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RAIN 5/1:Paperless office, privacy and more.



Someone asked me privately the other day what "RAIN" stands for. Now a
smart-aleck would say the wet stuff that falls out of the sky, BUT it hit me
like a two by four between the eyes that there are new subscribers to both
A&A and recmgmt-l who don't know what it stands for.

So without further ado -- RAIN is an acronym for Records/Archives In the
News. A compilation of news stories gathered from the Net that are directly
about records management or archives OR that may be of interest to
information management professionals. I originally (starting in 1996) would
download, edit and post the stories to the listservs under the long title.
In an online survey conducted last year the vast majority of respondents
wanted the urls to the stories rather than edited version. The current
format is easier to compile.

Stories may be about records destruction, new exhibits, technology, privacy
issues, open records or whatever it all depends upon what catches my eye.
The intent is to provide information that can be used.  Why RAIN? Well I got
tired of typing out Records/Archives in the News everyday.

And here is today's posting

CNET News.com 4/27/01
Amazon unit settles privacy lawsuit
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-5754965.html?tag=ch_mh

by Troy Wolverton
Amazon.com's Alexa Internet subsidiary said Friday it will pay up to $1.9
million to its customers to settle a class-action lawsuit.
San Francisco-based Alexa said it will destroy some of the personally
identifiable records in its database as part of the settlement, and pay up
to $40 per person to customers whose records are found in the database.


Amednews.com 5/7/01
Physician groups balking at privacy rules extra burdens
http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_01/gvl10507.htm

by Susan J. Landers
Washington -- Can physicians keep secrets? Conventional wisdom says they
can, but now the government wants proof.
A federal rule governing the privacy of patients' medical information is
causing some apprehension among physician groups.


BBC News 4/23/01
E-paper moves a step nearer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1292000/1292852.stm

by Ivan Noble
Electronic paper has taken a step closer with the development of a prototype
flexible electronic display.
It has only a few hundred pixels, but, say its inventors, it shows that high
quality displays could be built cheaply.


BBC News 4/24/01
System to combat e-mail viruses
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1294000/1294473.stm

Britain's Ministry of Defence says it has come up with the answer to
computer viruses that travel by e-mail.
Researchers working for the MoD have developed an early warning system that
they say should stop malicious programs hijacking e-mail software and using
it to spread themselves to more victims.


Buffalo News 4/28/01
For the records
County seeks to save age-old papers
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20010428/1031904.asp

by Charity Vogel
Someday in Erie County's future, it may be remembered as the Great Paper War
of 2001.
Whatever the label, the battle over the county's paper and ink - especially
the oldest, rarest kind - has begun. Two things are fueling the debate:


Chicago Reader 4/27/01
Shots in the Dark
http://www.chireader.com/hottype/index.html

by Michael Miner
Sadly, no good way is known to preserve for the distant future the bounty
we're sure it'll be tickled pink to receive: hundreds of thousands, no, make
that millions of pictures of us today.
New York Times reporter Sarah Boxer recently visited the massive Bettmann
Archive in Manhattan. She wrote that it "smells like vinegar. That is the
scent of photographs decomposing."


Connecticut Post 4/30/01
Cop audit to focus on detectives, records
http://www.connpost.com/S-ASP-Bin/Ref/Index.ASP?puid=6773&spuid=6773&Indx=82
9532&Article=ON&id=53650536&ro=4

by Genevieve Reilly
TRUMBULL -- An efficiency audit of the Police Department will focus on the
detective and records divisions.
Police Commission Chairwoman Ann Moore said the panel is looking for a
detective division review that makes recommendations on case management,
assignment and review, and oversight of report compilations.


Daily Press 4/30/01
Real Estate data a click away in NN
http://www.dailypress.com/news/final/stories/25123sy0.htm

by Fred Carroll
NEWPORT NEWS - Residents can now check some Newport News real estate records
on the Internet.
Just don't try to look up property information by an owner's name.
The Daily Press reported a year ago that City Council had decided to spend
about $75,000 to put property records online but without listing who owns a
property.


e-doc
Records Management: Market or Function
http://www.edocmagazine.com/edocdis.cfm?ID=85

by Priscilla Emery
Over the past several months, I've taken a comprehensive look at records
management (RM). Over that time, it has become apparent that records
management as an issue has stepped front and center for many organizations.
The proliferation of electronic documents (especially e-mails) and the
potential litigation exposure that they cause are becoming the bane of legal
advisors and records managers in many corporations and government agencies.


e-doc
E-mail Management: Is it an oxymoron
http://www.edocmagazine.com/edocdis.cfm?ID=104

by Priscilla Emery
I don't think most people need market size confirmation to understand the
overall growth of e-mail usage. The flood of e-mails on people's desktops is
becoming a more common reality on a daily basis. Still, for those who need a
sledgehammer to wake them up to this situation the numbers are all too real.




