Hi Jesse,
For me as a new records officer, the biggest challenge is that I just don’t know what I don’t know. Record retention is a part of my responsibility in large part because the town clerk retired; I got hired from out of state two weeks later as an analyst, but understanding that records were to be a small part of my position. I’ve been learning a lot from the website and the analyst for our area—thank you for those resources—but the devil is in the details. Who knew that minutes weren’t official records without the mayor’s signature? Or that recordings of meetings could be classified as drafts of the minutes?
These are the kinds of things that just give me the feeling there’s a whole bunch more out there I don’t know but certainly need to learn as soon as I can. I’m also very interested in learning about the best ways to store records electronically (preferably in a searchable format), provide better public access through the town website, and reduce redundancy and inefficiency. We’ve got everything in stacks of old binders and folders that are impossible to navigate quickly—in addition to organizing and making sure we’ve destroyed old records appropriately, I’d like to help bring our records out of the 1950s and into 2014.
Hope this helps—looking forward to Records Management Month!
Dallin Kimble
Management Analyst | Town of Ashland
101 Thompson St | P.O. Box 1600 | Ashland, VA 23005
(: (804) 795-9219|7: (804) 798-4892 |*:[log in to unmask]
From: Virginia Records Officer's Listserv [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graham, Jessie (LVA)
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 3:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Need assistance with session content - What it means to be a records officer
You are receiving this e-mail as a subscriber to the Virginia Records Officer Listserv (VA-ROL). # #
Hi Records Officers,
The Library of Virginia has plans to celebrate Records Management Month in April and we’re working on a session devoted to what it means to be a records officer. In order to make the content useful for attendees, we are in need of some assistance!
Veteran records officers: What have you learned along the way that would’ve been nice to have known when you started as a records officer? Are there aspects of the job that you still struggle with?
New records officers: What do you need help with? What questions do you have that aren’t answered on our web site?
We’d value any and all input you have regarding the duties of the designated records officer.
Hope to hear from you!
Jessie
Jessie R. Graham
Records Analyst
The Library of Virginia
(804) 692-3802
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