The changeover from paper based records to electronic records in many organizations involves no longer only recordkeeping experts, but also people from the information system community. Electronic records are created, managed and preserved within information systems and methods to support this must be developed. In this paper the operational use of records and how that use might affect development of information systems supporting recordkeeping are of interest. This paper is empirical grounded with data from four previously performed studies. The results are compared with two existing models of recordkeeping; the life-cycle model and the Record Continuum Model. This paper presents a result where operational records use can be described in three categories; decision support, intelligence support and information retrieval. The operational use of records is widespread, difficult to predict, and not always related to a record�s original purpose of use. A record has an operational value that not always has been an issue of interest by the recordkeeping community. This altogether motivates both that a proactive approach is necessary when designing information system supporting recordkeeping, but also that the Record Continuum Model is more applicable when dealing with electronic records.