1985 vs 2025: Has Information Management Actually Improved?

Has Information Management improved over the last 40 years? Are the various decision makers in organisations making better decisions based on complete record sets in 2025 compared to 1985? These are the questions we've pondered over as a profession with traditional Information Management (IM) thinking and disciplines being diluted through deprofessionalisation of the industry, reduction in further educational qualifications and theoretical knowledge.

With many experienced IM staff, with in-depth knowledge of paper based and digital systems now steadily leaving the profession, is it time to think differently on how we can help our organisations to improve decision making by providing more complete and accurate records through both new human and machine modes of practice.

What Was Happening In 1985: The Paper-Based Era

The Dawn of Digital in Corporate Settings

While the digital age began earlier than the 1980's it was still in its 'toddler' stage in the average office setting in the 80's. Paper based records and manual processes to manage them ruled the day. Large postal bags of mail, date stamping, handwritten inwards mail registers, library cards to manage file locations and photocopies of correspondence if more than one staff member needed to know about the correspondence that day was what was going on.

Early Technology Adoption

Organisations who were at the cutting edge were converting archived records onto microfilm and had a mainframe computer to mark file locations by staff initials and were installing the facsimile machines (original electronic transmission) but didn't have many places to send facsimiles to yet.

Staff Awareness and Record Keeping Practices

Looking back at this time we would generally say that staff had a high level of awareness of their responsibility to retain a copy of outwards correspondence on the official file as well as making (handwritten) notes to record significant meetings or telephone conversations. Personal computers, mobile phones etc were expensive and limited in functionality and not really in the office yet.

The Success of Limited Technology

In conclusion, the limited choice of medium to create and capture records into the official recordkeeping system did, in the majority of cases work and the decision makers in organisations made decisions based on complete sets of business records. The rise of personal computers and internet really saw the digital revolution explode from the 1990's.

Where Are We Today In 2025: The Digital Dilemma

Current Struggles in Information Management

Most IM teams in 2025 are struggling daily to manage records what are received centrally. Outside of official systems records can be in any application with often scant regard for whether they fully integrated, or not, with centralised or 'authorised' corporate systems. Social media has been with us since the early 2000's in a business context and still is mostly outside of these official systems.

The Rise of Digital and Data Teams

Specialist teams in 'Digital or Data' have formed and we're hearing that traditionally IM teams are being merged into these new teams whose management may, at best have a token knowledge of records disposal, naming conventions, business classification etc.

Technology Promises vs Reality

Technology remains at the forefront of the modern office. IT budgets are huge and ever expanding on the promise of delivering greater and greater efficiencies, yet it only drives contextual records further apart. We had the concept of 'big data' a few years ago which made all manner of claims, yet we now are told part of this could be redundant, obsolete trivial (ROT) data.

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) being the latest technology to emerge promising to remove repetitive, repeatable tasks from employees. We've also seen a sidelining of records management as we moved into the 2000s between information management and data governance, and perception that records management only applies to information, not data.

Employee Behaviour and Record Management

A common phrase is a 'Tradesperson is only as good as their tools' however in a modern organisation its been the tools that have let employees to create and store records all over a modern workspace. Employees exit an organisation and either leave records in personal accounts, or worse delete everything.

Resource Challenges and Organizational Contradictions

Central recordkeeping resources are too thin on the ground to be able to meaningfully capture what is needed. It doesn't help that organisations compound this issue with the cognitive dissonance of a 'keep everything', with the periodic 'delete/overwrite everything' approach, based on format, or system, regardless of the business value of the records.

Coming Next: In our next post, we'll explore why the traditional models that guided records management for decades are fundamentally broken in today's digital workplace, and examine the theoretical frameworks that no longer match organizational reality.

This is part of a five part-blog series by Stephen Clarke MRIM, CSRIM and David Robinson. This blog series is based on the article "Future Ready? Information Management Needs a Makeover," which was first published in RIMPA Global iQ Magazine Vol 41 / Issue 1/ Jun 2025 (pages 18-23) by the Records and Information Management Practitioners Alliance (RIMPA).