While company history often comes into play in connection with anniversaries or other significant events, it can be a valuable and versatile tool that can be used for many different business-supporting activities, including PR, communication, branding, recruitment, onboarding, and value-based management. However, if you want to use your history in a credible and effective way, it is necessary for the company to collect and preserve historically relevant records, as these constitute the inspirational and source-based foundation for working with the history. Records with great historical value such as board materials, management correspondence, presentations, contracts, annual reports, financial statements, advertisements, and patents increasingly exist exclusively in digital form. Additionally, there is a wealth of other digital records created as part of business management and production processes, as well as in connection with internal and external communication. In short, it is largely from these digital records that the recent and contemporary history and development of companies can be mapped and conveyed. But both technological and business development progress quickly in most companies, and without a proactive collection strategy, there is a risk that digital records with historical value will be deleted or disappear. Below, we have outlined some of the scenarios that we at Scandinavian Information Audit have experienced can cause companies’ digital records to be lost. We then provide some suggestions on how, as a records manager, archivist, or historian, you can ensure that your company collects the right digital records in time. Cleanup The amount of digital records that a modern company produces can be large. Therefore, it also makes sense for companies to conduct cleanup campaigns where everyone is encouraged to clean up their personal drives and email accounts. The idea is good and necessary but also causes records with potential historical value to be deleted. Cleanup processes can also be automatically initiated, for example, when an employee leaves. Migration As mentioned initially, technological development is fast, and digital records are regularly moved from system to system via migration processes. However, during these processes, there is a risk that records and associated metadata are deleted or lost, either due to conscious choices, inattention, errors, or lack of quality control. Migration often occurs in connection with system and platform replacements (typically managed by IT). The responsibility for moving digital records can also be delegated to users, for example, when replacing shared drives or computers. Retention Many companies manage their digital records based on overarching retention plans that set clear rules for how long records should be kept and when they can be deleted for either legal or business reasons. Global retention policies can also apply to platforms like SharePoint, where files, if they have not been given the necessary retention label, can be automatically deleted if they have not been used for a certain time. Shadow IT The term shadow IT covers systems, services, and hardware, such as private USB drives or cloud-based drives, that are outside the company’s authorized IT solutions. Besides the security and legal issues this can cause, it also results in potentially valuable historical records not being archived in the company’s own systems and, therefore, disappearing with the individual person who holds the material. Unintentional use of an IT system, such as using Outlook to archive records, is a related problem. Organizational Changes Companies’ organizational changes can also lead to the loss of digital records. In organizational changes, records can lose their organizational anchoring and end up in “limbo” without ownership. Mergers, acquisitions, divestments, or business shifts can also mean that records become redundant or are perceived as out-of-scope concerning the company’s new focus areas. Management and Employee Understanding A lack of focus on history is also a reason why a company’s historically relevant digital records disappear or are deleted. Management may be unclear about why it is important or relevant to collect historical records, and even if there is goodwill, there may be insufficient understanding of the task’s scope and resource requirements. Many employees will not be aware of the area in their daily work, and it will typically be difficult for them to assess and clarify which records may have historical value. But what can be done if you want to collect digital records before it’s too late? Although the above scenarios are naturally unique and can be conditioned by very different circumstances, there are still some overall guidelines that can be followed:

• First and foremost, it is a prerequisite to have management support to collect and work with company history. A digital collection process requires both time and resources, and then there are the subsequent tasks of organizing, preserving, registering, and archiving the material. Having management support also makes it much easier to get colleagues to prioritize the work of delivering relevant records. If you want to communicate the importance and benefits of working with company history to your management, you can prepare a concrete business case or have an audit carried out, as these can be used as a basis for further processes.

• It is a good idea to write a clear and unambiguous policy, strategy, and procedure for collecting, preserving, and using historical digital records, setting the framework for which records should be collected and how the process should proceed. Here, specific records (e.g., minutes from board meetings) can be identified that should be collected, and criteria can be set to help determine whether a given record is worth preserving.

• In the collection work, it is important to be proactive in your approach. It can be difficult to find (or get an overview of) all digital records in the company on your own, so contact colleagues who can help with either delivering or identifying records and providing access to relevant systems. Good contacts can also warn of upcoming changes, whether technological or organizational, where digital records could disappear.

• Even if you get help, it is still important to have or develop a sharp business understanding. The more insight you have into the company’s core business areas, products, development, organizational structure, employee culture, and other internal and external factors (such as industry-specific requirements or legislation), the better you can assess which digital records to prioritize, where they are located, and how they can be collected. Being in tune with the company’s pulse also enables you