Perspectives on the relationship between records management and

information governance Julie Brooks

School of History, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Abstract Purpose – The increasing prominence of the use of the term information governance (IG) raises fundamental questions about the role and relevance of records management in today’s organisations. As a starting point, this paper aims to explore the relationship between records management and IG by considering both recordkeeping and non-recordkeeping perspectives.

Design/methodology/approach – The research discusses literature chiefly from 2013 to the present to shed light on how discussion of the relationship between records management and IG has evolved over the past few years.

Findings – A range of perspectives on the relationship between records management and IG was evident and, notably, a lack of direct engagement from the records management community. Taking the positive perspectives that emerged, IG was seen as an opportunity for records management. By contrast, others regarded it as a necessary successor to records management, the latter perceived as too associated with the paper era to be capable of meeting the organisational information needs of today. Equally, others were sceptical about the real difference IG offered, suggesting it was in part a rebranding exercise, which did not necessarily articulate anything fundamentally new.

Originality/value – Defining literature in the broadest sense, this paper offers a high-level review of some of the recent discussions that have taken place in a wide variety of contexts around the relationship between records management and IG. It includes journal articles, books, online discussions from professional forums and listservs, vendor contributions, opinion-pieces and blogs and in particular focuses on presenting a range of viewpoints from individuals operating within various information-related spaces, including records and information management, IG, and information technology. It is hoped that this preliminary research will encourage further engagement on the subject from recordkeeping professionals.

Keywords Information management, Records management, Information governance

Paper type Literature review

Introduction This review explores perspectives on the relationship between records management and information governance (IG) using contemporary literature from both recordkeeping[1] and non-recordkeeping perspectives following on from research by Hagmann (2013) exploring, “the still immature concept of IG from a records and information management perspective”. Suggesting that IG was becoming “a trendsetting container for capturing almost everything and nothing in the world of information management”, he considered the issue of “whether IG is just the newest buzzword or if it is actually becoming a new paradigm that will change the face of RIM.” This research analyses literature from around that time to the present to shed light on how opinions on the relationship between records management and IG have since evolved and aims to contribute to wider discussions about the role and relevance of records management in an increasingly broad information landscape. What impact, if any, has IG as a concept and an approach on the professional roles and boundaries of records

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Received 24 September 2018 Revised 28 November 2018

13 December 2018 Accepted 14 December 2018

Records Management Journal Vol. 29 No. 1/2, 2019

pp. 5-17 © EmeraldPublishingLimited

0956-5698 DOI 10.1108/RMJ-09-2018-0032

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-5698.htm

professionals. Is it, as some suggest, a strategic enabler for records management, a natural and necessary evolution that better integrates the management of organisational records and other information assets, or is IG simply a passing buzz concept that can mean many things to many people?

Methodology This review aimed to explore perspectives from records professionals and those outside the recordkeeping profession. Initial keyword searches using the terms “records management” and “information governance” were carried out using University College Dublin Library’s OneSearch and Google Scholar. These search terms yielded large amounts of literature, much of which was excluded on the basis that it did not address the relationship between the two fields. More specifically, the search term “records management and information governance” was applied and yielded a smaller, but more relevant body of literature. The same terms were also used to search records management listservs, one based in the UK and the other in the USA. Each listserv attracts active engagement from recordkeeping professionals and those interested in records and information management issues more widely. Because of the relative currency of the debates being explored, wider Google searching was applied using the same search terms, specifically to capture professional forums, opinion pieces, conference presentations and social media discussions. Records management and IG policy documents from specific organisations were excluded on the rationale that the focus of this research was opinions expressed by those involved in the records management, information management and IG spaces, and on the nature of debates on the subject and the reasons behind various standpoints.

Based on results from this initial set of searches, further searching was undertaken for specific writers. Citations, references and in the case of social media postings, responses to posts, were used to carry out further searching. While literature written before 2013 was largely excluded, the searches yielded relatively little earlier literature, reflecting the currency of the subject. The literature reviewed was limited to publications in the English language. The final set of literature included authors and publications based in the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada. This is not an exhaustive review, but rather, identifies trends and highlights areas of debate.

