A new Records Update is now available on the Records Management Program website. Records Update is released periodically to convey timely information between publications of Records Quarterly. This issue offers “Records in the News” stories found in the media and legislative action taken in March and April.

As reported in the Spring 2013 Records Quarterly article, “Public Records: Your Rights and Responsibilities,” Ohio’s public records laws are dynamic and are continually being tested in Ohio’s courtrooms. Ohio courts decided seven public records cases in March and April and there are currently six open cases in front of the Supreme Court of Ohio. In a case close to home, on April 24 the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that lease terms and rents between Findlay Market private management company The Corporation for Findlay Market and its tenants are trade secrets and are not open to disclosure under the public records act. In 2010, Kevin P. Luken requested copies of lease agreements from The Corporation for Findlay Market and ultimately from the City of Cincinnati. While he received the agreements, terms and rents were redacted from the released documents and cited as trade secrets. Luken initated a mandamus action against the parties, which resulted in the recent decision.

The Findlay Market decision and more are available through this issue of Records Update.

The Spring 2013 edition of Records Quarterly, a newsletter of the University of Cincinnati Records Management Program, is now available on the records management website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/documents/RQSpring2013.pdf. Articles in this issue include:

• Public Records: Your Rights and Responsibilities – Learn what your responsibilities are as a UC employee when it comes to Ohio public records laws and your rights as a citizen to obtain government records.
• Social Media and the Ohio Electronic Records Committee – See how the Ohio Electronic Records Committee is studying social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook for their capability to create records and how that translates to UC’s social media activity.

• When do I Dispose of Records? – Discover the answer to this oft-asked question with the help of some handy charts that make it easier for you to time your records disposition.

You will also find announcements for the spring shredding event sponsored by the Office of Information Security, “Records in the News,” current events in legislation that could affect recordkeeping, and recent gifts to the University Archives.

Records Quarterly is distributed electronically via the Records Management website.

The next Introduction to Records Management workshops will be held February 19 and February 21, 2013.

During this workshop we will discuss the benefits you will receive from efficiently managing your records, UC’s records program, your role as a keeper of public records, the definition of a “record,” how to perform records inventories, the development of records retention schedules and proper means of records disposal. Also, Alecia Trammer, Human Resources will provide information regarding the policies and procedures for maintaining personnel records.

Both sessions will be held in Blegen Library’s Marge Schott Seminar Room, room 814, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The workshops are free, but registration is required. You only need to register for one session; the same information will be presented at both.

Register here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SWB5KB7. When you see SurveyMonkey’s “Thank you for taking this survey” page your registration has been sent.

Who should attend?
These workshops are for new records officers who have not been introduced to records management at UC and existing records officers who need a refresher as well as anyone responsible for managing University records.

Would you like these workshops presented in your office? Please contact Janice Schulz at schulz.janice.rm@gmail.com or 556-1958 to schedule a custom workshop geared to the needs of your staff.

Ever since those lovely punch cards were introduced to organizations as a business tool in the 1940s, records managers have faced unique dilemmas, challenging us to fit new electronic methods into our old models of recordkeeping or to come up with new ways of managing information and technologies. Admittedly, the lightning fast pace of technological advancement oftentimes catches us unaware and we end up backtracking and trying to catch up after realizing that the new media is producing information that needs to be managed. From punch card automation to mainframes to personal computers to mobile devices, each new technology has presented new issues and has required us to think creatively about how to deal with their related records.

The Ohio Electronic Records Committee (OhioERC) tackles these challenges by researching issues and crafting guidelines for Ohio’s government and government-funded organizations to use in their own policy and procedure creation. As UC Records Manager, I have been a member of the OhioERC since 2006, serving as Secretary from 2008-2012. For me, this experience has been extremely valuable and frankly very eye-opening as I am exposed to quandaries others are facing and we may face very well in the future at UC. The first quarterly meeting of 2013 was held on Wednesday, January 16, at the Ohio History Center in Columbus. The Committee is very close to releasing a new guideline on cloud computing and an updated version of the Electronic Records Management guideline, one of the very first produced.  A subcommittee is working to update the current Managing Web Content guideline and discussion ensued about the need to update the current Managing Email guideline.

The newest manifestation of the technology phenomenon is internet computing and most recently, the use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, in business environments. Along with the use of social media come many, many questions, particularly in our case when it comes to public records. The OhioERC’s newest guideline, Social Media: The Records Management Challenge, addresses many of the records management related issues that are tied to the use of social media in government organizations. In October, the OhioERC offered workshops to public records employees based on the new social media guideline, complete with a template for engaging social media, which was very well received as a practical take-away. Since then, we have been asked to present this workshop at other Ohio venues.

A look at the chart maintained by UC’s Web Communications department, a part of Government Relations and University Communications, shows just how pervasive social media has become at the University. Web Communications has issued guidelines and recommendations for the use of social media as well as guides for student and general users. However there is not a policy in place to govern social media use or the management of content as records and that should be our next step. Topics in the OhioERC guideline that need to be addressed via policy include how to capture content, ownership and control of data, retention and disposition, public records requests, legal issues, preservation, and security. These represent just a handful. Did you realize that there are this many issues connected to each of your business tweets or wall posts? Frankly, it makes me long for those punch cards.

For a brief history of UC’s automation timeline, see the article “Automation and Records Management” originally published in the Spring 2010 edition of Records Quarterly as part of a series on the history of records management at UC.

For more information about the OhioERC and how it fits into UC’s records management policy development, see the blog entry “The Ohio Electronic Records Committee” originally posted August 16, 2011. Visit the OhioERC website for up-to-date information on the committee’s work and outreach opportunities and to find current guidelines.

If you contact ARB with records management inquiries in the next few months you will be greeted by a familiar, but perhaps surprising, presence. To smooth the transition, Janice Schulz, former Records Manager and Archives Specialist, is back to help out with records management in a temporary role while a full-time replacement is sought.

In the coming months Janice will be offering an Introduction to Records Management workshop to familiarize staff in new records management roles with UC’s policies and procedures.  Dates and times of the workshops will be announced on the Records Management Listserv and on the ARB Blog. Janice is also available for individual and departmental meetings.

For records management inquiries, please contact us using the following methods:

Email: schulz.janice.rm@gmail.com or  archives@ucmail.uc.edu

Phone: 556-1958 or 556-1959

Campus Mail: ML 0113

Web: http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/records_management/index.html

Please note: ARB has no fax