Los Angeles Times 4/30/01
Engineer's memo returns to haunt GM
http://www.latimes.com/business/updates/lat_ivey010430.htm

by Myron Levin
How much should General Motors Corp. spend to keep people from burning to
death in fiery crashes? In a memo nearly 30 years ago, a young GM engineer,
Edward C. Ivey, suggested that the answer was: Not much.
With a couple of simple calculations, Ivey estimated that these fiery deaths
were costing GM only about $2 per vehicle--the implication being that it was
not enough to justify the expense of changing the vehicles' design.


The Herald-Times 4/30/01
Bill to deny access to records passes
http://www.hoosiertimes.com/stories/2001/04/30/news.010430_HT_A7_AEP03192.st
o?PREVURI=%2Fstories%2F2001%2F04%2F30%2Findex%2Fnews

by Chris Sundheim
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS - The Indiana House on Sunday approved a bill that would make
the General Assembly exempt from the state's open-records laws, sending the
measure to Gov. Frank O'Bannon.
Lawmakers voted 71-28 to pass the legislation, which would permit the
General Assembly to create its own rules for releasing public records.



The Herald of Everett 4/28/01
Diligenz follows trail of money
http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/01/4/28/13694417.cfm

by Brian Corliss
LYNNWOOD -- Bryan Dawson was sitting at the loan officer's desk. He wanted
to borrow cash from CityBank to expand his company, which provides
information to investigators doing background checks on people and
companies.
The loan approval process was slow, Dawson said. CityBank was having a hard
time doing its own background check on his business, searching all the
documents he had filed with the state.


Nando 4/28/01
Illinois had highest percentage of tossed ballots
http://www.nando.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500477446-500733808-504202874-0,0
0.html

Associated Press
CHICAGO (April 28, 2001 11:31 p.m. EDT) - According to an analysis by the
Chicago Tribune, Illinois threw out more presidential election ballots in
2000 than any other state.
Election officials discarded 190,000 ballots in Illinois, or 3.9 percent of
those cast. That rate was followed by 2.9 percent in Florida; 2 percent in
New York and Ohio; 1.6 percent in California and 1 percent in Texas, the
newspaper reported in Sunday's editions.


Lincoln Journal-Star 4/30/01
Genealogists labor for Wymore library
http://www.journalstar.com/local?story_id=3426&past=

by Larry Pierce
WYMORE - Crews have been working for months on the expansion of the Wymore
Public Library.
George and Karolyn Riemann have been hammering away on local history for the
library for nearly a decade. And when the crews are done with the brick and
mortar, the Riemanns still will be toiling at a job that never ends.



Statesman-Journal 4/30/01
Paper's librarian happy digging up research
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=23525

by Tom Forstrom
In John Marikos' perfect work world, everything would be in order and ready
to be dealt with in a systematic way.
Of course, in the newspaper business it doesn't always work that way.
"We work in a last-minute profession," he says.
Marikos is the Statesman Journal librarian and is responsible for keeping
the archive up to date, doing research, taking care of the requests to
reprint articles and photos, and entering stories, photos and graphics in
national contests.



ZDNet News 4/30/01
Is online privacy too expensive?
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2713158,00.html

by Doug Brown
Interactive Week
The online privacy debate has dwelled on civil liberties, Capitol Hill
strategies and alarming anecdotes about privacy breaches, but until recently
it has largely ignored an important piece of the puzzle--the cost of putting
privacy safeguards in place.



Canoe.ca 4/30/01
Opposition slams Chretien for fighting to keep agenda secret
http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Chretien-Appeal.html

OTTAWA (CP) -- The opposition hounded Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Monday
for continuing his fight to keep his agenda books secret, charging that he
must have something to hide.
The Canadian Alliance and Tories were reacting to news that Chretien's
lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to hear their case for protecting the
prime minister's documents and personnel from scrutiny.


