April 2009 has been proclaimed Records and Information Management Month by the State of Wisconsin!

While you should already be practicing records management every day, maybe you've been less diligent than you had hoped. Your office's filing system consists of "vaguely related piles". Your storage room or workspace is filled with records that haven't been looked at for 10 years. You haven't seen the surface of your desk since 1997. Your computer desktop is filled with a bewildering mix of files with esoteric names. You can never find anything in your email box. It's OK. We know things get out of hand sometimes.

This April, resolve to change your ways and celebrate RIM Month by making a dent in the clutter and bringing order out of chaos. UWM Records Management is happy to help you make sense of your professional life by assisting you with identifying, classifying, and disposing of your university records, whether through confidential destruction or transfer to the archives. Practicing records management saves time and money by helping you organize and find the records you need when you need them. It lets you separate the wheat from the chaff and keep only those records that are worth keeping. It prepares you for complaints, grievances, grade appeals, and legal action. We won't promise that records management increases overall happiness, but we do think it reduces overall stress.

Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day, and your office's records management compliance won't be built overnight. Fortunately, you don't have to suspend your office's normal operations to build up your program a little at a time-- every little bit helps! Below is a list to a "top 10" list in honor of RIM Month: Ten things you can do for your own records management needs. We also encourage you to glance over the rest of the records management site for additional tips for managing university records and sending them to the UWM Archives for permanent preservation.

Thanks for your interest in Records Management at UWM, and Happy Records and Information Management Month 2009!

Top 10 ways you can take charge of RM in your office