We are currently in the process of decommissioning an old AS400 system.
In addition to Cyborg and JDE (which we have captured all history), we
have stored our electronic and digitized grantmaking records on this
system. We have migrated the essential and recent history of our
grantmaking records to a new document management system and now use SAP
for our financial and HR information. What remains on the AS400 are
closed (study fellowships) program historical grantmaking records. Our
retention schedule and disposition policy indicates that these are
permanent records. Management sees no further business need so they were
not migrated to the new system. Previous archives (prior to AS400
implementation in 1992) are held in microfilm. Our Technology department
is looking for owners for these records, but there are few remaining on
staff. Our records and archives function has always been seen as the
"keeper of the paper or film" and wasn't considered an owner of these
electronic archival records, now that the business needs have been met.
We've been trying to get our records and archives house in order and
would like to add some value to this decision. Although the individual
files may not have high hits, the type of programming they represent has
a very prominent part in the history of our Foundation. A guess at the
quantity might be 150,000 text and image documents with no added
functionality (about 1500 of our 5000 total historical files of this
type of study fellowships). We are worried that they might get "archived
off" and we won't have access to them.

My question is this - If the reference or research value is proven to be
quite low, should we recommend that the records be converted to
microfilm to "match" the rest of the collection so that it remains
complete? What other questions should we be asking? We currently do not
have an RMS but it has been acknowledged that we will need disposition
management in the future since our core records are now in electronic
format. Thanks for your comments and counsel!

Cheryl
Record and Archives Analyst
 


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