Spring Seminar Mania II-Fetch the Future: Rethink the Ink at the University of Washington-A case study in going digital with Barbara Benson

About the Program

Over the past few years, it had become clear that the University of Washington was on a fast track to going paperless. With the advent of modern central systems, with online forms, with e-signatures – more and more records were being created and received electronically. And then the pandemic removed the last rationalization for continuing to produce paper records.  Paper became a liability. UW Records Management Services worked on a number of initiatives and tools with other campus partners like Marketing, Sustainability and UW-IT to make this transition.

• We focused on identifying and helping to eliminate roadblocks to going electronic.
• We created new resources and tools to help make it easier to manage electronic records.
• And we closed the University Records Center to the ingestion of new records for storage.

Join Barbara Benson, University Records Officer and Director of Records Management Services for a case study of what UW Records Management Services did to dive the UW in the direction of a paperless environment.

About Barbara Benson

Since 1992 Barbara Benson has been the University Records Officer and Director of the University of Washington Records Management program.

Ms. Benson received a graduate degree in History/Archives and Records Management from New York University.  She has worked as either Archivist or Records Manager in such diverse arenas as not-for-profits, banking, city government, state government, and higher education.

Ms. Benson is a frequent speaker at ARMA (Association of Records Managers and Administrators) conferences and meetings, at the Northwest Clerks Institute, and for other organizations and institutions interested in managing data and information.

See her program’s website at https://finance.uw.edu/recmgt/home