Defining records management and information governance Any analysis of perspectives on the relationship between records management and IG is inevitably shaped by the definitions being applied to each term. The international records management standard ISO 15489-1: 2016 provides a benchmark definition which is widely recognised at least by the recordkeeping community, and describes records management as the:

Field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records.

It is recognised that the term records management is often used interchangeably with the term “records and information management”, reflecting a broadening perspective on the remit of records professionals. As recognised by Lomas (2010), records management has already undergone significant shifts in its evolution in order to remain relevant to the needs of organisations, not least in response to the challenges of electronic records.

Definitions of IG, still a relatively new term, have been nebulous. Silic and Back (2013) noted, “there is no commonly accepted definition of information governance” and according

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to Parapadakis (2014), “the more we talk about it, the more vague it becomes, and the more confusing and overlapping the definitions get”. As Hagmann (2013) recognised, much of the focus on IG continues to come from the USA. Smallwood (2014) describes IG as “a super- discipline that includes components of several key fields: law, records management, information technology (IT), risk management, privacy and security, and business operations”. The Information Governance Initiative (2018), a US-based think-tank, describes IG as “the activities and technologies that organizations employ to maximise the value of their information while minimizing associated risks and costs.” In general, the key characteristics of these various definitions are their high-level nature and the breadth of their scope.

Perceptions on the relationship between records management and information governance Two distinct disciplines or are boundaries blurred? Lappin (2014a) posed the question:

Is records management being subsumed into information governance or is it a separate discipline that will help to shape information governance but will retain its own distinct identity and purpose?

In essence, much of the discussion around the relationship between the two deals with those questions in one way or another. Parapadakis (2018), reiterating his belief first expressed in 2014, emphasised the clear distinction between the two. Echoing the views of many across the IG space, Parapadakis drew a clear distinction on the basis that the:

Purpose of information governance is to define all aspects of how information is being managed. The purpose of records management is to manage some of the aspects of that information.

Likewise, Dunn (2018) noted that, “it is important to understand that records management and IG are two separate tiers of scale. In fact, records management falls under the umbrella of information governance”. As Hagmann (2013) recognised, “records management then just becomes one decision domain and discipline under the umbrella of information governance” and this idea of records management as one component of a wider IG framework was one that recurred frequently across much of the literature reviewed. Records management operations and activities, as Saffady (2015) notes, “are performed within the strategic framework defined by information governance”. Smallwood (2014) is clear in the distinction he perceives between the two disciplines:

Records Management (RM) is a key impact area of information governance (IG) – so much so that in the RM space, IG is often thought of as synonymous with or a simple superset of RM. But IG is much more than that.

The end of records management? The idea of an evolution away from records management and towards IG was another commonly occurring theme, with the role (if there was indeed a role) for records management being less clear. The Republic of Estonia Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (2014) outlined preparations for what it termed a move from records management to “holistic information governance” (something first proposed in a green paper in 2012). The reasons behind the shift were presented in detail with the key rationale in essence being the inadequacy of records management to meet current business needs.

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There is still much duplicated and manual work done, paper-based logic is yet being copied to the electronic environment. At the same time, the necessary information is difficult to find and use.

Envisaging the implementation of this evolution, records management was nevertheless still recognised as one implementation strand in a broader framework. Echoing many of the views already noted across the literature, the Estonian paper described IG as “a complex, multi-component discipline”, and crucially emphasised that “Information governance IS NOT a synonym for records management!”. Driving these changes was the need for improved service delivery in a digital era, underpinned by better access to, and sharing of, information amidst changing working contexts where records exist in multiple environments – “[. . .] such records differ significantly from traditional records.”

Prophecies of the demise of records management were evident in a range of perspectives from the IG space. Addressing the question “why is records management disappearing and being replaced by information governance?” Zarkout (2014) argued that:

The records management profession has struggled to translate the practices of the paper paradigm to the world of electronic information. The adoption of social, mobile and cloud have revealed gaps in many of the traditional records management applications, which are unable to capture content from these new sources and manage them. Simply put, records management has not been able to keep up with the velocity, volume and variety of formats for digital assets.

