The importance of emails as records

John Aarons, Contributor

The recent publicity given to the email correspondence involving officers of the Jamaican government, Harold Brady and officials of the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips should make everyone aware that email is an official means of communication and should be taken seriously.

Since emails are so easy to produce and send - and also to delete - many persons are of the view that it is only an informal means of communication and that email messages do not have the same value as written records. As a result, many persons do not take sufficient care with writing them and ensuring that they remain as evidence of transactions.

While this request by the Gleaner might not have been the first time in which copies of emails have been produced under the Access to Information Act, it is certainly the most publicised case and brings into sharp focus the value of emails as records. There have been many high-profile cases in the United States in which companies have been forced to pay millions of dollars in damages for failing to produce copies of emails as evidence in legal cases. The White House, too, has been involved in controversy regarding its handling on emails and, at one time during the last Bush administration, millions of emails were found to have been missing.

The increasing use of electronic communication by organisations to conduct their business has significantly changed the way records are created and kept. Electronic mail has increasingly becoming the primary business tool for both internal and external communication. It is, therefore, essential that email correspondence be treated with the same level of attention given to drafting and managing formal letters and memos. As well as taking care over how email messages are written, it is necessary to manage email messages appropriately after they have been sent and received.

Persons working in both the public and private sectors should realise that emails produced or received in the normal course of their work and which reflect the functions, business activities and decisions of their organisation are part of the official records and should be treated as such. For government officials, this means that they are subject to the Archives and Access to Information acts and should be properly managed throughout their life cycle.

Each organisation should have a policy regarding the management of emails. The policy should, among other things, state that emails belong to the organisation, define limitations on personal use of emails, and establish email rules of good etiquette. In writing email messages, one should be careful of inaccurate information in the form of opinion or fact about an individual or organisation as this could result in legal action being taken against the individual sending the email or anyone forwarding the message to others. It should be noted that the privacy and confidentiality of messages sent by email cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, one should be careful in using this means of communication in dealing with sensitive subjects.

The following are some guidelines in dealing with emails at the workplace:

Writing emails:

Ensure the inclusion of relevant contextual details such as names of the author and the recipient, date, subject or title of email, file reference.

Be conscious of the tone of the message. Think how the message would look if it appeared in the newspapers.

Use a meaningful subject line and ensure that the subject reflects the matter being discussed and save personal chit-chat for your private email address.

Keep the message short.

Identify those email messages and attachments which fall into the category of official records and ensure that they are retained in keeping with the organisation's retention and disposal policy.

Use the 'to' field for people who are required to take further action and the 'cc' field for people who are included for information only. In replying, be conscious of the names of the recipients and, therefore, be careful of the 'reply to all' button. Resist the temptation to send copies to as many persons as possible. If you subscribe to a group, remember that if you hit the 'reply' button, the message would go to all members of the group, whether or not your message is relevant to them. Many persons have been embarrassed by the wrong persons seeing their messages! Once you have finished writing the email, a good practice to follow is to give a final glance at the 'to' and 'cc' fields before the point of no return - the pushing of the 'send' button.

Safeguarding Emails

In order to retrieve emails when required, messages should be filed in established records-management systems and there are commercial packages available. Messages can also be stored in existing file folders in shared directories. If this is not feasible, they should be stored in folders on the individual user's computer.

In the absence of an electronic records-management system, emails of significance should be printed and placed in an appropriate file. The registry staff should classify, index and code the printout of email records similar to the handling of paper records. Ideally, email records captured as records should be located with other records relating to the same business activity.

Disposing of emails

Dispose emails in conformity with the retention schedule of the organisation. Documentary evidence should be kept of the details of the disposition, e.g. date, parties involved and disposition authority. Emails that actually function as a type of business record should be retained as long as you would keep similar paper records. Informal messages, however, need not be saved at all. These 'non-records' should be deleted on a regular basis as they 'clutter' up the inbox. These are ephemeral materials of a personal nature, copies or extracts of documents that are published or downloaded and distributed for information or reference purposes.

Following these simply guidelines might not only help you to better manage your electronic correspondence, but will ensure that you do not face legal and credibility risks for not being able to find and produce emails when required to do so. Do not put your organisation through that embarrassment and expense.

John A. Aarons is university archivist, The University of the West Indies. He may be contacted at john.aarons@uwimona.edu.jm. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.