Editing Records management (section)

== Current issues ==
; Compliance and legal issues
While public administration, healthcare and the legal profession have a long history of records management, the corporate sector has generally shown less interest. This has changed in recent years due to new compliance requirements, driven in part by scandals such as the [[Enron Corporation|Enron]]/[[Arthur Andersen|Andersen]] affair and more recent problems at [[Morgan Stanley]]. Corporate records compliance issues including [[retention period]] requirements and the need to disclose information as a result of litigation have come to be seen as important. Statutes such as the US [[Sarbanes–Oxley Act]] have resulted in greater standardization of records management practices. Since the 1990s the shift towards electronic records has seen a need for close working relations between records managers and IT managers, particularly including the legal aspects, focused on compliance and risk management.

; Security
[[Privacy]], data protection, and [[identity theft]] have become issues of increasing interest. The role of the records manager in the protection of an organization's records has grown as a result. The need to ensure personal information is not retained unnecessarily has brought greater focus to retention schedules and records disposal.

;Transparency
The increased importance of transparency and accountability in public administration, marked by the widespread adoption of [[freedom of information laws]], has led to a focus on the need to manage records so that they can be easily accessed by the public. For instance, in the United Kingdom, Section 46 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 required the government to publish a Code of Practice on Records Management for public authorities.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/manage-information/planning/records-management-code/|title=Records management code|work=The National Archives|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160202091457/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/manage-information/planning/records-management-code/|archive-date=2016-02-02}}</ref> Similarly, European Union legislation on Data Protection and Environmental Information, requiring organisations to disclose information on request, create a need for effective management of such records.

; Adoption and implementation
Implementing required changes to organisational culture is a major challenge, since records management is often seen as an unnecessary or low priority administrative task that can be performed at the lowest levels within an organization. Reputational damage caused by poor records management has demonstrated that records management is the responsibility of all individuals within an organization.

An issue that has been very controversial among records managers has been the uncritical adoption of [[electronic document and records management system]]s.

; Impact of internet and social media
Another issue of great interest to records managers is the impact of the internet and related social media, such as [[wiki]]s, [[blog]]s, [[discussion forum|forums]], and companies such as [[Facebook]] and [[Twitter]], on traditional records management practices, principles, and concepts, since many of these tools allow rapid creation and dissemination of records and, often, even in anonymous form.

; Records life cycle management
A difficult challenge for many enterprises is tied to the tracking of records through their entire [[Information Lifecycle Management|information life cycle]] so that it's clear, at all times, where a record exists or if it still exists at all. The tracking of records through their life cycles allows records management staff to understand when and how to apply records related rules, such as rules for legal hold or destruction.

; Conversion of paper records to electronic form
As the world becomes more digital in nature, an ever-growing issue for the records management community is the conversion of existing or incoming paper records to electronic form. Such conversions are most often performed with the intent of saving storage costs, storage space, and in hopes of reducing records retrieval time.

Tools such as [[Image scanner|document scanners]], [[optical character recognition]] software, and [[Document management system|electronic document management systems]] are used to facilitate such conversions.