Purdue News 4/27/01
Purdue team develops watermark to protect electronic documents
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/010427.Atallah.watermark.html

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Using watermarks to preserve the integrity of printed
documents dates back 2000 years. Research by a pair of Purdue University
professors could bring that time-tested method into the electronic age.


IT Director.com 4/30/01
Snooping for fun and profit isn't
http://www.it-director.com/article.asp?id=1776

A recent article in a specialist journal called 'Corporate EFT Report',
highlighted a new product called a Data Mining and Extraction module from a
vendor who shall remain nameless. It seems that this software will be
marketed for banks and, according to the report, extracts customer cheque
information, "including payer details, date, and payee, and stores the data
in a short-term database" which then "allows queries by operational or
marketing officers. " The CEO continues: "....the ultimate goal is to take
this information and feed it into some other data warehouse or image archive
so that they can integrate it across their whole platform or into some
telemarketing information."



The Morning Call 4/30/01
State shuts delivery firm after documents languish
http://www.mcall.com/html/news/bethlehm/b_pg003_e4b3_4suspended.htm

by Matt Assad
A trail of expired registrations and undelivered titles for used cars sold
last year led the state to shut down a 35-year-old Lehigh Valley messenger
service that neglected to deliver paperwork to Harrisburg.



Bergen Record 4/17/01
Stockbrokers face $50,000 fines for phony records
http://www.bergen.com/bse/nasd17200104172.htm

by Kathleen Lynn
Two Bergen County stockbrokers face $50,000 fines for falsifying a
customer's records, the National Association of Securities Dealers
Regulation Inc. said Monday. NASD Regulation is the self-regulatory arm of
the securities industry.



Sun-Sentinel 4/30/01
Privacy opt-out e-mail is confusing the public
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sfl-ybheady30apr30.story?coll=sfla%2Dbu
siness%2Dheadlines

by Robert K. Heady
Banking columnist
The latest government effort to protect your privacy is turning out to be
one big joke.
The new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act permits banks, brokerages and insurance
companies to merge with each other, creating giant financial supermarkets.
One part of the law, added as an afterthought just before the Act was passed
last November, gives you an opportunity to inform institutions that you
don't want your private data shared or sold to other outfits. It's called
"opting out," and it's mandatory that they give you that right before July
1.



TechWeb 4/30/01
Companies look to put content under glass
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010430S0001

As businesses increasingly use the Web to share information, they face a
dilemma: how to show outsiders proprietary content without letting them save
it, print it, or forward it to others.



Foster's Daily Democrat 4/30/01
The paperless doctor's office: Wave of the future?
http://www.fosters.com/special_sections/health/articles2001/0420c_01.htm

by M.A.J. McKenna
Cox News Service
ATLANTA - A distant relation of Dr. William McClatchey was the only
physician in Marietta at one point in the 19th century. McClatchey still has
the records from his relative's practice, a ledger book filled with
handwritten case descriptions and notes on payment: boil lanced, 50 cents;
childbirth, $2.50.


Toledo Blade 4/27/01
Descendant gives residents their first view of town founder
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?Avis=TO&Dato=20010427&Kate
gori=NEWS17&Lopenr=104270020&Ref=AR

by Kim Bates
FORT JENNINGS, Ohio - William Williamson had never been to this tiny village
before yesterday, but he became an instant celebrity the moment he stepped
into town.
The retired professor and his wife, Daisy, received applause shortly after
they walked into the local school gym, smiling broadly as they wore orange
and white carnations that had been given to them.


Business Week Online 4/30/01
Web Piracy - Crackdown spawns stealth platforms
http://www.businessweek.com/reuters_stories/ReutersInternetReport/04_30_2001
.rwntz-story-bcnetmediawebpiracydc.html

Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A giant game of cat-and-mouse has emerged on the
Internet between the entertainment industry and Internet-savvy users who
keep finding new ways to foil efforts to crack down on piracy.
With the movie industry joining the record labels in a bid to police the
file-sharing that has proliferated in the wake of Napster, new stealth
platforms are emerging that promise to hide communication between Web
surfers.






Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Manager, Records Management Group
Woodside Summit Group Inc
Midlothian, Virginia
Office: 804-744-1247 x23
Fax: 804-744-4947
mailto:peter.kurilecz@woodsidesummitgroup.com

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