ABSTRACT
Digitisation promotes competitiveness and efficient public services. Digital leaders within public organisations, municipalities, and governments are responsible for creating a digital vision that is simple, clear, secure, and fast. It seems, however, that those responsible for the service-oriented digitisation of public organisations have forgotten to involve records and information professionals in the long-term preservation of records. More accurately, despite a clear digital policy and more accessible public services tailored to the individual user, the information and records management part of the process has been neglected. This is somewhat understandable as digitisation occurs in a rapid and competitive environment while information and records management are not known for being fast or competitive. In Iceland, digitisation has been characterised by a lack of communication and cooperation between IT and information and records management professionals; a lack of understanding of what constitutes a record in the digital world; and mismatched expectations regarding the capabilities of information and records professionals in relation to digitisation. The author of the chapter argues that one way to overcome the gap between IT and records professionals is for records managers to engage in current IT development and implementation, to show the relevance of archival thinking to digitisation projects.
