The Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) is located in the John W. McCormack Building in Boston, MA. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Whitton Schmitz, Records Manager for DCAMM. Sarah joined DCAMM in 2021, relocating from Washington, D.C. where she was an archivist at the United States Senate. DCAMM is responsible for state-owned and state-run properties throughout Massachusetts, including state hospitals, universities, prisons, police stations, courts, and other facilities. Its work encompasses building design and planning, construction, real estate and leasing, capital improvements, and the maintenance of existing state properties. Sarah works in the Office of Administration and supervises a small records management team. The team is responsible primarily for the agency’s historical records, particularly records associated with completed projects, while also providing guidance to the agency’s various business units on current records retention and organization. 

A typical day at DCAMM includes a combination of records management, appraisal, preservation, administration, policy development, vendor management, and staff supervision. As a manager, she doesn’t spend as much of her time performing the hands-on processing work – as her team does. Instead, she’s consumed with higher-level responsibilities such as developing policies, working with vendors, meeting with other employees about records and emerging technologies and addressing organizational records issues. She noted that at times she would prefer to be doing more of the hands-on work, but management responsibilities pull her away from these tasks. 

Appraisal and records disposition are significant components of Sarah’s work at DCAMM. DCAMM follows the statewide records retention schedule issued by the Massachusetts State Archivist. She explained that applying a statewide schedule is not always straightforward because individual records do not necessarily fit neatly into a particular retention category. For example, the records manager may identify payment vouchers that have exceeded their seven-year retention period, but before those records can be destroyed, they must go through a formal review process – which involves multiple levels. After records for disposition are identified, they are then reviewed by Sarah’s supervisor, General Counsel (to ensure that there are no litigation or other legal concerns) they then go before the state’s records Conservation Board for approval.

The layers of review help to determine if the record needs to be held onto longer than the required period of retention. Appraisal of records is not simply a mechanical process – applying a number of years to a record and then destroying it. It requires professional judgement, knowledge of legal requirements, organizational needs, and the potential long-term value of information. She shared that government records management is highly structured by law and regulation and that government archivists cannot simply establish their own rules in the same way that a private organization might have more flexibility to do. 

One of the greatest challenges identified during the interview was the transition from paper-based records to digital and hybrid records. She inherited an environment in which her predecessor had already digitized many older paper records. At the same time, DCAMM continues to have significant quantities of physical records because of the historically paper-intensive nature of construction and real estate work. Older records include items such as facility plans, bid bonds, and real estate documents.

The transition to digital records has substantially changed the agency’s records environment. DCAMM now uses Microsoft SharePoint for file storage, and project management is conducted through an online system called Trimble. The introduction of Trimble before the COVID-19 pandemic was particularly beneficial because it allowed employees to continue accessing project documentation while working remotely. However, the existence of digital records has not eliminated the need for physical preservation. DCAMM continues to maintain an off-site facility containing older paper records. Sarah manages a complex hybrid environment in which paper, scanned documents, born-digital records, databases, and specialized software formats all coexist. 

When faced with difficult archival or records management questions, she relies on several sources of information. She conducts independent research, consults the statewide records retention schedule, communicates with the Massachusetts State Archivist, and other records managers. She expressed an interest in developing a larger network of records managers throughout the state government. Acknowledging the value of professional communities in solving problems that may otherwise be difficult to address in isolation. 

The interview revealed an area of significant concern in disaster preparedness. DCAMM does not have a formal disaster preparedness plan, and this is an area that she is currently working on and hopes to strengthen. We discussed the difference between physical and digital records and the importance of environmental controls, appropriate storage facilities, and disaster planning.

When considering the question, “What does a records manager do?” Sarah provided an especially valuable perspective. A records manager’s work is fundamentally about ensuring that information remains meaningful, accessible, and usable over time. The records manger or archivist’s role is not simply to keep documents. It is to determine what should be kept, why it should be kept, how it should be organized, when it can be destroyed, how it can be found, and how it can remain accessible in the future. 

Sarah earned a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland after working in government and nonprofit policy positions. Looking back on graduate education, she identified technology and coding as areas she had wished she had studied more extensively. Although she does not personally perform much programming because DCAMM has IT staff, having a stronger understanding of coding and the technical infrastructure underlying information systems would be valuable. 

She noted that some of the theoretical and technical concepts learned in graduate school, including particular metadata standards, are not directly used in the current government environment. Government agencies often have their own systems and procedures, and that professional theory must be adapted to the specific environment in which one works. I found this particularly important and a reminder that formal education provides the foundational concepts, but professional success requires flexibility, technological literacy, communication skills, and the ability to learn an organization’s unique systems and terminology.

Sarah identified AI as one of the most significant emerging issues for the archival profession. Massachusetts recently began using ChatGPT within state government, and she has participated in an agency working group examining appropriate uses of AI. One potential application is using AI to identify information within large documents. She described using ChatGPT to search a 1,000 page PDF for information requested through a public records request, which demonstrated the potential of AI to save time. However, it also raised concerns about verification and the need for the information generated by AI to be reviewed by professionals to verify its validity. 

A concern that Sarah identified in records management was the long-term accessibility of digital records. Common formats such as Word documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets are relatively manageable, but specialized formats such as AutoCAD files create preservation challenges because they may require proprietary software to open. She emphasized the importance of ensuring that such records remain accessible over time. 

Sarah believes that future records professionals must remain technologically current. As more records are born digital, archivists and records managers need to understand digital preservation, emerging technologies, and the systems through which records are created and maintained. She recommended professional associations such as NAGARA and SAA as important ways to remain connected to the profession and learn from other records professionals.

This interview, confirmed that archival work is much broader and more complex than the traditional image of an archivist working quietly among boxes of historical documents. In a government environment, the archivist or records manger operates at the intersection of administration, law, technology, preservation, appraisal, and public service.

I learned from the interview that preservation is not simply about keeping records; it is about keeping records usable and understandable for the future. Sarah’s concerns about inconsistent file naming, incomplete metadata, obsolete technologies, specialized digital formats, and inadequate physical disaster planning all demonstrate that simply processing a record does not guarantee that it will remain accessible or meaningful. The profession is changing. It is both deeply rooted in its traditional mission of preservation and increasingly dependent on the ability to adapt to technological and organizational change.