Harrelson (2018) regards the misconception that RIM professionals are “crotchety neighbours from Paperville” as a “branding” that while wrong is nonetheless pervasive and “a hurdle we deal with daily”. Indeed, the idea of records management being a concept too burdened with baggage from the paper world was mentioned by a number of authors, most notably those from outside the recordkeeping community. Hart (2014), in a post to his “Word of Pie” blog likewise emphasised that IG should not simply be seen as an updated term for records management because “if it simply becomes a term used in place of Records Management we will have wasted an opportunity. IG is different. It needs to be different. The rationale was a simple one: “Records management failed.We need a new approach”.

Whether records management was seen as an integral part of an increasingly strategic IG approach, or an outdated discipline which had “failed”, there was consensus across much of the literature that something else or something more was needed, precisely because records management had not, or indeed, by its very nature, could not, fulfil all of the complexities of an organisation’s information needs. In some cases, that was seen as submergence into a bigger information landscape, while for others, perhaps something more fundamental. Parapadakis (2018) has positioned records management as focussed on an organisation’s unstructured information (chiefly documents and emails), on average representing less than 20 per cent of the total information managed by an organisation. The idea of records management only fulfilling a part of the information needs of a twenty-first century organisation were echoed by a number of commentators. Woolen (2014) has suggested that “[. . .] the records management buzzword has died so, instead, I talk about information governance which, of course, includes records management”. Crucially, Woolen recognised that while records management is still very much there and a core part of wider IG agendas, there was, he maintained, a definite desire among some to move away from the terminology of records management.

What might being one cog in a bigger IG wheel mean for records management, and specifically for records managers? Among those who still recognised a clear role for records management within a wider IG framework, there was variance on the nature of the relationship between the two. With an emphasis across much literature on the idea of IG as the decision-making hub and strategic driver, with records management as one arm of

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implementation, there is a sense of records management being perceived as largely operational in scope, arguably the very thing that the records management profession has striven for many years to dispel. Again, these opinions were expressed chiefly from outside the recordkeeping community – Gillin (2018) believed that “Records managers are responsible for carrying through on the guidelines laid out by governance professionals”, echoing the view of Dunn (2018) that while IG “refers to the strategic element of designing and organizing information management [. . .] [. . .] Records management represents the actual implementation of information management plans”. Yet as Haider (2018) notes, records and information management programs have always included “‘governance’ which includes strategic planning, policies, procedures, standards, guidelines, [and] audits [. . .]”. More recently, Tough andMathews, in research underscoring the close relationship between recordkeeping and governance, proposed “governance recordkeeping” as an approach to “managing records and documents in the world of governance, audit and risk.” Crucially, this approach “considers record keeping as a governance function” with recorded information managed as a “strategic resource”.

Much of the literature regarded the positioning of RM as one part of a wider IG framework as a positive development for records managers, strengthening their hand by explicitly recognising their input while aligning them more formally with other key stakeholders. In other words, while on the one hand, records management was deemed to be insufficient on its own to fulfil an organisation’s information needs, it was at least now clearly valued as part of a wider information landscape. Indeed, after years of advocating for records management to be further up organisational agendas, being part of an IG framework had strengthened its position by recognising its role within a more strategic information framework. As noted, another key advantage recognised in much of the literature was that IG strategically positioned records managers alongside a range of other vital stakeholders and allies – including IT, legal, risk, information security, privacy, compliance and business unit heads – those who previously the records managers may have had to forge alliances and relationships with on their own initiative. For Haider (2018), achieving constructive collaboration with IT professionals has been, and remains, one of the greatest challenges for records managers. Yet, meaningful collaboration may prove elusive if, as Harrelson (2018) asserts, records management, by being too often perceived as increasingly irrelevant in the digital age, sits on an unequal footing with IT.

