Records schedules are a key element of any governmental records management system. Essentially formalized instructions for the disposition of records, they guide agencies in how to handle records and how long to keep different kinds of records.
We talked about how to create a records schedule step-by-step here.
Be aware that records schedules can create complications for the digitization effort.
Specifically, records schedules specify how long agencies retain certain records and kinds of information before submitting to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for long-term or permanent archival. Most record types will be retained for 15 years or less before submittal, but there are exceptions. Some record types may be retained within a government agency for decades (or longer).
And while some records are originally created in formats that are fairly straightforward to digitize (just scan them and you’re good to go), others might create challenges.
“We are increasingly receiving a lot of less common formats, but also legacy formats from agencies because the way the record scheduling works,” says Leslie Johnston, NARA’s director of digital preservation. “It can literally be hundreds of years that they’re holding onto a file before they send it to us. We have a real proliferation of file formats we have to manage, process, preserve and then make available.”
These issues raise important questions that agencies need to be able to address.
So, what happens if the digitization effort cannot capture the full record and associated metadata or contextual information? Records that can’t be preserved long-term in their native format without losing critical recorded and contextual information.
Or, what happens if the technology in which the original record was created goes obsolete and the source record cannot even be accessed to convert into an accepted digital format?
Consider this example of a distinct long-term records management problem: “The U.S. Census Bureau could not gain access to its raw data from the 1960 federal census because there were only two machines in the world capable of reading those tapes: one in Japan and the other already deposited in the Smithsonian Institute as a relic.”
These are neither trivial nor simple questions, and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.
Johnson describes it as a matter of risk management: “What we have is really a constant risk decision‑making process, what sort of transformation, or accessibility, or playback can you enable that provides as much fidelity as possible of the original record content?”
The best thing agencies can do is, as they develop and update records schedules, is make sure they consult closely with NARA and any records management vendors and specialists with whom they work.
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