Conduct
Conduct an information needs assessment, and design and evaluate customized information services and products based on those needs.
Records and Information Management, one of the applications courses in the Archives Certificate, required students to apply the guidelines learned in class to a true-to-life (though fictional) government agency. David Steward, our teacher (a Certified Records Manager), provided us with a summary of the agency’s history, organizational structure, and current workflow, and asked us to detail, in narrative form, our suggested plan of action to the head of the agency.
For my evaluation of the agency (the National Pickle Administration), my suggested solutions included: a rewritten and updated directive, a records inventory to identify the agency’s vital records, reports management and forms management plans (including a complete re-structuring of the Graphics Division), a website with current information about the application procedure, an updated records retention plan, a centralized filing system with a structured check-out procedure, a disaster recovery plan, and a suggestion to move forward with automation of the agency’s processes.
This project was especially relevant to me because many issues that I dealt with in the final project were also relevant to my practicum at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Issues of workflow efficiency (Meissner and Greene’s “More Product, Less Process”) are becoming more prevalent in archives, and many archivists with administrative duties are also expected to deal with records management issues.
