HI Charis,

I thought I would weigh in with this:

NARA has needs of a different nature than your graphics folks do for the
retention of these masters.  NARA's mission is to document what WAS produced
as a record of the agencies business.  Your grahics folk have needs that
have nothing to do with permanent documentation of the agency's mission and
fulfillment thereof.

You may be able to keep the masters at the record center, but NARA has no
need for these.  You should be able to negotiate a longer retention period
with the federal record center or a private record center by creating an
internal schedule to the agency if they and you are willing to do the work
of justifying just why (from a business-need standpoint the expense is
merited to keep these masters.)

I wouldn't offer to keep anything longer than scheduled unless they could
provide justification that made sense from an economic standpoint and the
extra investment of time to change or create an internal agency schedule,
and have it approved.

Good Luck.

Elizabeth Fairfax, MA,CA
Island County Records and Information Services.


-----Original Message-----
From: Charis Wilson [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 11:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Camera ready proof sets / graphic file retentions


Thought I'd get some feedback from everyone out there before I decide 
whether or not to tackle this "sacred cow".

Our office, a government agency, publishes reports and documents.  Our 
agency retention schedule indicates that the retention period for the hard 
copy camera-ready/proof sheet/masters is five years from the time of 
publication and a copy of the report, as printed, is to be transferred to 
NARA for permanent retention.

The GRS specifically states that it doesn't care aka "cover" the proof 
sheet copies, it is only concerned that one copy of the actual report as 
printed is turned over to the National Archives for permanent retention.

However, the folks in the graphics division of one of our offices wants to 
keep the graphics files for one year on site, another nine at the Federal 
Records center and THEN they want all materials to be reviewed at the end 
of the ten years for possible further retention.

My understanding is that this is done because "we've always done it that 
way" because we "might" be able to repackage or reuse the materials in 
another publication or they "might" need to reprint the report.

I've checked several other agencies who also fall under the same 
department we do and they generally follow the GRS which indicates that 
one permanent, as printed copy is transferred to NARA, and the rest are 
kept short periods between 3 to 5 years.

My gut feeling, based on the research I've done is that the three to five 
year period is reasonable and should be followed.  However, before I go 
tilting at this windmill or trying to sacrifice this "sacred cow", I 
wanted to get feedback from others.  

Is there something I'm missing?  I'm also concerned that they want to use 
this same retention period standard for the various electronic files 
generated when they create the reports, even those are considered by the 
GRS as wordprocessing copies and have a very short retention period.

As usual, any and all comments, concerns or suggestions will be welcome 
and greatly appreciated.

Charis Wilson, MLS, CRM

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