The Records Life Cycle is a well-known Model within the records management discipline. The Life Cycle concept dates from the 1930s and is attributed to Schellenberg of the National Archives of the United States of America (USA) (Shepherd and Yeo 2003; Kemoni 2008). It provides a framework for identifying the function of records and the operations of a records management programme (Yusof and Chell 1999). The Model views records as physical entities. As such, it illustrates the life of a record from its creation to its use, storage and final disposition.
It holds that records have a laid-out life cycle from birth to death (Shepherd and Yeo 2003). Records are seen as biological organisms that live and eventually die. Shepherd and Yeo (2003) contend that the Model has been criticised for its assumption that records “die”. The critics contend that some records do not die but are retained indefinitely because of their continuing value.
The Life Cycle Model has three stages, namely, active or current, semi-current or intermediate, and non-current or archival stages. In the active or current stages, records are used for daily business activities and are maintained in their place of receipt to ensure easy access. The semi-current records are not frequently used for daily business activities. Non-current or inactive records are not required for daily business activities and can be appraised, transferred to archives, or disposed of. The Model thus presents a progression of actions taken at different times in the life cycle of a record, that is, its creation, capture, storage, use and disposal. Records life is sometimes presented as a linear progression while others describe a loop or a circle (Shepherd and Yeo 2003). The circular progression shows that records return to their point of creation. Smith, Siller, Poynton and Exon (1995) contend that this Model is misleading as the circular progression is not usually the case. Brothman (2006) argues that the life of records is uni-directional – they move forward from an originating point to some future terminal point and never move back toward a previous stage or point. Hurley (1998) argues that in real life records relive stages;
therefore, the division of the Model into three stages is seen as artificial. The Model is focused on the record as a physical entity and operational tasks, especially those associated with the custody of paper records.
The Model contributes to the demarcation of roles between records managers and archivists as it identifies what will happen to a record at different stages. Hence, records managers are the key players in the primary use of the
24 records while archivists are managers of records for their secondary uses. This strict separation of roles is viewed as a weakness, especially by proponents of electronic records who argue that records must be managed from the moment of creation by the record-keepers, that is, the records managers and archivists working together. They contend that there is no separate distinction between a record and an archive, especially in the digital era (Shepherd and Yeo 2003; Brothman 2006).
Ndenje-Sichalwe (2010:67) employed the Life Cycle Model to underpin her study because the context of the study was government ministries which create and maintain paper records. The Model was also used by Pereira (2017) to investigate and assess the state of implementation of the National Archives and Records Management Act at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. The use of the Model was in line with the study context in which paper records were more dominant.
As alluded to above, the advent of electronic records opened a new frontier that rendered the Life Cycle Model ineffective (Kemoni 2008). The Life Cycle Model regards electronic records as different media that need special handling requirements (Atherton 1985). The weakness of the Model is its inability to function in an electronic environment hence it cannot be applied to this study as its focus was on electronic records only. The Model’s use was limited to informing the study objectives. The inherent challenges with the Records Life Cycle Model led scholars to seek alternative responses to the growing criticisms. The weakness led to the development of the Records Continuum Model. This Model is discussed under 2.5 below. Table 2.1 summarises the different aspects of both models.
25 Table 2.1: Records Life Cycle Model and Records Continuum Model
Model aspects Records Life Cycle Model Records Continuum Model
Origins • Evolved from the need to
effectively control and manage physical records after World War II
• Evolving from the more demanding need to exercise control and management over electronic records for the digital era
Elements of records definition • Physical entity • Physical and virtual record
Major concerns in records
management • Records-centred, product-
driven
• Focus on records as tangible physical entities, the physical existence of records themselves
• Paper world
• Purpose-centred, process and customer-driven
• Focus on the nature of the records, the records keeping process, the behaviours and
relationships of records in certain environments
• Digital and paper world Records movement patterns • Time-based: records pass
through stages until they eventually die, except for the chosen ones that are reincarnated as archives
• Time sequence: records processes that take place in a given sequence
• Multi-dimensional:
records exist in
space/time not space and time
• Simultaneity: records processes can happen at any point in the record's existence, or even precede it
Records keeping perspectives • Exclusive
• Single-purpose
• Organisational or collective memory
• Current or historical value
• Inclusive
• Multiple purposes
• Can be organisational and collective memory
• Can have current, regulatory and historical value from the time of creation simultaneously not sequentially Record keeping process • There are clearly
definable stages in records keeping and they create sharp distinctions between current and historical records keeping
• The records keeping and archiving should be integrated
26 Criteria for selecting archives • Historical value • Continuing value,
including current and historic value Time of archival appraisal • End of records
movement
• From beginning to end Role of records professional • Passive and reactive
• Locked into custodial role and strategies
Proactive-post custodians:
• Records keeping policymakers
• Standard setters
• Designers of records keeping systems and implementation strategies
• Consultants
• Educators/trainers
• Advocates
• Auditors Records management tasks • Things are done to the
records in fixed stages, in a given sequence by a particular professional group
• Records managers and archivists have no business directing what records an organisation creates; they are relegated to receiving the physical objects once created
• Fragmented and desperate accountability of creators, users, records managers and archivists
• Integration of business processes and records keeping processes - the task can happen in almost any sequence by any professional group
• Records managers are accountable for not only the maintenance but also for the creation of evidence of the
organisation’s purposes and functions
• Integrated framework for the accountabilities of players and partnerships with other stakeholders Source: An (2003:1)