2002 EMMETT LEAHY AWARD WINNER, CHRISTINE ARDERN

At the Annual Business Meeting of the Institute of Certified Records Managers, New Orleans, Louisiana on September 29, 2002.

One of the most satisfying things to see is a deserving person, who has worked consistently, diligently and over a long period, be honored for their life long impact, by their profession. I met this year’s winner in 1974 at her first records management job. She was a young archivist newly involved in records management. Since that time she has logged almost thirty years of contribution to the archives and records management profession including over twenty years of service to ARMA International.

But the Emmett Leahy Award is not a service award. As Mark has already explained, this award is about IMPACT – the difference an individual has made in their time served to the profession.

In her own words, this honoree counts two areas where she has made impact: 1) to be able to address information, truly, throughout its lifecycle by having both a records management and archives background and 2) the ability to bring together different groups in a collaborative manner, to strengthen the profession and show that we are all information professionals with a variety of specialties.

Indeed, as a Certified Records Manager since 1985, she has had the opportunity to design, develop and implement fully integrated archives and records management programs, from the ground up, in each of four major organizations including a government agency, a non profit, a not for profit, and a very much for profit financial institution with 11 regional offices and over 1500 branches and a world-wide staff of 40,000 people.

The success of each of her four programs was dependent on her creativity and innovation but particularly on her ability to sell the concept, benefit and value of records management to senior executives and staff. Because of this strategic information management perspective in establishing these programs she was asked to evaluate two government-wide records management programs, one at the national level, for policy and program development.

In conjunction with this work she has, since 1992, represented the records management profession on a national Standards Board Standards Committee which has produced two standards: 

• “Microfilm and Electronic Images as Documentary Evidence”
• E-Records as Evidence (released in Summer 2002)

The microfilm standard is referenced by the this country’s Revenue agency in its business guides on how records should be retained for tax purposes and is used across the country as a benchmark for microfilming and imaging program implementation and management. The new electronic records standard, which incorporates ISO 15489 as a “best practice,” will be used extensively as electronic evidence issues continue to impact every organization.

In addition, she was author of a major report, which looks at the future of records and information management and its impact on Access to Information legislation for the Access to Information Review Task Force. The report will be incorporated into the Task Force final report, which will reshape the access to information regime in her country.

Not satisfied to impact only major business organizations and a national government, she designed and taught archives and records management in 2 University and 2 College Continuing Education programs in her city. As a part-time instructor she has taught over 300 students, who gained a cross-sectoral understanding of archives and RM related issues. In addition to teaching, she represented the profession on the Advisory Boards of all four post secondary institutions and is currently co-designing a four-module distance learning course on electronic records to be introduced in January as part of a prestigious universities’ continuing education curriculum.

But her impact does not stop here. She has presented over one hundred and fifty seminars on behalf of Archivists, Museum Associations, Information Processing Societies, Librarians and Records Managers in ten countries around the world including South Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Switzerland, Italy and Jamaica. Her designed and delivered courses, workshops and conference sessions have reached over 10,000 individuals.

Over the past 25 years, our honoree has been a member of the Board of Directors and/or association committees of over 10 information management associations. During this time, she led an Alliance of Libraries, Archives and Records Management, in the development of a human resources strategy and related competency profiles for the information resources sector – a model that is being used as the basis for organizational competency profiles, job classification guides and related tools in public and private sector organizations across the country.

And during one of her terms of association service, as President of ARMA International, she oversaw the signing of The Accord, an agreement signed between the International Council of Archives, the International Records Management Trust and ARMA International which has resulted in joint projects and reciprocal committee participation that could never have been achieved if each organization had proceeded on its own. In this spirit of cross-functional relations she initiated 4 Joint conferences with records managers, archivists and librarians.

During her career, so far, as I can see no slow down in her enthusiasm for the profession – she was just elected chairman of the FAIRC – she has encouraged seminar participants, Board associates and colleagues alike to think ‘out of the box’, to understand and appreciate how they can be better positioned to carry out their responsibilities and to understand the importance of collaboration and partnerships with those in other professions.

