Hi...new member here.  Your question piqued my interest.  I'm thinking
this through as I write, so some of my thoughts/questions will be "duh"
while others may be thought provoking (?).
I agree that you should think about adding the website to your retention
schedule, but why not simply regard it as an informational
record/topical/time sensitive, and complete the retention period as "for
the life of the information as it remains relevent to the intended
audience."  I would then include an explanation in the document
description of the process used to complete the website changes.  I
would also write an explanation of the backup processes used by your IT
department that provide for a current copy of the website should any
catastrophic event make it necessary for you to provide a backup to your
service provider for publication.  My thought process is this:  anything
you add to the website will most likely be taken from other documents
you already have established retention schedules for, so any information
given to your website audience should already be backed up with more
"traditional" records.  The staff person responsible for creating the
updated website could be charged with keeping his/her working files for
a specified period of time (for the year/until the next update is
created?).

I've worked in the IT department of a law firm here in San Diego,
California, for the last 4 years before returning to my first love,
records management (yeah, believe it or not, I left the exciting world
of IT of my own accord!).  If your IT department is like most others
I've known, they see the nightly backup as a fulfilment of their duty in
preserving the information in a responsible manner.  I might ask them if
they would consent to a formal notification process anytime the backup
schedule changes or problems occur when it comes to any of their backup
jobs.  I would then work out a written procedure and have the IT
director review/put in his 2 cents worth/and sign off on it.

Thanks for letting me put in my "2 cents worth."

Laura A. Steinberg
[log in to unmask]
Records Management Supervisor
Epsten, Grinnell & Howell APC
www.epsten.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Benay Berl [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 8:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Snapshot of website

We are in the process of updating our records retention schedule (a
yearly adventure.) I suggested that we add our website to the schedule.
This started a conversation about what to put in the retention column.
Hmmm. Of course "current" was suggested. Long boring and familiar story
followed.

Our website is hosted by a service provider (SBC.) The files are created
by a staff member here in our organization. She makes changes to the
files and sends them to the service provider, who then loads them.
Our IT department handles the contractual issues with the host.  I asked
IT if the host captures the site prior to making changes. IT gave me the
phone number of the service provider.

I called the service provider and was told that they back up their
system every night and write over the tape every 14 days. I asked if
they can provide me with a copy of the website prior to changes. They do
not provide this service and suggested that we do this at our end and
drop it on a CD.

I should mention that IT does a full backup of our servers every night.

Back to the IT department this morning who sent me this message:
"What is it you are trying to do? To make a backup onto CD every time we
make a change would be pretty time consuming. We make changes to the
copy of the site that we have here and then we move the local files
we/have changed to the SBC site You know our backup schedule, why isn't
that sufficient."

How would you answer this message

Benay Berl
Records Coordinator
Olivenhain Municipal Water District
Encinitas CA
[log in to unmask]




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Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance