April 8, 2004
Dear Everyone:
Spring has Sprung! I know because I have baby birds right outside my window and boy do they make a racket when it’s time for Mom to feed them. Actually, the nest is in the rafters under the roof. Same place as last year.
April is National Records and Information Management Month. You probably didn’t know this. (In California, April is better known as Earthquake Awareness Month, because the great San Francisco Shake and Bake happened in April, 1906.)
Some years ago, someone got the bright idea to request that their Congress person declare a particular date as “National Records and Information Management Day”. The idea was to raise awareness of Records and Information Management (RIM). Then this person made an announcement on an electronic bulletin board. The result?
The Canadians had kittens.
The Canadians are fiercely protective of their records. What made those arrogant Americans think they had an exclusive on Records Management anyway?
In the meantime, the Australians pitched a royal fit. Same reason. Furthermore, the Australians are years ahead of everybody else when it comes to taking proper care of their records, even the Canadians.
Apologies were made all around. Nevertheless, “National Records and Information Day” (NRIMD) stuck. And, like National Secretaries Day, it quickly grew into “National Records and Information Management Week” (NRIMW), which was even harder to pronounce. Now the entire month of April is NRIMM.
So, every year, as the local ARMA chapter boards gather to plan the programs for the coming year, we always say, “…and we’ll do something special for April.” Then, when April rolls around, panic sets in because we never did figure out something special for April. Now in the past, the three Bay Area chapters have gotten together and held a joint seminar, or set of workshops, or something. But each year it gets harder to think of something to do. I fully expected this year to be no different.
But then the local branch of the National Archive and Records Administration (NARA) stepped in and announced that, in honor of NRIMM, they would hold an Open House and invite everyone who was even slightly interested in RIM to attend. Best of all, it was free. The Board of our chapter quickly sent the word out that the Open House would replace our usual monthly dinner meeting. The other two Bay Area chapters did the same.
So I took yesterday as a vacation day and drove to
Next biggest customer is the courts system.
Once a case is closed, all the documents are sent to
In all, around 150 people showed up, which made the
Most records, once their retention period ends, are automatically destroyed. For individuals, the IRS only holds the tax returns for 7 years. For companies, it’s 75 years. See what useful things you can learn?
It was very interesting and I get to claim 6 hours of Professional Development time at work, even though I was on vacation at the time.
In other news…
“Jeannie” had her home office painted last week, so we spent part of Sunday setting up her new phone, the fax machine and the computer stand and printer. I got her a 4-port phone jack, which allows her to have the phone, fax and computer all plugged into the phone line without having to pull a line out of one thing, such as the telephone, in order to put it into another, such as the computer.
This came after she complained that the new fax machine wasn’t working. When I followed the phone line, which she had pulled out to connect the laptop to the Internet, I discovered that she had plugged the jack back into itself. Sort of like when someone puts the plug of a power strip into itself. Now all of the devices work and she has a new cordless phone and answering machine.
The only problem: She forgot to turn off the old answering machine, so they both tried to answer incoming calls. I understand this caused some confusion for the first few people who called last week.
Everyone enjoy what’s left of National Records and Information Management Month. A friend recently sent me a photograph that I had sent her in February, 1994. She found it cleaning out her desk.
Love, as always,
Pete
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