>
> 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.

 Okay... so... you're doing a survey and you've identified a business
process that may need to be changed. So, it sounds like you've already
spoken to all of the stakeholders (?) and identified the potential needs for
continuing the process. But the originator of the record series (office
staff) doesn't see the value in continuing to maintain the process, and sees
it chiefly as duplication of records and effort. As long as there isn't a
formal retention period for the Chron file, there's no legitimate reason to
have one.
 >> 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.
  The last place I worked that kept a chron file for correspondence used it
as a "reading file" and it was discarded on a "rolling month" basis
annually, so there were always the last 12 months of information included.
This way, if someone in the management "chain" was out of the office, they
could thumb through the chron file for the period they were gone and see if
anything critical or anything requiring their action was issued.

 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?

 My take? Discontinue generating the chron copy and filing it... just start
sending it directly to the one stakeholder that seems to think it is of
value (the Archive), then when the subject file copies have met their
retention, instead of having their disposition being "send to Archives",
have it be "discard by appropriate methods".

 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?

 As I said... the business process should be the driver for continuing to do
something. IF there is no business need for the product that supports
continuing the effort, then let someone else that wants the product perform
the work.
 I'm in full agreement with comments from others that this is best handled
by a good job of indexing... as long as you can find the information,
there's no legitimate reason to manage multiple sets of it, unless your goal
is vital record protection by planned distribution.

Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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