E-Discovery; The Latest ECM Driver

Without a doubt, one of the major factors driving ECM implementations is the rising tide of legislation and litigation. In the United States, there has been as much as a 50 percent increase in the filings of class action lawsuits in the past year, half of them related to the financial crisis. (San Francisco Business Times, December 2008) Most of these will rely heavily on electronic discovery, a trend mirrored in the Canadian landscape. "It would appear almost inevitable that we will see parallel decisions in Canada to the precedent-setting electronic document litigation matters in the United States." (The Lawyers Weekly, February 2007) During these actions, courts may order the discovery of any and all documents, including those on paper, in e-mail, instant messages, and audio logs.

When a discovery order is issued, it may be necessary to freeze data stores, preventing the accidental or deliberate deletion of documents. Failure to comply with these directives can result in significant fines, negative rulings, exclusion of evidence, default judgments, and worse. As noted by IT World Canada, "The price of failing to comply is significantly higher than what it could cost to install the appropriate tool. Credibility can be destroyed and penalties imposed that can bankrupt a small business." (IT World Canada, May 2008).

Read more about the ECM solutions offered by MES Hybrid Document Systems and find out how you can minimize your risk when faced with E-Discovery. Find Out More

You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/MESHDS

My Microfilm Collection Is Covered In Red Spots... Now What?

We've seen more and more of this pop over the past few years. Clients approach us asking about blemishes ("measles" or "red spots") showing up on their older microfilms. Sure, a spot here or there is understandably acceptable to live with, but it's getting worse. More and more spots keep appearing and worst of all it's beginning to result information loss of critical historical records. What is it? And more importantly, how do we correct it?

Chances are your microfilm or microfiche collect is developing a case of Redox.

So what is Redox?

Silver microfilm has been used for decades as an archival media of choice among records managers and archivists, both in the private and public sector. The silver microfilm film offers long term, technology independent, archiving of business critical documents. However, even though this residual silver base of the microfilm has been “fixed” during the processing phase it is still susceptible to degradation through oxidation and exposure to various atmospheric gases. In essence, undoing the long term archiving you had planned for.

Some processed silver gelatine microfilms in storage for two to twenty years can develop small coloured spots or blemishes, called Redox. The fogged leader at the outside of the roll is most frequently affected by the blemishes, which are generally red or yellow in color and are smaller in size than the image characters (for example, a typewritten letter reduced 20X) on the microfilm. Other common areas for Redox to start are fingerprints and areas where adhesive tape is in contact with the film. The blemishes result in the permanent obliteration of the affected images. Once the deterioration of the microfilm occurs, it cannot be reversed. Luckily though, it can be halted.

An example of Redox

So what are the solutions? Well the first option is brown toning.

By converting the volatile metallic silver into a stable silver sulphide the deterioration of the film can be halted. This is called polysulphide, or brown toning. This ensures your films will last the true 500 year life expectancy.

Proper brown toning requires a special processor setup and careful replenishment of a volatile brown toner mixture to assure accurate conversion.

For those who have film collections damaged by Redox, brown toning can halt the spread of Redox, however, the portions of the image that have been lost cannot be restored. The brown toning service can be done on newly processed film or old film collections.

While brown toning will prevent any further oxidation from forming on the microfilms, it still leaves you with a media that can be cumbersome to retrieve from and does not offer the collaboration and instant access to information we have become accustomed to. This leads us to the second option, back-file conversion of your microfilm or microfiche collection.

The technology exists today to convert, on mass, your microfilm collect into useful and easy to access digital images. Enabling you work more efficiently and cost effectively with the information you need.

You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/MESHDS

In-House ECM Development: More Trouble Than It's Worth

Enterprise Content Management has become a critical strategic business process, due in part to increasingly stringent legislation and aggressive litigation.

Canadian corporations must observe the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) which governs how personal information is collected, stored, shared, and used. While this is onerous enough, a Canadian company with US relations may also have to comply with America's Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and, depending on its industry, the US Patriot Act or Securities and Exchange Commission directives.

Further, American-style litigation, including the use of electronic document discovery, is growing increasingly common in Canada, such that a legal policy group, Sedona Canada, was formed to draft a set of national policies governing e-discovery legal issues. The Lawyers Weekly, a newspaper for the Canadian legal profession, observes, "You can’t put your head in the sand. It’s just not going away. You are going to have to be dealing, in every piece of litigation, with electronic records." (The Lawyers Weekly, November 2007)

To meet this challenge, some organizations take a do-it-yourself approach, letting their in-house IT department build an ECM system from scratch or using ostensibly cheap tools. Inevitably, this only complicates matters and leads to greater expense with an inordinate amount of time spent on research and development, testing and debugging, and on-going support. When ECM is viewed as a technology system and managed as an IT project rather than as a management-led information governance initiative, the resulting implementation may lack the necessary security features and functionality to ensure regulatory compliance and discovery protection.

This white paper will demonstrate why the preferred alternative is to seek the assistance of an experienced ECM consultancy. Such a resource will provide a thorough understanding of the factors affecting your industry in general and your organization in particular, saving you valuable time on research and development.

By deploying a pre-packaged application customized to your specific environment, an ECM consultancy will cut short the cycle of testing and debugging that typically plagues in-house projects. The result will be an ECM system that will meet your organization's governance and compliance obligations faster and at a lower cost than is possible with in-house developed applications.

You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/MESHDS

The Inaugural Post

MES Hybrid Document Systems has been in the business of Document Management since 1971. We aim to provide solutions which assist in achieving higher levels of productivity, profitability, efficiency and environmental sustainability for our clients. Innovative and modern digital technologies are used alongside tried and trusted,analogue solutions to offer our customers secure and reliable information management solutions and can help them work towards a paperless office.

Our vision is Peace of Mind for our clients. Not Pieces of Paper.

We've developed the blog as an informational portal. A source of industry developments, information collaboration and an outline of best practices. We hope you find the content rich and reward and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us at www.mesltd.ca

You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/MESHDS