8.1 Guidelines for the Creation, Maintenance and Disposition of Paper Records

The Life Cycle of Records: Creation, Active Use, Inactive Use, and Disposition

Records are created to communicate information, to document transactions or to fulfill legal requirements. After creation records enter into a period of frequent use, the active life of records. Active records must be filed so that they are accessible. They are usually kept in the office so that they can be easily consulted. After their active life has ended, records may need to be retained because of legal or financial requirements or because they serve as an institutional administrative memory. During this period of inactive life records may be stored outside of the office, perhaps in a records center. Eventually records are no longer needed even occasionally by the offices that created them. At this point records should either be destroyed or, if they have been judged to be of long-term historical value, they should be sent to the archives.

Creation and Organization of Files

  1. Arrange files by year; color codes for each year may be helpful.

Maintenance of Files

  1. Responsibility for maintaining files should be given to one staff member.
  2. The staff member responsible for the files should be given adequate time to maintain them. Filing should be done regularly.
  3. Staff members should be allowed to remove files only if they use "out cards." It is preferable to have a single individual do all the refiling.
  4. When filing, all paper clips should be removed and replaced with staples. Notations about the placement of documents should be made in the upper right hand corner, a destruction date may be noted if relevant.
  5. Think carefully before filing a document. Can it be discarded rather than filed? In general, do not file duplicates.
  6. Maintain a folder listing digitally so that it can be easily amended. Keep a printout for each file drawer in the front of the file drawer. When records are boxed for transfer to the archives, send a printout of the folder listing and a disk copy or an electronic file to the archives.

Disposition of Inactive Records

  1. Frequency of use and availability of space should help to determine whether records should be retained in the office or transferred to the archives. (See section 5.1 for special considerations regarding records in electronic form.)
  2. Arrange to transfer records of historical value to the archives. (See instructions for the boxing and labeling of records in appendix 8.2)

UARP Records Policy and Procedures Manual - January 1993, 1st ed.,
September 2002, 2nd ed.