Retention and Disposition of Structured Data: The Next Frontier for Records Managers

Records managers have never questioned their need to be involved in the management of electronic records. If it was difficult to convince information technology (IT) of this, it was due to indifference rather than hostility. The first concern of IT has always been operational: ensuring system performance and availability and providing for recovery in the event of disaster. Using a classic definition, unstructured electronic records consist of electronic information created or obtained by end users where the information is not stored in tables in a relational database system. Unstructured electronic records are largely electronic versions of paper records. The risks involved in not complying with the retention schedule are different for structured and unstructured data. Records managers and IT management must consider how data archiving works and how compliance with retention is affected.