Adding value to records management? Far from seeing the slow demise of records management either for being outdated or through absorption into IG frameworks, Franks (2013) similarly regards IG as a means of strengthening and validating records management. Indeed, she has argued that, “Records management is essential to information governance” and, moreover, “because of their broad understanding of the flow of information across the enterprise, records professionals are in a unique position to contribute their knowledge and skills to this initiative”. Thus, far from diminishing the contribution of records managers, IG has the potential to enhance it. Wiler (2014) reiterated this view while emphasising the need for records professionals to engage with IG “because it represents a tremendous opportunity for you to catapult yourself into a strategic leadership role”. Like other writers, Franks and Wiler viewed IG as a strategic enabler by providing a framework to bring together a range of relevant stakeholders and, crucially, being able to “provide context to discussions of an integration of information management, risk management and records management considerations”. As Sloan (2014) noted, “The salient feature of the information governance approach is that it compels

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organizations to take a broad, inclusive view of information issues, in addressing compliance, risk and value”.

The emphasis on collaboration and changing organisational contexts was at the fore of comments made by Ardern (2016) in a personal reflection on her forty year career in archives and records management and the changes in that time in a Canadian context, in which she considers “how we have evolved from records management to information governance”. Charting developments in technology, privacy laws, and approaches to risk, amongst others, Ardern observed that:

[. . .] information governance is a response to a changing workplace, hugely impacted by technology and requires collaboration between several groups to ensure consistency and reduce duplication of effort in managing information resources.

Echoing other writers, she argued that:

Records and information management skills sets are being enhanced and expanded alongside other professions such as legal, privacy, risk, and IT, driven by a need to address what are truly enterprise-wide issues.

She notes that “Records management has changed, not gone away, because there is still a need to manage records as evidence of business decisions and transactions”, but, crucially, recognised that the environment in which records management operates has changed, and will continue to change, requiring increasing collaboration between stakeholders within an organisation. As expressed across much of the literature reviewed, that collaborative environment may be most effectively provided within an IG context.

Keirstead (Graves, 2015) sees IG “as a contemporary, unified way of articulating the value of an effective Information Management program to any organization.”, with its main strength being potentially.

The way in which it can bring different partners to the table who might, in the more traditional and stratified world of the information professions, not necessarily be working together or indeed talking to each other[2].

Bridges regards this kind of integrated framework as essential:

As it is no longer practical to produce information policies, to develop and implement security controls and to operate and support key information management services in isolation of each other.

As Lomas (2010) has noted, in the UK context, the National Health Service (NHS), for whom patient confidentiality is paramount, has been at the forefront of embracing broader IG approaches to information management, encompassing “concepts of records management, information security, public accountability and legal compliance”. Similarly, Lappin (2015) sees the value of IG in its potential “to create synergies” between the various component disciplines under the IG umbrella “and to enable them to become more than the sum of their parts.” The latter statement seems key to the opportunities of an IG approach for records management.

Therefore, recognition of the changing context in which organisations operate and the idea that records management is no longer able to fulfil all of an organisation’s information requirements, emerged as a strong theme in the literature consulted. For some, such as Losey (2015), “old-time record keepers with their long complex retention schedules and harsh top down rules” alongside their “classify and control approach” seem an anachronism. Others have taken a more nuanced stance, recognising that records management still has value to offer – the key is that it embraces new approaches. One of the few recordkeeping

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voices to directly address the relationship between records management and IG, and to engage in debate with the IG community, Lappin (2014b) discussed the changes taking place in approaches to records management, including “in-place” records management, growing interest in the possibilities of automation to reduce the burden on the end user, and recognition of the need to manage all information, irrespective of whether a record. Lappin characterised these as part of a new “information governance approach to records management”.

An example of how more holistic IG approaches to managing information in organisations has the potential to strengthen records management comes in the area of information security, in practice something not typically under the remit of records managers despite its centrality to information management. As demonstrated by Lomas (2010), limitations with ISO 15489 may in part be addressed by closer alignment with other information standards such as ISO 27001:2005 Information Security Systems Management Requirements, which addresses the balance between access and security. For Lomas (2010):

Information governance solutions and thinking, which balance risks, present many of the practical answers for the development of records and information management systems within the context of current and future challenges.

Lomas regards these new approaches as essential as records management faces a paradigm shift as increasing quantities of organisational information exist outside of the organisational firewall creating unprecedented challenges for organisational control and accountability. Lappin (2014b) has positioned the growth of IG as yet another evolutionary phase in the wider history of records management, which he argues, has always been characterised by periods of coherent and less coherent responses to various disruptive technological changes.

