Published: December 20, 2024 by Andy Wiegert

Part 1: Rae Lynn has spent her career ensuring the zoo and its records are well-organized—paws-itively perfect!

Rae Lynn Haliday’s unique career journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Her journey illustrates the power of adaptability and dedication to lifelong learning, which is a keystone of the MARA field.

As a certified professional in records and information management (RIM) and information governance (IG), Rae’s story began in 1985 at the San Antonio Zoo, where her passion for organizational excellence and wildlife conservation entwined. By 1991, she became the first-ever registrar at the Saint Louis Zoo, overseeing critical aspects like compliance with wildlife laws, animal transportation logistics, and record keeping. For over 30 years, she expertly managed the zoo’s RIM program for animal and veterinary records, showcasing her strategic planning, project management, and leadership abilities. She was present for and oversaw a transition from a dedicated paper records keeping system over to digital records management, with the challenge of migrating years’ worth of paper records as well!

In this part of our interview, Rae shares a bit about herself and the foundation of her career: how a love for animals, structure, and strategy led her from the zoological world to San José State University in 2023 where she now inspires students as an instructor in the Master of Archives and Records Administration (MARA) program. Ms. Haliday will also reflect on some memorable and pivotal moments in her career.

Tell us about yourself

My name is Rae Lynn Haliday, I usually go by Rae. I have a BS degree in business management, an MBA and hold the Certified Records Manager (CRM) and Certified Information Governance Officer Certification (CIGO) credentials. I’ve been a RIM practitioner for just shy of 40 years and have worked for two, large zoological facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) with the last 34 years at the Saint Louis Zoo. I am currently the Curator of Animal Management Services where I have oversight for Animal Records, Transport and Compliance. I’ve served in volunteer leadership roles for the last 30 plus years of my career across six different organizations, working to advance global best practices for records management in the zoological community, and through positions focused on mentorship and professional development, certification and related partnerships in the wider RIM and IG community.

I started teaching online RIM and Archives courses in 2022 at St. John’s University while waiting to be approved as a part-time adjunct in the MARA Program at San Jose State University. I feel blessed to have been asked to develop the MARA 284: Advanced Leadership and Advocacy for Records Professionals course and look forward to helping students and graduates of the MARA Program advance their careers!

What are some career highlights/proudest moments/biggest challenges?

One of the opportunities that I feel honored to have been given early on in my career at the Saint Louis Zoo was to build a RIM program for the animal and veterinary records from the ground up. When I started in 1991, formalized,  positions for managing zoological records was still in its infancy. Positions were being created in response to increased wildlife protection Acts and related regulations, advancements in welfare for animals held in human care and a significant increase in related research; all of which were catalysts for better records and compliance management. That was the foundation for me to build an amazing career and to help make a difference in how zoological information was managed.

Moving forward, obtaining the CRM and CIGO, assisting the ICRM in developing its first academic partnership and the additional 6 that followed, being awarded the ARMA Company of Fellows (FAI), assisting in the development of 5 additional AZA accreditation standards for records, and the first comprehensive online training program for zoological registrars which includes a RIM module. My life’s work has been to advance people and programs in Records and Information Management, Archives and Information Governance.

Favorite memories at the St Louis Zoo so far? Funny stories?

I think the stories I would share are more about the amazing contributions that the Saint Louis Zoo has made to advancing Animal Care, Welfare and Conservation, both nationally and globally. The Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute Ron and Karen Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), over the course of 13 years, has released almost 12,000 endangered hellbenders – bred and raised at the Zoo – in Missouri rivers. The Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute and partnering organization, Sahara Conservation, decades-long conservation work has brought the Scimitar horned Oryx back from extinction in the wild.

Being a part of the onboarding process for animal record keeping and records management for new animal collections held at new Saint Louis Zoo facilities, Sears Lehmann, Jr. Wildlife Reserve and WildCare Park feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity. These are just a few of the experiences I have of so many amazing contributions this institution has made in its local and global conservation community. It’s a beautiful thing to work for an organization that helps so many people and animals, and to know that records and information management is supported and considered essential to its core mission.

You’ve worked at the St Louis Zoo for quite some time, what are your biggest takeaways so far regarding the evolution of records management there and the enormous task it is to take a mostly analog body of records into a digital form to be readily accessible? What pitfalls or hurdles did you encounter?

Over the 34 years I’ve worked at the Zoo, I’ve had more than a few setbacks in working to build a RIM program for the animal and veterinary records. However, I made it a point early on to learn something from the lessons along my journey. When I started at the Saint Louis Zoo in 1991, the animal and veterinary records were computerized but there were many physical records for animal transaction files and permits and collection activity reports. There were minimal accreditation standards for records at that time and there wasn’t a good process in place for duplication and dispersal.

In the 1990’s we started the process to complete the inventory, develop a retention schedule and implemented microfilming for long-term or permanent retention records. In the 2000’s we focused on documenting workflows, systems and procedures for the department, automating those processes and making the full transition to electronic records management in 2014. We started current day forward with the new system and it then took quite a few years to complete the back scanning for all of the paper records based on the labor and financial resources we had at the time. Fast forward to 2020, we moved into cloud-hosting for our electronic document management system (EDMS). This was a huge milestone as we were able to apply more in-depth auto indexing and storage to reduce manual indexing and integrated with DocuSign for e-signatures of contracts and agreements.

We are currently working with our state local records staff to have legacy microfilm digitized so it can be stored in the EDMS. The latter project will take another 3-4 years to complete but we are now seeing the fruits of our labor and I feel good about where we are in closing the loop on our digital transformation for animal and veterinary records.

Tune in next Friday for the second part of Rae’s interview!

Be sure to check out Rae Lynn Haliday’s class starting this Spring and please consider attending!

Seminar in Archives and Records Management – Leadership and Advocacy – MARA 284