earliest records systems: A journey in professional history, The

ARMA Records Management Quarterly, Apr 1998 by Pemberton, J Michael

Wisdom is with the ancient, and understanding in length of days. Job 12:12

For an occupation desiring respect, credibility, recognition, full professional status, and parity with other related fields (e.g., information systems), the records management field is curiously, even perilously, a-historical. From the point of view of human nature, this condition is perhaps understandable, given that those new to the field scramble to learn the practical techniques needed to perform the work put before them. There may be those who, in a curious and myopic form of conceit, assume that the field started when they came into it. Even older, presumably wiser, and more technically adept practitioners seem little interested in or knowledgeable about how we might benefit and learn from the past. If they think about it at all, they may be quick to accept whatever vague or superficial notions the field's few textbooks have to offer about the origins of records management.1Almost any good introductory text in management, on the other hand, proudly traces that field's roots back to Moses and the pyramid builders!

This lack of knowledge about and, perhaps, lack of interest in our roots are compounded by living in a technology-centered era. Our professional attention has become riveted on the emergence of the latest information technology-whatever that might be. Will we understand the technology; can we use it; will it enhance or diminish our roles in the organization where we work; will it relegate us to the status of little more than machine tenders? A related factor affecting all the information professions is a "virulent wishful thinking, when otherwise sound minds reveal a certain tendency to futuristic adventurism that...appears to defy rational analysis."2 That is, we tend to rely on a very uncertain, or pie-in-the-sky, future (e.g., the "paperless office") to address concerns rather than making effective uses of a real and informing past.

Attention to the information technologies available, understanding them, judging how they may or may not apply to our efforts are vitally important. Yet, reflective practitioners might also wonder if technique and technology are all that a professional ought to know. The answer is most assuredly "no," and "Perspectives," whose theme is professional concerns, devotes itself in this issue to those records managers who suspect that they ought to know enough about their field's foundations to put their field in meaningful historical context, to establish its relative importance to society over time, and to use that knowledge of the field's foundations in establishing with others the current relevance of the field.

IN THE BEGINNING

Do those in other professions know about their fields' origins? Are the roots of medicine and law, for example, so well known that physicians and attorneys can comfortably refer to the beginnings of their professions? Certainly, and this knowledge understandably nurtures their understanding of and pride in their fields. It also instills in patients and clients a respect due fields with venerable lineages. There are, in fact, separate university degree programs in the history of medicine.

Most physicians-and some educated lay people-know that the Code of Hammurabi (second millennium B.C.E.) listed laws governing the practice of medicine. Egyptian medical history goes back at least to the 3rd millennium B.C.E. with Imhotep, a court physician. Imhotep became associated with a god of medicine called Asclepias by the ancient Greeks. The roots of western medicine are Greek and began around 1,200 B.C.E. A few famous names in Greek medical science, such as Hippocrates and Galen, are known to many even outside the medical field.

The roots of the legal profession are also quite deep. Kings in ancient times performed the function of judges at their courts. As their power enlarged and spread, kings delegated this legal function to other officials, such as grand viziers. With the emergence of Greco-Roman civilization, courts and legal practitioners became more specialized. These advocates became referred to as "jurisconsults," a class of practitioners who later became paid practitioners and teachers of law, both in secular realms and within the Roman Catholic Church.

Though unrealized within the field, records management has a very long history, one that begins almost 10,000 years before the emergence in the 1940s of a field that came to be called explicitly "records management." In fact, one could make the case that records management precedes writing as we know it and thus is, technically, pre-historic. This is a rich and interesting history, the knowledge of which should add distinction to the field in the eyes of its practitioners, students, the public, and those peers and superiors with whom we work. Who knows: we might be able to claim records management as the second oldest profession!

An established profession has a history of intellectual, technical, and social underpinnings.3 Without them there would be only an occupation, not a profession,4 of records management. If we but knew them, what might the origins and evolution of records management teach us? What aspects might we discuss among ourselves and with other professionals (e.g., archivists)? What theoretical concepts might emerge upon which to build research agendas? Some big-picture questions addressable via extensive historical understanding include: