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Administrative records management, developed in the United States in the 1950s, was introduced in Canada in the early 1960s and in most of Quebec some ten years later.
The value of this approach to the management of part of the stock of information is now fully recognized in America today. It is the generally accepted rule in the profession, even if the vocabulary used varies from region to region. It has already spread to other continents through papers, meetings, and exchanges between countries, groups and people.
This document was not intended as a survey of the progress of records management activities across the world. A quick review of the literature on the subject nevertheless reveals the growth of this integrated approach to the management of administrative records and archives. Every national and regional programme has several positive features and is suited to the needs of its own environment.
For some of these programmes, however, it would be a good idea to present the regulations in a more systematic form and gather them all together in a single administrative records management handbook.
It is hoped that this study will enable organizations which have not yet begun to develop or introduce a programme of this sort to start off on the right foot by saving them a considerable amount of energy.