INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY
Dr. Ruth Finkelstein is a research scientist, well aware of how important it is to have clear, accurate information readily available. During her years of service on the board of the large, self managed cooperative that is her home, she noted that with the passage of time and with changes in building personnel, institutional memory was fading. She proposed to remedy this situation and quickly won the support of her colleagues on the board. A year and a half later, with her own building archives well organized to capture both past and future board decisions, structural improvements, employee history, Dr. Finkelstein was ready to share the fruits of her labors. She contacted CNYC and offered to present a workshop detailing her own journey towards ensuring consistency and continuity in the policies of her cooperative. Now this workshop is a CNYC classic, which Dr. Finkelstein repeats periodically, helping other CNYC members develop working archives for their buildings. Following is a summary of her July presentation.

As cooperatives and condominiums mature, personal memory is unreliable in recalling the long history of past policies, activities and transactions. This seminar describes an innovative and easy strategy to maintain and retrieve the history of past decisions and also to incorporate ongoing programs and policies. The priority is to facilitate effective and efficient Board oversight of corporate functions and innovations, planning for the long term and utilizing current technology. Dr. Finkelstein’s own system employs a computer program that was customized to the needs of this cooperative. Files and index cards can be almost equally effective, though retrieval will, of course, be somewhat slower.

What is required is a dedicated archivist (or a working team of dedicated archivists) committed to organizing past policy for ready access and reference. Their goal is to ensure continuity and maintenance of the business records of the condominium or cooperative, and careful documentation of the status and maintenance of the physical plant–including public areas, building systems, and individual apartment units. Once the system is in place, the time required to maintain it is modest, and the benefits are enormous. The age of your building and the state of past records will determine the magnitude of the initial task of organizing the archives.

Dr. Finkelstein and her helpers had to look back over their building’s 15-year history as a cooperative and a much longer history of the building’s physical structure. Reconstituting corporate history required scouring the proprietary lease, bylaws and house rules plus the minutes of all board meetings. Policies were organized by topic with citations of their source and dated records of any modifications made over the years. The information has been computerized into nine key categories and is readily retrievable for review as the board faces proposed policy modifications or as they prepare manuals for shareholders. Your own building may opt to modify these categories, but they serve as excellent guides.

Many of these topics are cross-referenced in other parts of the database.
Once this system is in place, the archivist’s task consists simply in maintaining it. This is easily done if discipline is carefully maintained. The minutes of each board meeting must be carefully culled for new decisions and policy changes, and these must be transcribed in their proper places in the various files.

Management and staff must adopt procedures which prepares for the archivist records of all building events and transactions. It is the team of archivists who decide which of these rise to the level of meriting recording, and who determine in which files the information will be retained.

Dr. Finkelstein’s presentation includes illustrations of the computer program that was designed for her building’s records. Careful protection was incorporated, including a window of opportunity of just a few days after information is entered for it to be proofread and modified. Thereafter, there is no way to alter that entry. Additional safeguards limit access to many parts of the file system. Watch future issues of this Newsletter for announcements of the next presentation of this informative workshop on Institutional Memory.