Archives promo sweetens tough corporate message
Jinfo Blog

13th July 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Luminaries from the entire spectrum of business attended the recent House of Lords launch of the National Archives publication Corporate Memory: a Guide to Managing Business Archives (7mb to download). Lavishly designed, it does a pretty good selling job for the archive profession – but behind it lies a simultaneous and much more crucial launch: the National Strategy for Business Archives. Wisely, the emphasis throughout much of the richly illustrated Corporate Memory booklet is on the prestige stuff: branding activity at Diageo, Boots or Thomas Cook; a history wall for HSBC’s new London head office; Marks & Spencer’s 125th anniversary (http://digbig.com/5babay). But with people like the Bank of England’s governor Mervyn King and former MI5 head Stella Rimington (herself a professional archivist) at the launch, the National Archives may have been pretty clever in delivering at the same time a more urgent message about regulation and compliance. Further case studies cover the National Grid’s use of its archive in cleaning up contaminated land – and the Total E&P page notes that the oil and gas industry is one of the most heavily regulated in the world and as a result retains ‘detailed, well-managed records’. The report also explains why around 20% of FTSE 100 companies employ professional archivists, and seizes the opportunity to promote the Business Archives Council (http://www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk/) and the Managing Business Archives Best Practice site (http://www.managingbusinessarchives.co.uk/). But it’s in the associated National Strategy for Business Archives that the real meat is to be found. ‘Archives can provide evidence against litigation, trademark infringement, or assault on reputation,’ it says – as well as being ‘an unparalleled source of management information’. The Strategy aims to raise the profile of business archives, promoting their commercial value and encouraging their better management. It wants to increase the number of corporate sector business archives and of business collections in public sector repositories, and to raise standards of care through best practice exemplars, professional training and improved funding and support. It also warns of the serious risk of loss of born digital company records, and its SWOT analysis includes lack of skills in managing electronic media, and a failure to embed them in businesses, as a key weakness. Recession and business failure, leading to cost cutting for records management activity, is the biggest threat (http://digbig.com/5babba). As Nancy Davis Kho reported at the start of this year, the regulatory environment is likely to get even more strict in the years to come. ‘Corporations dealing with information overload will be looking for tools to make sure they comply with sound records management practices throughout their organisations,’ she continues (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e16264). In launching their spectacular showcase document now, the National Archives may possibly have got their timing exactly right.

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