Bringing together the strengths of each? While Lappin (2014b) recognised several strengths in approaching records management with an IG lens, including an enhanced focus on accountabilities to external stakeholders, he also warned of potential weaknesses, not least a lack of focus on the day to day needs of end users. Given the predominance of people and cultural issues in successful electronic records management as demonstrated by McLeod (2010) and Bailey (2014), Lappin’s concerns are significant. Similarly, Oliver and Foscarini (2014) have advocated an information culture approach to records management, emphasising the need for RIM solutions that are more sensitive and nuanced to differing organisational and information cultures and information preferences. Yet, the focus of much of the discussion around IG appears decidedly organisation-centric and top-down. Indeed, the focus on tighter, more effective organisational governance reflects the increasing emphasis on compliance and risk which are central to IG. The main drivers for IG as identified by the Information Governance Initiative (2018) were “external regulatory, compliance, or legal obligation”, followed by a “desire to mitigate risks associated with data that could have been defensibly deleted”, with “external trigger events/incidents such as a law suit, investigation or data breach”, following close behind. Interestingly, more positive drivers such as supporting good business practice, mining value from organisational information and problem solving were lower priorities. The lessons learned by records management in attempting to successfully manage electronic records, not least in balancing the needs of the organisation with those of end users, could prove valuable to IG.

Taking a different standpoint, Carlis (2015) suggested that the “discipline of records management has evolved to the point where it now encompasses information management

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and governance”. Moreover, Carlis regarded this as “empowering and strengthening the records management function, which increasingly is being viewed as vital to the success and safety of businesses as well as their customers and other stakeholders”. Indeed, not only was a successful IG programme built upon good records management, but that IG was in essence “records management plus”. Crucially, and in direct contrast to a number of other vendor/industry perspectives, Carlis positioned IG ideas as actually widening the records management remit, rather than pigeonholing it within relatively narrow confines alongside a number of other information disciplines. In some respects echoing Lappin, “Records management plus” was defined as expanding the “traditional definition of records management” to encompass the entirety of an organisation’s information infrastructure, including “unstructured data, business transactions, social media, legal holds, eDiscovery demands andmetadata”.

While some aspects may be new, many believe that, to a lesser or greater extent, IG builds upon existing records management principles. Medina (2015), far from seeing the demise of records management, regards IG “[. . .] as another attempt to re-brand” records management and:

To bring other aspects of information management that began far after RM practices began, under the same roof. But if you look under the hood, the engine is STILL basic records management, with increased horsepower [. . .] and a few other bells and whistles[3].

Similarly, Stephen Howard cited in the context of a series of blogs by Graves (2015) exploring the concept of IG, identified IG as “a useful portmanteau concept” but ultimately “not new”[4]. Discussing his “core sense” of the term, Howard emphasised the idea of aligning information management with “wider organizational strategy [. . .]. to be implemented via policy and standards with a clear chain of accountability”. Interestingly, Howard believed that it was precisely “information governance’s inherently flexible definition” that had “enabled its adoption by a wide variety of professions and disciplines”.

New directions? The National Archives of Australia (NAA) – a country which has been so central in shaping and defining the recordkeeping theories of the past 30 years – defines IG as:

An approach to managing information assets across an entire organisation to support its business outcomes. It involves having frameworks, policies, processes, standards, roles and controls in place to meet regulatory, legal, risk and operational requirements. Information governance is an essential element of corporate governance that must be aligned with business outcomes and risks.

Where once NAA focussed on records and information management, the term IG has taken precedence, indeed, the term records management has all but disappeared from its extensive resources on managing information. Interestingly, though, the facets of building a strong IG framework that are identified by NAA are very similar to those long-familiar to records managers – securing senior management support; understanding the external and internal operating environments of an organisation; aligning information strategies to the business need; and embedding a culture where information is valued, to name but a few. Alongside shifts in Australia, it is notable that in the US, the professional forum provided for some twenty years by the records management listserv recently passed to a newly established IG GURU® news and community site aimed at “IG professionals”.

