'This is a timely text and Steve Bailey has done the records management community a great service in putting together this publication. It is recommended reading for records managers and the wider information sector. Now records management research and practitioner communities must continue to work together to address the challenges posed and to present answers.' 
BUSINESS ARCHIVES: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

'This book is essential reading for any records manager who is willing is to question the validity of conventional methods and approaches.'
HEA-ICS

'This is an important book about an important question. The more people that read it the better. I have no hesitation in recommending it.'
RECORDS MANAGEMENT SOCIETY BULLETIN

Imagine a records management (RM) future where the user community collectively describes the value and properties of a record using the wisdom of the crowd; where records retention, description and purpose are determined by their users, within general boundaries defined by the records manager. It may sound far-fetched, but could represent a way forward for managing records.

It has never been more apparent that RM as traditionally practised will soon no longer be fit for purpose. With the increasing plurality of information sources and systems within an organization, as the deluge of content increases, so the percentage of the organization's holdings that can be formally classed as records declines.

In the Web 2.0 world new technology is continually changing the way users create and use information. RM must change its approach fundamentally if it is to have a role to play in this new world. This provocative new book challenges records managers to find time amidst the daily operational pressures to debate the larger issues thrown up by the new technological paradigm we are now entering, and the threat it poses to established theory and practice.

A range of stimulating ideas are put up for discussion: why not, for instance, embrace folksonomies rather than classification schemes and metadata schemas as the main means of resource discovery for unstructured data? Adopt a ranking system that encourages users to rate how useful they found content as part of the appraisal process? Let the content creator decide whether there should be any access restrictions on the content they have created?

This is a thought-provoking book which questions received wisdom and suggests radical new solutions to the very real issues RM faces. Every records manager needs to read this challenging book, and those that do may never think about their profession in quite the same way again.

June 2008; 192pp; hardback; 978-1-85604-641-1; £44.95

Look inside this book

• Table of Contents
• Chapter 1: The big picture: Web 2.0 and current trends in IT