CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Records management has been defined as a programme to control the creation, practical use, maintenance, storage, protection and disposition of documents.
Records management also means the care and administration of records from time of creation till such records are permanently preserved in the archives.
Records management programme deals with records throughout their “life cycle”. The records life cycle has three distinct phases:
i. The active or current phase;
ii. The semi active or semi current phase;
iii. When the records go out of regular use with perhaps minimal or occasional referencing and the inactive, non-current, dormant or archives phase, when the records are due for permanent preservation.
“Archives” has been defined as those records of any public or private institution, which are adjudged worthy of permanent preservation and conservation for reference and research purpose and which have been deposited or have been selected for deposit in an archival institution. Records may be in the forms of books, papers, maps, photographs or other documentary materials, regardless of physical forms or characteristics, made or received by any public or private institution in pursuance of its legal obligations or in connection with the transaction of its proper business.
According to Maclean e.g. (1995:32), “A record is a collection of related data or words treated as a unit”. Records management first took place at the National Archives in the United States of American in an attempt to improve records keeping method which were in chaotic condition. In many government departments and agencies; viola (1992) stated that a voluminous records were created without any organized plan for their disposition after the Second World War.
Therefore, the National Archives, in order to improve management of records, inaugurated “Records Administration programmes” on records disposition in the Federal Government Agencies. It became the schedule for the retention and disposal of records. After the second phase of the programme, “Record Administration” changed to “Record Management” chatfield (1968).
Furthermore, record management spread from the United States of America to other countries like Great Britain, Canada, and Scandinavian Countries, according to Bissonetter (1975). In Nigeria, it started as early as 1914, when the colonial office issued some guidelines in the management of records.