Returning to Smallwood’s definition of IG as “a super-discipline that includes components of several key fields”, the use of the word “components” seems a subtle but potentially significant point. For records management, the logical corollary to this is

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ambiguity around the role of the records manager. Indeed, Smallwood (2014) envisages that “This unique blend calls for a new breed of information professional who is competent across these established and quite complex fields”. Related debates reflecting frustrations and sensitivities around professional identities have been evident in recent posts to the USA records management list-serv. The publication of the latest edition of ARMA International’s Job Descriptions for Information Management and Information Governance prompted Smith (2018) to lament that ARMA had “taken records out of the records and information management profession. Once again the IG push is taking the profession in the wrong direction”. Haider (2018), responding to a publicity statement for the Managing Electronic Records [MER] Conference 2018 stating “The records management silo mentality ends here!”[5], expressed her increasing frustration with “technology vendors” and “IG gurus” “slinging arrows at records and information managers and insinuating that RIM is only useful for developing a records retention schedule”. Notably, Haider challenged the idea (apparently implicit in MER and IG much of the discussions on the RM/IG relationship) of treating electronic records as something completely distinct from paper records – “The only thing different is the tool used to create and store the records”. Defending the continued value and relevance of the records manager in today’s information landscape, Lueders (2017) has argued that:

Our training and experience [. . .] empowers us to make and defend the difficult decisions that we need to make. No other group of people – and certainly no new, vaguely-defined profession – will ever confidently destroy massive volumes of information and then wilfully and effectively defend their actions if they are ever questioned. Professional records managers stand alone in this capacity.

Conclusion While much of the literature reviewed recognised IG as offering something new and distinctive, some perspectives were more sceptical, questioning whether IG was little more than a rebranding exercise. Among those who recognised it as something new and distinct, differences emerged between those who took the view that IG had the potential to strengthen and add value to records management, and those who saw IG as a distinct discipline in its own right, in many cases, superseding records management. A range of perspectives from recordkeeping and non-recordkeeping backgrounds saw IG as having the potential to broaden and support records management, while many agreed that IG was built upon many of the fundamental principles of records management. For those who saw IG as the necessary successor, records management was perceived to be too synonymous with the paper era to be truly capable of meeting organisational needs today. Far from seeing IG as strengthening records management, it was seen as replacing a discipline no longer fit for purpose. In this sense, this paper identifies a distinction between discussions of an IG approach to records and information management characterised by a more holistic way of managing records and information (in a sense, viewing IG as another stage in the ongoing evolution of records management) and advocates of IG, a formally defined super-discipline requiring a new kind of information professional. Related to this, sensitivities were apparent around professional roles and identities.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who advocated most strongly for the continued relevance and value of records management in the twenty-first century information landscape were generally those writing from a records and information management background. A more diverse range of voices coalescing around the IG space were, in general, quicker to question records management’s role and relevance. For many, IG offered a more holistic and

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comprehensive approach for organisations struggling with oversight of information creation and use across a myriad of complex information environments. As Fleming (2013) has observed, “In today’s world, the problems are exponentially more complex and the solutions extend far beyond traditional RIM concepts”. At the same time, many saw records management as an integral part of IG, recognising that fundamental records management principles underpin IG. If, as the definitions emphasise, IG is about a multidisciplinary approach to minimizing the risks while maximising the value of organisational information, then, arguably, the truly new and valuable characteristic of IG is its focus on meaningful collaboration in meeting information challenges. As McGovern (Graves, 2015) has commented, “Information Governance is informed by, builds on, and leverages lessons learned from established practices. The different terms we use reflect different lenses, perspectives, domains, and insights gained”[6].

The findings also highlight that, with a few notable exceptions, there has been a lack of direct engagement from the records management community in the debates that have played out in recent years. Lappin (2014a) has wondered:

Does this new wave of information governance form part of a wider change in [the] records management paradigm? Are we seeing a new model of how records management should be tackled?

Perhaps these fundamental questions can only be truly answered over time, as the records management and IG spaces each continue to evolve. What is clear is that a broad range of interests are offering comment on records management, many of those voices coming from outside recordkeeping. With much of the discussion space dominated by commercial interests, vendors and those working within the IG space, it is imperative, therefore, that the recordkeeping profession proactively engage with and contribute to these debates.

