Sowing the Future’s Harvest: Working with Big Datasets

Big data is one of those concepts that few people can envision in their mind’s eye. Personally, I try to imagine a stack of paper that could be digitized into one gigabyte of information. Then I imagine stacks of paper that would fill 100 gigs of space. Then a terabyte’s worth, a whole server, a room of servers, ten rooms of servers, and on and on. Even with all these incremental steps, it is impossible to imagine how much data truly represents a “big” dataset. If we can’t even imagine it, how can we work with it, analyze it, search it to find the exact piece of paper among all the countless digital pages that we need for that day?

The McKinsey Global Institute recently published a report on the topic of big data , in which they discussed solutions that might be used to tackle this significant challenge of the future. They provide predictions and suggestions for how both government entities and the private sector will have to adapt to daily interaction with big data. McKinsey maintains a very positive outlook on how beneficial big datasets will be to society – FileBank shares this optimism, and we aim to harness it in every aspect of our work. FileBank CEO Greg Copeland recently had this to say about datasets and McKinsey's research on them: "The data gets bigger, the images more refined and consequently larger. The technology will from this pressure grow to meet these needs. The trends and benefits of this ever grander dimension will reap benefits to those who can sift through information and understand the driving undercurrent trends. "

But what does McKinsey’s research mean for the average sized organization, like a school, a small business, hospital, local government or office? In the future we will all have to use these big datasets efficiently, but how will we do it? Without a doubt, the key is familiarity and ease of use. It is one thing for technological wizards at groundbreaking companies to adopt big data, but quite another for a local employee. Once all of these trends become mainstream, and once platforms have been developed that can parse and sort through mountains of data with a single click, then the big data revolution will have truly arrived.

At FileBank, we believe that there are and will be many solutions available to both the public and private sector for handling big data in the future. While we develop those solutions within our own organization, we believe that keeping track of industry developments will be essential to all our customers. Please continue to check our blog for these industry updates and our analysis of them.

Until next time,

Vanessa Banti

Master Archivist

NJ DARM: The Essentials, Tricks, and Tips

It has happened to all of us, once in a while. We walk into the back room, the office basement, the filing closet down the hallway, and we see it. Stacks, piles, mountains of documents greet us, so many papers that we don’t even remember where they came from. This type of situation is common among even the most well organized office. Often, after a document has been used for its immediate purpose, we leave it in a box or a filing cabinet where it sits until spring cleaning transfers it to this infamous backroom. Our boss might wander down the hall and wonder “why can’t we just get rid of all this mess?”

The answer is that many types of documents have certain legal life spans, periods in which you are obligated to retain them. A purchase order, a student record, the blueprint for your building: all of these documents have a different time period that they need to be saved. The New Jersey state agency that keeps track of these laws is called the Records Management Services (RMS), formerly known as the Division of Archives and Records Management (DARM). In NJ, all public agencies such as schools, hospitals or municipal governments have to get RMS’s approval before they can legally destroy documents. A report that lists the contents of each individual box must be submitted to RMS with signatures from the agency in order to commence the destruction process. 

But here’s where disposing of old documents gets tricky: each type of document has its own unique code. Each department in a public agency has a unique schedule of retention codes which RMS provides online in PDF format. Sorting through all of these 100s of retention codes can be quite daunting! Fear not, for at FileBank this task is one of my specialties. If you keep a few essential points in mind when getting ready to destroy your documents, you will make working with RMS a simple, efficient experience. 

First: Are you putting all of the same type of document in each box? You would be surprised how easy it is to forget to do this! I have seen file boxes where someone literally took their entire inbox from their desk (plastic container included) and put it in a box to be destroyed. RMS will not accept boxes packed in this way, for there is no way to code all the mixed up documents in such a box. 

Second: Have you divided your boxes into their proper departments? An employee record and a purchase order are not part of the same department. This example is very obvious, but be careful that each set of boxes represents only one department – for RMS accepts one report per. 

Third: Don’t know if something can be destroyed? Look it up! The PDFs that RMS provides online have a search tool (the binoculars icon) that allows you to look up a document’s retention code by keyword. The more you reference these schedules, the easier it will be for you to identify those really tricky documents. 

Finally, pay close attention to signatures! In my experience, the destruction of obsolete files is most often retarded by a missing signature on one of the necessary forms. Depending on the type of agency requesting permission to destroy, 2-4 different signatures will be needed before RMS accepts a destruction report. Also, pay close attention to who is signing which fields. For example, Field 4 on the form must be signed by the Custodian of Records and Field 3 must be 

Feel free to post any questions you might have about RMS below. Also make sure to check the links side bar to the right of this post, where you can go to RMS’s website and learn more about what they do for NJ! Also, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions specifically related to FileBank’s services in relation to RMS.

Welcome to our Blog!

Here at FileBank, going digital means embracing the future. Since the future of the information world means gaining instant access from any computer screen, we want to make sure you, our friends and customers, are up to date instantly on all things FileBank. So it is our pleasure to introduce you to our latest method of jumping to digital: our blog!

Check back here for frequent updates on FileBank news, industry news, our innovations and our new products. We envision that this blog will be a place for both our voice and yours. If you have questions, concerns, suggestions, or even just a cool newspaper article you think we should see, feel free to leave it here. 

As paper continues to disappear from offices around the country, as the cloud becomes ever more essential for multi-person computing, and as the irreversible trend of progress continues to change our lives, we will all need to adjust and adapt to our renewed world of technology. If FileBank is a part of your future, you can be assured that together we will meet these challenges with cost effective efficiency. Because when you jump to digital, you know that what’s inside is safe.

Stay tuned!

Until next time,

Vanessa Banti
Master Archivist