like how to send inactive records into storage, it works just fine. But if you've just been saddled with managing the records of your company, then your going to be just as much as a dummy after having read this book as before if.

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Records Management For Dummies which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This is quite an interesting subject and vital to any business and the book does cover it admirably. The responsibly for collating records shouldn't be dumped on one individual but rather each department with in a company should share the responsible. It helps if someone in each department sorts through the documents and sorts them according to category. Some records like the minutes of the board of directors meeting should be stored indefinitely. Legally certain documents have to be stored for minimum periods of time as set out in statute books. In addition emails have to be stored albet electronically in case of any legal queries according to the Sarbanne-Oxley in America. Of course in Britain there are similar laws. One thing worth considering for long term electronic storage is Glacier the cloud storage service from Amazon Web Services where stuff is stored in bulk and for long term use but it has a slow access time. Another option is enterprise content management or document management software which can store stuff locally and an example of the former is Sharepoint which can search through a company intranet for requested information. There is also heavy duty databases like SQL Server or Windows Azure & for data mining SAS & SASS with the latter 2 services also being able to process data mined from Social Media sites. Things like hard drives have to be destroyed responsibility with no chance of the data being recoverable. A good organization for this is NAID or national association for information destruction at http://naid.org. Often at least some information will have to be stored on paper in file cabinets the preferred method is alphabetically but some number the document and store them numerically because it is simpler. You can also store stuff onsite with a RAID system which stores stuff on multiple hard drives including parity information in case a hard drive fails. I did really enjoy this book and it is a useful subject to know about after all especially if you are a manager you never know if your boss is going to give you this responsibility and this book does explain in an easy to understand way.