I don't like the term "permanent" because of what non-RIM employees think it may mean. When I have asked what it means the answers I have heard included, "oh I'm sure it's 100 years or more, 75 years, or my favorite "a very long time". Once you get away from the records professionals, the term becomes very subjective.

Dwight WALLIS wrote:
It's also notable that
records often become artifacts because of age, regardless of their content. For me that is the core of the issue. Actuaries can project how long the average person is expected to live based on various factors. I recall the IRS reasoning for mandatory withdraws from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) had to begin at age 70.5 because they project virtually everyone is dead by the time they reach 100 years of age. Can the same principle be used for records/information?

The question that I have been trying to answer: Given good care and diligence, HOW LONG can a record or the information that record contains be expected to "live" in a reliable state before the only instances left are considered artifacts, fragments, or curiosities? I am not going to get into what type of records this should cover or why they should be kept, but assume it will be a few series of records with limited volume.

The theory I have at this point is 300 years. How did I come up with that time period?
First, after 300 years time the content of the information itself can be difficult to interpret as the result of cultural/language changes.

Second, after 300 years even with great care and diligence, critical parts will have been lost. The records may still exist but indexes, appendices, and other finding aids are no longer available.

Third, independent factors such as natural disasters, wars, negligent/willful/accidental destruction, and pandemics are very likely to have affected/destroyed most records collections and/or the people who can interpret those records. For the records to be considered valuable, someone must still be around who understands the content of the records and is aware of their existence.

If you review historic events and timelines, it's very unusual for any civilization/nation/culture to go more than 300 years without experiencing some catastrophic event that causes great destruction to most if not all of the central knowledge stores of its past. My theory assumes that after 300 years the original records and often the detailed information they contained have disappeared or been destroyed. In effect, the majority of records are expected to have "died off" after 300 years.

Any thoughts?

Rob Seibolt
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Senior Records Analyst
Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, MO
http://www.mriresearch.org/



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