Ultimately, while opinion varied on the relationship between records management and IG, and specifically on the relevance of records management, the literature reviewed suggested widespread agreement on the complexities of today’s information landscape and the need for organisation-wide, innovative approaches. Ultimately, whether the focus of activities is IG or records/information management, the goal (and the challenges) remain largely the same – supporting an organisation to manage, secure, access and exploit its information in complex digital environments across a myriad of locations. However, how the goals are achieved and the challenges met, and crucially, by whom, remain contested ground.

Notes

1. The term “recordkeeping” is used here to describe the management of current and historical records. Specifically, the term ‘records professional’ encompasses the work of both records manager and archivist, but in the context of this paper relates chiefly to the work of the records manager, defined by the International Council on Archives Multilingual Archival Terminology database as “a person, professionally educated, trained and experienced, responsible for the effective and efficient delivery of records management services to meet an organisation’s requirements”.

2. Keirstead is one of a number of records and information professionals quoted in the context of questions posed by records professional Chris Graves and detailed in his blog post ‘Policy driven integrated decisions’, to his Red Sea Dispatches blog, Open Shelf, 1 December 2015. Available at http://open-shelf.ca/151201-policy-driven-decisions/. The blog was one of a series exploring the concept of IG.

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3. See Medina’s comments posted 26 may 2015 in reply to Lappin’s blog post of 20 May 2015, ‘Records management is wanted dead or alive’, Thinking Records blog. Available at https:// thinkingrecords.co.uk/2015/05/20/records-management-is-wanted-dead-or-alive/

4. Howard is quoted in the context of Chris Grave’s Red Sea Dispatches blog ‘Policy driven integrated decisions’, 1 December 2015. Available at http://open-shelf.ca/151201-policy-driven- decisions/

5. In a reply to Haider’s comments, Seth F. Williams, representing the MER Conference, directed a statement to ‘the records manager community’ seeking to clarify the intended meaning of the silo mentality advertisement slogan – see his post of 15 March 2018. Available at https://lists.ufl.edu/ cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1803c&L=RECMGMT-L&P=3886

6. McGovern is quoted in the context of Chris Grave’s Red Sea Dispatches blog ‘Policy driven integrated decisions’, 1 December 2015, available at: http://open-shelf.ca/151201-policy-driven- decisions/ (accessed 12 September 2018).

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Carlis, M. (2015), “Going from records management to information governance”, Canon Business Process Services blog, March, available at: www.workflowotg.com/march-2015/310-going-from- records-management-to-information-governance (accessed 26 November 2018).

Dunn, J. (2018), “Records management vs information governance: what is the difference?”, Iron Mountain Resources, available at: www.ironmountain.com/resources/general-articles/r/records- management-vs-information-governance-what-is-the-difference (accessed 26 November 2018).

Fleming, D.M. (2013), “Tactics v. strategy? From records and information management to information governance”, ARMA Silver State Chapter Meeting, 19 February, available at: www.armalv.org/ wp-content/uploads/2016/10/arma-presentation-tactics-vs-strategy-rim-to-ig-2013-02-19.pdf (accessed 26November 2018).

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Further reading Bridges, L. (2014), “Information governance and assurance; reducing risk, promoting policy”, Records

Management Journal, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 253-255, (accessed 26 November 2018). FileTrail (2018), “Information governance vs records management”, 16 February, available at: www.filetrail.

com/blog/2016/2/16/information-governance-vs-records-management (accessed 26November 2018).

Gartner Group, Glossary (2018), available at: www.gartner.com/it-glossary/information-governance (accessed 26 November 2018).

International Organization for Standardization. (2016), “ISO 15489: 2016 information and documentation – records management – part 1: concepts and principles”.

Mathews, J.P. and Tough, A. (2018), “Managing university records in the world of governance”, Records Management Journal, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 47-61 (accessed 26 November 2018).

National Archives of Australia (2018), “Information governance webpages”, available at: www.naa.gov. au/information-management/information-governance/index.aspx (accessed 26 November 2018).

Corresponding author Julie Brooks can be contacted at: [email protected]

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