She has lived this model herself whether building The Heritage Centre, as the home of the Salvation Army’s corporate records management and archives program, celebrating its 100th Anniversary; or building the chapter membership of her home chapter of ARMA, where she was honored in 1988, as Chapter Member of the Year; or championing the cause of archivists, who in 1989, awarded her the Alexander Fraser Award for her contributions to the archives profession; or developing the first ICRM Liaison Handbook with workshops at the ARMA International conference; or being one of the rare women who has addressed the Tokyo Chapter of ARMA.

Ladies and gentleman, please help me welcome a Fellow of ARMA International, truly a woman of impact on our profession, and by the way a very nice person, our Emmett Leahy Award winner in 2002, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Ms. Christine Ardern.

Thank you to the Emmett Leahy committee for awarding me this honour and also to the ICRM and Kathy and Don for the venue to accept it. I know with the hurricane last week there were some last minutes changes that posed some challenges to all concerned. 

I can remember Jim Spokes, an ARMA past president, saying that you get out of the profession what you put into it, so I took him at his word and participate in a variety of ways as a matter of course and I have benefited tremendously from the people I have met, things I have learned and the part I have played. I was both proud and surprised when I was told that I had been nominated as a potential recipient of the award. In preparing for the submission, I had to look back over a long period of time – 25 years in records and information management.

Jim Coulson has told you a little about my career in archives and records management, which started when I was asked to develop an archives and records management program in Toronto. Not knowing where to go I turned to the profession, and I have to say that some of the first people I met were Jim Coulson, Don Barber, George Fletcher, Bob Morin, and many other luminaries in the then Region VIII. Jim told about this wonderful conference that would be happening in Toronto – ARMA International’s annual conference. Through it I had the opportunity to listen to Alice Haltom, Bill Benedon and Alan Negus among other well-known ARMA leaders.

Since 1975, when I first got involved, the profession has evolved and changed – at that time articles were being written about the need for the records management community to work closely with IT because computers were going to have a major influence on records management. Little did we know. 

In the 1980’s the archival community was concerned about preserving data over the long term as large legacy systems were creating and capturing large amounts of data that would be valuable for research purposes in years to come. Records managers were not yet dealing with data and e-records to the same extent. 

As we moved into the 1990s, the personal computer landed on the desktop and records management programs suffered as organizations expected technology to replace the need to manage records – we all know what happened!

Over my 25 years, I have seen changes in the workplace and changes in the way we work.  As a result, I recognized that I had to change my approach to records management. Today we have a huge opportunity to be more proactive as organizations recognize the huge gaps in their records management programs.

Where are we today from a records management perspective? We’ve got knowledge management, content management, document management and users who think they have data now rather than records. And what about all those taxonomy frameworks? Are they new?

In Softwaremag.com, a publication which describes itself as “a field guide for IT managers”, an article entitled “managing Content in Collaborative environments by Neena Buck stated that:

• “Content is hot. And enterprise content management (ECM) is fast becoming one of the trendiest buzzwords bandied about in IT circles. ECM deals with the dynamic nature of toady’s content and the delivery of this content to a variety of platforms. The advent of the Web and its related implications for sharing knowledge within and between organizations has breathed new life into this once stodgy field, previously known for records management and document processing.”

The reality is that everyone is struggling with information overload but have the basic records management principles changed?

I maintain that regardless of what name you apply to all these recent technology innovations, there is a records management component to each of them that is critical. In today’s world, the records are still evidence of transactions and decisions, but they also have other uses as a result of the enabling technology.

