Managing Electronic Records In Africa Case Study

The title of the article is “The challenge of managing electronic records in developing countries: Implication for records manager in sub Saharan Africa”. The article is written by Brendan E. Asogwa in 2012. The author of this article is a Doctoral student at the University of Nigeria. His academic qualifications make him qualified enough to use this article as my topic in reviewing. He had acquired qualifications in Diploma in Public Administration and Local Government, Bachelor Degree in Education and Political Science and Masters in Library and Information Science. He is currently a Principal Librarian at the University of Nigeria. For the introduction, this article talked more detailed on problems that the records managers and archivists
In Africa, the computer workplace in government offices were producing vast amount of e-mails, text documents and database created wonder on how to efficiently manage these records without leaving any of the important ones behind. The records managers were only focusing on creating the records on paper-based that will be kept as “record copy”. Now, there are a few issues that have been bothering the process of managing electronic records management in Africa. First of all is that weak legislative and organizational infrastructure. Most of the countries in the Africa molded their laws and regulations according to the Old Canadian Archival Act but eventually creating incertitude that weakened the practices in records and archives management. Because of this, the records manager had the least to say in important occasion for example records disposal. Also, non-appearance of definite rules and regulations caused the records staff to become unsure and hesitate on allowing correct disposal of inactive records that led to the offices became packed with useless and inactive records. Contrary to ISO 15489 that stated that the records manager is solely responsible for all important and crucial occasion that happened in the records and archives
Also, they should acknowledge the importance of digitization of the records because records can act as evidence from the past for the future generation. Then, the records and archives institution in Africa mostly had trouble with funding so the government has to play its part in providing the funds and get rid of the corruption. When the records and archives institution get enough funds and sources they can operate well and will be doing a good job in making sure that the records are well preserved. The managers have to play smart role in the whole process of the records so that the important records are saved and the useless records to be dispose in order to save space in the offices. Then, the records managers need to realize that in these current days, it is important to be able to work well using the computers. From this point, the solution that is suitable is that the records manager needs to have in depth understanding in records in electronic forms and the ministry needs to take initiative to create more programs based on electronic records