The topic of what is a record and what is a document has been debated for many, many years. In fact, it is one that I prefer to stay away from as it can become a very hot discussion quite quickly. ISO 15489 defines a record as "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business." This makes sense when one is talking about documents and email but gets a bit more confusing when we start to think about some of the newer communication tools like Instant Messaging (IM), blogs and microblogs (Tweets).

I can remember when intstant messaging began. We primarily used it as a quick social communication tool. Now, it can be used for quick business transactions. I suspect that Tweets while one-way will be following a similar path. Are they, instant messages and Tweets records? Yes. As such, how are they being retained and preserved?

Recently, we heard that the Library of Congress is preserving all Tweets issued. Is that enough? Do organizations need to also preserve Tweets, IMs, and blog postings? How is your organization going to do that? Join the discussion and let us know your thoughts.

How about this (with apologies to Forrest Gump)? "Records is as records does" ... meaning if it contains business-centric information they way conventional records do, then it's a record, regardless of medium or format.