Or, in the lingo of the International Standard on Records Management - ISO
15489, you have to ensure that the business needs, stakeholder requirements
and community expectations are met when determining retention periods.

Same, but different.

John Lovejoy
[log in to unmask]
My own views

-----Original Message-----
From:    Peter Kurilecz <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Retention development was Re: [RM] Mandatory destruction,
         change in NARA's thinking

On Apr 6, 2005 1:14 PM, Steven Whitaker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Nevertheless, RIM is a business process, and
> we retain information for researched and evaluated BUSINESS need; and
> for no other reason.  In case anybody has pre-conceived notions...;
> Archival is one business need and...., guess what...; it is included in
> the retention policy development matrix

a phrase I use with some records series is the following

"Some information contained within the series may be of
historical/archival importance. Retain such material permanently"

this is especially useful with regards to project type records. A
sampling may be taken. For example back in the days of paper checks
some checks issued by a company might have historical significance
because of who the check was issued to or what it was issued for..

As someone else pointed out some project records can be considered
historical since they can be used for lessons learned aspects.

I fear that too many RMs today do not properly understand how to
construct a retention period for a given records series. SteveW
repeats the RM retention mantra on a regular basis, and yet we
continue to have folks ask the question "how long should I keep..."

There is no magic 'wave your wand' solution. The key is to analyse 5
points carefully. I liken it to an algorithm mine is a little bit
different from Steve's but not by much

Operational (O)- needed to carry on the daily business activities

Administrative (A) - need for planning/strategic decisions

Fiscal (F) - needed for tax/audit purposes

Legal (L)- needed to satisfy contractual, regulatory, and/or statutory
requirements

Historical (archival) (H)- needed to document the history of the
organization

O+A+F+L+H = retention period

>I intensely dislike (hate) the paper media

better known as IIDTPM

--
Peter Kurilecz
Richmond, Va

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