RECORDS STOREROOMS AND RETIREMENT

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 688.

RECORDS STORAGE

FILING SYSTEMS

As information is received and as records are generated internally within an organization there must be a mechanism for handling them. For the records to be grouped together however it implies that there is a filing system which facilitates this grouping together. It must enable information to be rapidly processed and distributed to those who must see it. The files must be meaningful and accurate enabling those who must file the information as well as those who must use the information to find with ease the information that is required. Whether the filing system is manual or automated the need for accurate filing is not diminished. In Government, decision makers rely on being able to receive information timeously so that they can respond to the issues and so that decisions can be made.

Once the information has been processed, distributed and used, it must be stored for future use. The information is however not stored for the sake of storage. It is stored on the premise that it is still needed and it is in this respect that serious problems can arise.

A basic principle of records management is that information should be distinguished and separated as it moves through three distinct phases of its life cycle. At its creation and through its active usage, the records are said to be current. As their rate of usage declines from the frequent to the infrequent, they move on to the semi-current phase and from there on to the non-current stage. In the latter stage a decision has to be made as to whether or not the records should be disposed of. A mistake is often made by equating non-current records to archives because the two are definitely not equal. The various stages of the life-cycle of records should also be distinguished by differences in where the records are to be found. During the current stage the records are kept in the office or registry where they can be accessed with ease as required. As the records become semi-current they should be retired from the office and registry into some storage area such as the storeroom within the premises of the creating agency and from there they are then transferred to a Records Centre.

Many people pay attention to the transfer of records from the creating agency to the Records Centre without realizing that there is the great area of the storeroom, a transitional period in which control can be lost altogether. It is unrealistic to expect that records can be transferred direct from the registry to the Records Centre, especially in those cases where the Records Centre is not part of the creating agency or it is physically located some distance away from the creating agency. Where this in fact happens without the use of an in-house storeroom it only means that the records will be retained in the office and registry well beyond their active or current life. Many archival institutions indicated that records were retained in the creating agencies until they were some 15—25 years of age.

The retirement of records from the office or registry to the storeroom is an absolute must for the better functioning of any records system. Unless it is done the system becomes burdened and overloaded by information that should not be there.

The main problem that is faced however is knowing at what point to retire records from the office or registry to the storeroom. The surest mechanism is the assessment of the rate of usage of the file and thus determining the point at which the rate has declined from the frequent to the occasional. For those who are unable to determine the rate of usage of records a second method is the periodic examination of the files to determine the date when last something was put on file. While this may seem a rough and ready measure it can be used as a reasonably accurate way of retiring records from active to semi active use.