Michael,

While you will want to customize any classification scheme to your
organization, here is a starting point.  All organizational records fall
into 4 primary categories:
1) Housekeeping records 
(Administrative records that tend to be the same from one office to the next
such as payroll or copies of payroll, correspondence, purchasing, phone call
and messaging records, training notices, etc.)

2) Mission specific records (those records that the office has primary
responsibility for and that is also the reason for which the office exists.
 A Human resources office would house records specific to that mission,
while the accounting office would house different records and none of the
records associated specifically with  and with primary responsibility for
hiring and retaining staff) 

3) Rights and Interest Records
These records document the rights, interests and obligations of the agency
or business at its highest level.  Among them would be organic records such
as charters,incorporation papers, minutes of board meetings, by-laws, deeds,
court orders, attorney opinions, binding agreements, leases,and so on)

4) Reference records
These records and assorted other materials could include subject specific
folders for research purposes that have copies of primary records or
correspondence, publications, and so on.  No primary records should appear
in any of these folders, but that is not to say they don't have value. 

Following this line of thinking can help organize an inventory of records
because each of these types of records is easily identified, and then
subdividing them becomes much easier.  Good luck!

A.S.Elizabeth Fairfax, MA, CA
Island County Records and Information Management Program
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
x5569


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Michel Okemi
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 9:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Need Assistance - Records Classification

Hi Records Folks,

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