Records Management
Records Management
John J. Treanor
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Part of the Catholic Studies Commons Recommended Citation
-
Article 4
JOHN J. TREANOR*
John Treanor: While we wait for my computer to boot-up, let
me tell you something about myself. I am something of a rare
breed because I am both a Certified Archivist and a Certified
Records Manager. Dual certification is a fairly recent
phenomenon in the information management profession. It
produces a form of schizophrenia: on one side, the little devil sits
on your shoulder and says, "When in doubt, throw it out;" and on
the other side, the little angel sits on your shoulder and says,
"Oh no, somebody's going to be interested in that someday." It
really creates some problems and further complicates the
difficult task of explaining to people what is an archivist.
As I met some of you last evening, I was introduced to some
of your wives as an archivist. The response was always the
same, "A what?" My mother has had a great deal of amusement
with this issue because she has one son who is a perfusionist and
another who is an archivist. That's usually good for at least an
hour and a half conversation in social settings. It is hard to
explain to people. For a long time, my mother thought I was a
disk jockey because I kept old records.
My daughter, who attended Saint Mark's in Dorchester,
Massachusetts, (and is about to have a baby at any minute) had
the same problem in the third grade. The good Sister asked her,
"What is it that your daddy does?" Erin was very quick to
respond, "My dad is an archivist." The good Sister said, "Oh, an
architect?" And she said, "No, no, no, an archivist." The good
Sister responded, "That's okay, little girl, sit down." The next
year when they asked Erin what it was her father did and she
said an archivist, the teacher said, "Oh, an archeologist?" And
she said, "No, no, an archivist. I can tell you . . . ." But Sister
responded, "That's okay, little girl, sit down." By the third year
when Erin was asked what her father did, she just said, "He's
* Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center, Archdiocese of
Chicago, Illinois.
dead." Showing up at the first Parent/Teacher Association
caused a small scene.
Why are we discussing records? What is behind the great
importance in managing information today? I have always
maintained that the best arguments for good Catholic diocesan
archives and records management programs are complicated and
pressing litigation issues. Of course, that is not what Catholic
diocesan officials or bishops to whom I've talked want to hear,
but litigation issues always present an opportunity for archivists
and records managers to address the concerns of keeping records
properly. I think for many bishops and diocesan attorneys the
notions of poor record keeping and lack of accountability have
underscored why this issue is so pressing in the Church today. I
am going to talk a little bit about good record keeping, but I want
you to keep in the back of your mind why this discussion was not
going on eight or ten years ago.
I was hired and came to Chicago during Cardinal
Bernardin's administration. Cardinal Bernardin always
considered himself to be an archivist. As Chancellor of the
Diocese of Charleston, Joe took it upon himself to train and
assign seminarians to keep the archives. When he came to
Chicago, he found a different set of problems. The record
keeping activities of his predecessor, Cardinal Cody, were found
to be less than adequate. The Diocese already had an archivist
and a records manager. The archivist was a priest who
presented assignment problems. He looked upon researchers as
snoops and potential reporters for a supermarket tabloid. The
records manager, a young woman, did not get along with this old
irascible priest. At professional association meetings, they
would get into shouting matches, one calling the other a "clerical
pack-rat," and the other calling their fellow employee a
"recordsabortionist." So I was brought to Chicago to try to straighten out
that mess and impose order and good sense on the management
of information.
What you are about to hear and see addresses many of
Brother Patrick's comments, with almost all of which I would
agree, except that he said at one point that he had never seen
anything as extensive in terms of record keeping. I would argue
that this is not uncommon in most well-managed
corporations/organizations. What we have in Chicago is a fairly
centralized form of record keeping. It is not perfect because
humans maintain the system, and they are not perfect. Based in
policy and adequately funded, however, our program is a model
for the rest of the Catholic dioceses to follow.
A centralized record keeping system develops, and I strongly
believe this, a form of accountability. If a diocese can determine,
at the point of creation, what kinds of records it will keep and
what material goes into files, it will (...truncated)