I've always been taught that the purpose of sound records management was
"the ability to find the right piece of information, in the right place,
in the shortest possible time, at the lowest possible cost."  Using this
definition, I would say design the office filing system to work most
efficiently for the office function.  The purpose of the record content
is to support or document the work of the office.  Once transferred to
the archives (even supposing ALL the correspondence would be
transferred), the archives could create an index and sort or
cross-reference by chronological date if they feel it is necessary.

Ginny Jones
(Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI)
Records Manager
Information Technology Division
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities
Newport News, VA
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-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Leslie Knoblauch
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 9:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: University RM Question

Hello,
I am the first Records Manager at a small private college. I have been
conducting preliminary records surveys of the top administrative
offices. In my interviews/surveys the office staff has told me that they
want to cut down on the duplication of records stemming from them using
a chron file to hold correspondence and then also adding copies of this
same correspondence to the much larger and more heavily used subject
file. They have let me know that they do not find chron files easy to
use, especially for new staff, and are looking at phasing them out. My
initial thought was that they should do away with the chron file and
stick to using their subject files but the university archives
disagrees. What would you recommend in this situation? Should I
recommend that office staff continue to use two systems, one that they
find very difficult to use efficiently so that the archives can document
the history of their office more thoroughly or should I support the
offices transition away from chron files?

Any advice would be appreciated,
LK

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