ARCHIVES AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION AND JOURNAL ANALYSIS Kim Edwards MARA September 2015

PART 1: ASSOCIATIONS

WHAT IS AIIM?  For the purpose of this assignment, I selected AIIM.  AIIM is the Association for Information and Image Management.  Its mission is to “improve organizational performance by empowering a community of leaders committed to information- driven innovation.” (AIIM, 2015, Professional Membership)  Serves the global community of information professionals. (AIIM, 2015, About Us)  Provides ample resources for records and information management leaders to evaluate and tackle the variety of information management challenges in the workplace.  Offers eleven resource centers with targeted solutions for the challenges presented in each broad topic.

MEMBERSHIP DETAILS  A professional membership in AIIM costs $169 per year.  Paid membership grants access to all resources and a discounted rate to participate in broader activities such as conferences.  Basic membership is free; however access is limited to a small portion of what is available.  AIIM has membership packages available for IT Solution and Service Providers (vendors) for the purpose of connecting the professional members with the business resources they need.

SUMMARY OF SERVICES  The services AIIM offers are:  A well-designed website with easy access to the needed resources;  Blogs, publications, white papers, webinars, and vendor seminars to keep information management professionals up-to-date on new solutions;  Access to a wide variety of knowledge in its eleven resource centers: Enterprise Content Management Business Process Management Collaboration Content Analytics Electronic Records Management Information Governance Scanning and Capture Search SharePoint Taxonomy and Metadata Web Content Management

VALUE OF SERVICES  The broad scope of resources offered by AIIM demonstrates a value to the diverse sectors in industry, business and government. Every organization experiences some challenges in its information management program, and AIIM appears to successfully gather the resources which are most relevant and presents them in a way that is simple to navigate.  As an information management professional, keeping up with what’s happening in our profession is important. Membership in AIIM can help do that. The cost of the membership is worth the expenditure when AIIM has so much to offer. Not only does a member have access to a vast amount of knowledge, the member also has access to a network of other members with whom to share, collaborate, or commiserate.

PART 2: PUBLICATIONS

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE  For the purpose of this assignment, I selected ARMA International’s Information Management Magazine.  It is published bi-monthly by ARMA International, and is available as part of an ARMA member’s membership, or can be purchased as a subscription.  The purpose of the magazine is to produce timely articles for members and subscribers pertaining to the global state of records and information management. New laws, concepts, standards and other relevant topics are addressed.  Other items included in the magazine are trends in Records and Information Management (RIM) and Information Governance (IG), news accounts and opinions, as well as advertising of information management service providers.

 According to the most recent edition of the magazine, ARMA International has more than 27,000 international members. Information Management Magazine reaches these 27,000 individuals along with non-member subscribers.  The information contained in its pages has relevancy across sectors or unique to a broad group of professionals. Whether a professional is employed in highly-regulated industry or non-profit or government, each issue contains articles that will address matters that are useful.  As a member of ARMA International since 2007, the magazine has been useful to me over the years. It is not uncommon to find an old dog-eared copy of this magazine on my desk at any given time.  In addition to my own interest in RIM-related topics, other individuals in my organization have benefited from the contents of the magazine. I often share copies of articles with legal counsel and various information technology staff. RELEVANCY AND SUMMARY

AN OBSERVATION: AIIM AND ARMA  AIIM has more than 80,000 members worldwide; ARMA has more than 27,000.  Food for thought: Is there a potential merging of AIIM and ARMA in the future?  The Richmond, Virginia AIIM and ARMA Chapters actually pool their resources and hold their monthly meetings together.  There is similarity in the two organizations as AIIM has changed its original scope from older forms of imaging to pdf and other digital formats. ARMA’s focus has also shifted from paper and other forms of records to electronic and born-digital.

REFERENCES AIIM. (2015). Professional Membership. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from Membership AIIM. (2015). About Us. Retrieved September 19, 2015, from