AN EXCELLENT INFORMATION SOURCE: THE RESOURCE SHELF

Gary Price has created one of the most rich and valuable Web Logs I have seen, called the ResourceShelf. Every Thursday, I get a reminder message to look at this excellent Blog. While he provides a great variety of information, most is focused on matters that would be of interest to librarians, archivists, records managers, and other knowledge, information, and records aficionados...like you and me. Check it out!

--Posted by Roger Winters, Chapter President

FROM ARMA INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT-ELECT DAVE McDERMOTT: FACTS AND ADVICE

[This item submitted by Susan Priebe, Chapter Secretary.]

President-Elect Dave McDermott was a guest at the joint Bellevue/Eastside and Greater Seattle chapter meeting on November 6, 2003. Toward the end of Dave’s presentation, he shared some very interesting statistics from Reuters with the attendees, as well as his thoughts on what he believed to be important aspects for us to consider in our future as records professionals. Here are the statistics:

• 75% of records are still in paper form
• 15% of all organizational revenue is spent on the creation, management, and distribution of information
• 49% feel that they are unable to handle the amount of information received
• 60% of people’s time is spent working with records
• 38% believe they waste substantial time looking for information
• 48% believe the Internet is the primary cause of information overload

Here are Dave’s thoughts on our challenges, what we must know, and the expansion of our skills.

Current Challenges:
• Manage all types of information, physical and virtual
• Management of electronic information
• E signatures and digital coding
• Privacy issues
• HIPAA
• Sarbanes Oxley

What We Must Know:
• Must understand technology as a tool
• Must develop policies and procedures that support the strategic direction of the organization
• Be able to create and maintain record programs and services
• Store and protect information and knowledge

Expanding Our skills:
• Ability to think strategically
• Exceptional personal interaction skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects
• Ability to think conceptually
• Exceptional verbal and written skills
• Understand digital systems
• Know how to integrate multiple types of information systems

FROM REGION COORDINATOR DEAN KOGA -- "WELCOME TO ANOTHER ARMA YEAR!"

Congratulations are in order for Mark Hoffman and the Puget Sound Chapter for winning the “Best Newsletter” and “Chapter of the Year” awards for a medium-size chapter during the awards program at the recent ARMA International Conference in Boston. The Puget Sound members have invested a lot of time working on RIM and community projects to bring these honors home to their chapter and to our region for the last three or four years. I congratulate all of the members in the Puget Sound Chapter for their commitment to ARMA.

At the conference, the ARMA International Educational Foundation (AIEF) presented speaker John Montana, J.D., and his research project, Legal Obstacles to E-mail Message Destruction. This project was the first grant as a result of the newly formed educational foundation and can be accessed here in PDF format. If you would like to see more research projects, such as this one, I urge you to make a donation to the ARMA International Educational Foundation. Best of all, your contributions are tax-deductible. You can also pledge $100 for five years and become a Legacy 5/100 donor.

The conference included some excellent sessions on E-mail, E-Records, RIM software, Sarbanes-Oxley, XML, electronic risks, records retention, spoliation of evidence, and finally the mock trial. The vendor exhibits had solutions to our records management, e-mail sorting, shredding, records storage, and scanning needs.

During our region luncheon, Greater Anchorage members Renee Salvucci and Larry Hayden distributed an attractive brochure for the ARMA 2004 Great Northwest Region Conference, “Real Adventures in Records Management,” May 17-19, 2004, in Anchorage, Alaska. Mark your calendars and get ready for some excellent speakers, educational programs, and spectacular sites including the Phillips 26 Glacier Cruise.

With the ARMA year in full swing, many chapters have already presented their members with some innovative programs and seminars, so I urge you all to take advantage of these networking and educational opportunities.

Finally, if you have any questions or comments about how our ARMA region is doing, do not hesitate to contact Dee Wise, Leslie Sturgeon or me, Dean Koga, and we will do our best to address your issues or make changes.

Have an exciting ARMA year and a peaceful holiday season.

Dean Koga
Region Coordinator