Diamonds in the dust: Putting bling into records management

Abstract

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is a publicly funded entity and is required by law to ensure that records produced as a result of various business transactions, internally and externally, are managed in a way that promotes good corporate governance. As many of the Operating Units functioned virtually independently in the past, many adopted individual records management practices which varied in their degree of effectiveness. This decentralised approached proved to be problematic as it did not cater for changes in organisation structure nor did it promote consistency throughout the organisation. CSIR Information Services were tasked, by CSIR Executive, to investigate current records management practices throughout the organisation, to finalise a records management policy for the CSIR and to produce an integrated records management implementation plan. The project was called “Diamonds in the Dust” to highlight the fact that effective records management does not imply that everything should be regarded as records and that all records do not have equal value. This paper will provide an overview of the various stages of this project which included; creating a communications plan and establishing Unit representatives; establishing a wiki as the project record; conducting the records management audit; audit and analysis; records management policy formulation, and the implementation plan