Over the past few years, we have struggled with our identity… who are we? What do we do? How do we address the future? In 1997, I had the opportunity to hear Chauncey Bell, a group director at “Vision” present the keynote speech at the NAGARA conference in Sacramento. His title was Re-membering the Future – Organizational Change for records professionals. He had several interesting observations about the records management and archives professions which struck me at the time:

• “It is time for you to invent and tell a new story about yourselves; a story you can “sing around fires” at night that tells of your past accomplishments and the future you are bringing. To produce the best future for yourselves, you therefore will need exceptional faculties for manipulating inscriptions and records for collaborating with others to make history. For the former area, a tremendous number of people are available and eager to help you develop those faculties. For the latter area, I suggest you apply your own discipline to the question, and that you seek new help.”

His message stuck with me for a number of reasons – his message was that we, as records managers, have a set of skills and a knowledge base which supports today’s organizations. But we must understand the hot buttons of the organizations we are working in and explain what we do in a context that is comprehensive to senior management. We are still records managers and records are critical within our organizations today, more so than they have ever been.

I believe we have huge opportunities to promote records and information management today if we know how to present our case and ourselves. Over the past few months, I have seen organizations addressing the influx of information initiatives. They are developing information management frameworks, knowledge management frameworks and content management strategies. At the same time, I have looked at the legal environment in which we find ourselves. In Canada we have electronic transactions acts which even mentioned records and state that they must be authentic, reliable, and have integrity. Our standards address electronic records. The basic question is – have the records disappeared? I would argue that, no, they have not, and they need to be managed even more in today’s environment.

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the U.S. impacts not only the U.S. but those multinationals who trade on the U.S. stock market. As Brad Jordan of Jordan Lawrence wrote recently:

• “The dangerous language of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has turned improper records management results into the very real opportunity for executives to spend up to 20 years in prison for stiff fines”.

Sometimes we wait for things to come to us and react. In the past few months, things have certainly come to us in terms of opportunities for promoting ourselves and records and information management. Now we have the opportunity to be proactive and recommend solutions. ISO 15489, changes to evidence acts, e-business and recent technology solutions provide us with huge opportunities to shape the future.

Our professional association and organizations, such as the ICRM are critical in the development of professional accreditation and recognition. I, like many persons in the profession, fell into records management when I was asked to start an archives program at the Toronto Harbour Commission. I very quickly realized the records management was a critical enabler to the process and embarked on establishing an integrated program. I had a degree in French literature but at that time there were no graduate programs in records management or archival management.

At the time, I was looking for something that would help me in terms of credentials and learned about the ICRM through the Toronto chapter of ARMA International. There were six of us who decided to set up a study group to prepare for the exams. The study sessions, complemented by the “how to write the exam sessions” were extremely useful to me. Once I had received my ICRM designation, I worked with Ira Penn on the development of the examination maintenance program and with Jenny Barker and Pat Acton on developing the role of the ICRM liaison with ARMA chapters. I have watched the evolution of the ICRM with interest and have been involved in the debates about tiered certification. 

Certification is important to all of us as recognition of a level of achievement. People ask me why I took the CRM exams and if having a CRM helped me. It was important for me, personally, to achieve the designation as part of my own professional development and learning process. Has it helped me professionally? I believe it has – my job at CIBC required a qualified CRM for the position. I believe the certification maintenance program has also helped me by keeping me up to date on what is happening within the profession and in the changing environment in which our organizations operate. I feel strongly that the ICRM is an integral part of our professional infrastructure and is critical in any certification strategy for the profession.

Over the years I have been involved with a variety of organizations, participated on boards and committees, and worked towards the development of standards. In each case, while the situation did not focus totally on records management, I brought the RM perspective to the table. In today’s environment we are not alone. We have to partner and collaborate but as Chauncey Bell said, that may require us to change the story we tell, depending on the situation, but it doesn’t mean that we forget our basic principles and practices, which I believe are even more important today.

Over the years I have believed strongly in collaboration and have worked towards that goal, whether through partnerships with the International Council on Archives or through ad-hoc organizations such as CIMA. We have too few resources and too much to do to spend time arguing over whose turf it is.

From my perspective, records management is not going to disappear, certainly not with recent events. How it is positioned will certainly change and we all need to understand how to position what we do to sell ourselves and records management. Let’s seize that opportunity and run with it.