Records management at the University of Johannesburg - report on a seminar

I had the good fortune to attend a seminar at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) titled:
Case study on the implementation of Records Management at a merged higher education institution.
It was organised by the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at UJ (Kingsway Campus).

Quote from the original invite:

"As part of the corporate governance strategy at the University of Johannesburg, access to information is the management of paper and electronic records within a secure environment.  Technology provides the tool to capture, manage and access content and to provide a workable retention schedule for paper and electronic records. The methodology developed includes a phased-in approach with the focus on legislative compliance, business processes and change management principles. This required compliance with the Promotion of Access to Information Act on the one hand and the Protection of Personal Information bill whilst complying with King III directives."

The seminar was presented by Elize de Wet, Director Corporate Governance at UJ, with assistance by Nicolette Olivier, Records Manager at UJ.

The records management process was started two years back at UJ. It had to incorporate the merged higher education institutions of all the campuses now falling under the banner of the University of Johannesburg.

Interesting points mentioned at the seminar:

• They discovered very early on that the implementation of a records management  constitute a Change Management process, and had to handle it accordingly.
• They had to use a phased-in approach.
• There is not one recipe for everything in records management. They had to look at the business of the different departments and sections and what business they subscribes to.
• The paper records must drive the system, and not the other way round.
• The appointment of a business administrator as well as a business analyst are very important for the process.
• The most interesting point to me was the fact that they assigned categories to disciplines and then to the types of documents. The feeling is that the focus should have been on the types of documents, and not on the disciplines as point of departure.
• Metrofile store their paper records off-site, which saves a lot of money in terms of space and storage,  and is accessible within a few hours when requested.

The records management system is now "just a click away...", and they have buy-in from most of the stake-holders.

The proof is in the pudding: Their records are available on-line, immediate, and a paper trial can be accessed  electronically for most of the records, especially since some of it (like student records) need to be kept for life!


Blog post by Karen du Toit, Sound Archivist, SABC Radio Archives.

Generational awareness for interactive information societies - Sophie van der Walt



Inherited work environment of each generation - Sophie van der Walt

 The Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg presented a seminar by Sophie van der Walt, an Information Search Librarian at the University of South Africa.

She presented the seminar based on her MPhil (Information Management) studies at UJ, which she completed in April of 2010. The pretext of the study is based on four different generations active in South African interactive societies, namely Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. People who can’t be classified within a specific generation, and who falls between two of the generations, are called Cuspers.

The characteristics of the different generations are reviewed with regards work performance, work-life balance, retirement, rewards, co-worker relationships and recruitment. The study focuses specifically on academic and research libraries in the South African context. Generation Y was not included, because they are not part of the workforce at the moment. It is a direct consequence of posts being frozen for nearly ten years in these academic institutions.

It is very interesting to see how the different generations react to work, the workplace, as well as to each other. The research aims to enhance co-worker relationships by identifying differences based on generations. It has the potential to facilitate management in how they approach the different generations in their staff complement. When you know how to reward your staff, you will be able to retain them for longer as well as ensure the future with middle and top managers.

The aging workforce has been identified as one of the challenges in these academic institutions. Succession planning needs to take it into account. Nearly 51% of the workforce is near retirement.
The basis of the seminar can be found in the following article, which has been published in the South African Journal of Information Management.

I think we can extrapolate the findings of this research to our own information societies in the corporate workplace. We face the same challenges with regards an aging workforce. We can also spend more time looking at generational differences, rather than only looking at cultural differences.

Who finds the same type of situation in your information libraries or archives?

Karen du Toit
Afrikaans Archivist
SABC Radio Archives