A Records Management Society of No Records Managers
| Published date | 01 February 1991 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb060905 |
| Date | 01 February 1991 |
| Pages | 56-62 |
| Author | Munehisa (Sam)CRM Sakuyama |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
A Records Management Society of No
Records Managers
Munehisa (Sam) Sakuyama, CRM
Introduction
To form a professional association, it is necessary that a profession exist or is
going to exist. People want to evolve a profession from their occupation.
Lawyers, medical doctors, dentists, architects, computer system engineers,
nurses, and barbers are examples. For records management, questions arise. Is
records management a profession? Is a records manager a professional?
Pemberton and Pendergraft won the 1990 Britt Literary Award for the most
outstanding article published in the Records Management Quarterly during
1990.
The first line of its abstract reads, "Being a 'professional' means more
than merely being an expert in one's chosen field."1
In America or Britain one can discuss whether the records manager is a
professional because there, many know what the records manager does. In
Japan, on the contrary, as I showed at the ARM A 1987 Anaheim conference2:
Records management is not a recognized management function yet. I know that
because:
(1) Many in information management have not heard the term.
(2) There is no qualification system in Japan.
(3) To my knowledge, no colleges or universities teach records
management.
(4) Companies do not recruit or retain professionals or specialists for
records management. It is not considered a job for highly-motivated
employees.
Since then, people have begun to recognize the term, records management.
They, however, usually think it is a trivial job. Because, except for records
management business people, it does not make profit directly. No Japanese
companies or government agencies include the position title of records
manager in their organization charts. Nobody wants to promote the status or
recognition of the records manager, because no records manager
exists.
In such
an environment, how can people organize a records management society? The
society cannot be of records managers, by records managers, for records
managers.
Formation Based On People's Peripheral Areas
The Records Management Society of Japan (RMS Japan) celebrated its
formation on March 18, 1989 by assembling people who deal with records
management as a peripheral activity. By gathering only records management
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