This example of obsolescent or superseded hardware and software is a great illustration of my point. Records Management's policy through, retention schedules, address the issue of how long a record (contingent on content and regardless of technology or media) must be kept. Our Real Estate practice has set a retention period of 60 years for some record series. This is a policy issue. It is a procedural or practical issue of how we (RM and IT) assure that records created today are still viable/useable in 59 years. This may mean transferring to new media every 5 or 10 years. It may mean keeping it as paper. Firms need to understand that implementing a 60 year retention period has consequences in terms of maintenance and administration.

There are two separate issues:
Managing/Policy - How long to keep specific content - this is an RM issue
Procedural/Practical - How to keep the content accessible. (Here is were it is easy to conflate the two because at some point this is also "managing" the media.) Be it paper or on cd, or fax, or ZIP drive, 5.25, SD, thumb drive, whatever....this is an RM and IT issue

We'll need to roll the content forward onto new media or new technologies...

The firm decides on the policy, it is my responsibility to see that the records are viable for as long as that policy states.

Richard

Morris James LLP
Richard B. Loringer

Records Manager
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500 Delaware Ave., Ste. 1500  | Wilmington, DE 19801-1494
Mailing Address  P.O. Box 2306 | Wilmington, DE 19899-2306    
T 302.888.6903     F 302.571.1750
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