Recognizing Records Management Research

Allison Druin, Associate Dean for Research, iSchool

 “… whether the government remains stuck in a print to paper paradigm for purposes of official record-keeping, or chooses to spend millions in adopting electronic record-keeping software that highly depends on end-users performing manual record keeping functions – those approaches are all a legacy of late 20th century thinking that we need to shake off and move away from. I am calling for workers of the world to unite (especially in the public sector), in opposing efforts to enslave them in record-keeping responsibilities when there are new and better automated ways to perform this vitally important function. Especially in a time of fiscal scarcity, it is all the more important that we be lean, smart and agile on the record-keeping front. We need to understand that there are the technological means to accomplish record-keeping in 2011, if institutions have the will to convert to them.”

These are the words of Mr. Jason R. Baron, Emmett Leahy Award Winner.

His call to action was shared just a few weeks ago at the Awards Ceremony in the Archivist's Reception Room in the Washington D.C. building of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). There is no higher honor in records management than to receive the Emmet Leahy Award, considered to be the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes of the profession.  To understand how important Jason’s call to action is and the importance of his work, you need only to hear the words of John Phillips, the recipient of the 2001 Emmett Leahy Award and an Emmett Leahy Award Committee Member: 

“The Profession of Records Management, or Records and Information Management as we often call it today, is in turmoil. Records Managers, their customers, IT professionals, legal counsels, and executive management are all overwhelmed with the volume and variety of information management dilemmas facing us today. Business models change daily. E-mail, Office documents, Web pages, digital images and incentives to use remotely hosted cloud based architectures can put business records, evidence for court proceedings and historical treasures at grave risk. Records Management is becoming a challenge for everyone…  [for the complete awards presentations see: http://www.emmettleahyaward.org/uploads/Proceedings_2011.pdf ] 

Given these challenging times, the Archivist of the United States,David S. Ferriero explained, “Jason R. Baron, an Adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies, Maryland’s iSchool, has been named the 2011 recipient of the prestigious international Emmett Leahy Award for Outstanding Contributions and Accomplishments in the Records and Information Management Profession.  Mr. Baron, who serves as Director of Litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, is the first federal lawyer to receive the award.  Established in 1967, the Emmett Leahy Award honors the spirit of innovation, dedication, and excellence in records and information management of Emmett Leahy, an icon in the development of the life cycle approach to managing records and information.

The award was presented to Mr. Baron based on his many outstanding achievements in the area of information law over three decades of public service, including his groundbreaking work on White House email litigation (Armstrong v Executive Office of thePresident) and his professional service as editor of various commentaries issued by The Sedona Conference®, a leading legal think tank.  Notably, the Emmett Leahy Award committee specifically singled out two ongoing scholarly activities in which Mr. Baron has collaborated with Maryland iSchool Professor Douglas Oard founding the Legal Track of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Text Retrieval Conference, and creating a series of international workshops on the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information(DESI).  Both efforts bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, industry and government to help lawyers apply the most effective search and categorization techniques when seeking evidence in a litigation context…”

At the iSchool, we are always proud of the work our faculty and students do.  And of course we are excited when this work is recognized at the highest levels of the profession.  But what makes this honor so wonderful is that it recognizes the collaborative work of diverse professionals to bring about important and profound impact on some very difficult problems. As Jason himself noted in his acceptance speech, “…we all need to be more creative and interdisciplinary in our professional lives. My life and career has consisted of rowing between islands of excellence, including bringing “good news” from the world of information retrieval and artificial intelligence to the world of lawyers. I strongly believe that the legal community has been too insular in its approach to e-discovery, and needs to partner with academia and industry – including in insisting on optimization in e-discovery searches through the adoption of best practice standards, some of which may yet end up as recognized international standards…”

What is fascinating to consider is Jason’s first academic work, “I confess I couldn’t really have imagined what my professional career would consist of when in 1977 I wrote an honors thesis in college on the privacy implications of a vast electronic database maintained by the FBI and accessible by the international organization Interpol…”  It is from those beginning academic experiences that brought Jason to the important work he does now.  That is why it is so important to have him a part of the very fabric of our college.  As Dean Preece has pointed out, “Mr. Baron's dynamic contributions to the intellectual life of our college have significantly enhanced both the education of our students and the breadth and depth of our research."  

Perhaps someday there may be another Emmett Leahy Award Winner in our midst.  Perhaps the future may show it to be a student of this year’s award winner.