"What I'm talking about is FORMALLY ASSIGNED RETENTION periods based on
regulatory, statutory or legal guidance.  If those change, then they apply
to the impacted records... records that were created after the period was
established.

I'm just unaccustomed to seeing assigned periods "fooled with" based on
changes to regulations, once they've been established.  And you can imagine
the nightmare in doing this in an electronic records environment, which is
what my original comments were about.

Imagine a system automatically revising retention periods for series of
records maintained in an electronic environment and applied to all records
in that repository... now, go even one step further and imagine how that
would be applied to backups of those electronic records, "archived"
repositories and so on.  Brrrrr...."

Larry

Hi, Larry,
This is what I ask vendors of my next electronic records management system
and I ask my management to ask the vendors of any management system for
electronic records systems:  How does their system ensure that when a
retention changes, all the records in that series are kept according to the
new retention, AND the record of the retention change is kept?

Also, it is very important to document the retention period of the material
at time of destruction.  If possible, that should stay with the record of
the destruction of the material - also not easy in some electronic records
management systems.

Lorinda Kasten-Lowerre
Records Management Analyst, Senior
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Torrance, California, USA
Member - The Orange County Chapter of ARMA International
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<Check out Orange County California ARMA's website at ocarma.org
Diane Carlisle, CRM - "RM's own the rules; IT owns the tools".

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