Hi list members,

I have a question about e-mail management policies and personal
directories, and I would be particularly interested in responses from
individuals employed by county, municipal, or even state governments.

I work for a municipal government with approximately 2,500 employees.  Of
those, about 2,200 have e-mail accounts.  We have finally decided that
we're ready to create a definitive e-mail management policy--we have been
limping along for several years--but have had difficulty negotiating the
issue of personal directories.

In the past, the IT department urged employees to create personal
directories to save e-mail considered essential to performing their jobs.
Naturally, the directories have begun to take up too much space on the
City's servers for IT to deal with.  Furthermore, I'm sure that many of the
e-mails that employees save to their personal directories do not comply
with the Library of Virginia's retention schedule for local jurisdictions
(that's the retention schedule we use).

On the other hand, there is a very practical issue with personal
directories.  Many employees find it convenient to keep their e-mails in
personal directories in order to do their work.  But I am fully aware that
retaining these e-mails beyond their retention periods may make the City
vulnerable to legal problems.

So, what are some of your solutions?  Do you ban personal directories
altogether, allow them without limitations, or have a policy that allows
employees to use them with limits?

Thanks very much,

Jackie Cohan, CA, MA
Records Administrator & Archivist
Archives & Records Center
City of Alexandria, Virginia

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance