Well it seems you have a conundrum and we as records managers deal with
conundrums on a daily basis.

My first questions would be, why are there different retention periods
on the same roll of film?  It's sort of like dealing with physical
records which are boxed.  We keep records of the same retention in the
same box.  That way we can delete the whole box at a time and not end up
with a box that has one item in it.

That however does not solve the problem.  You have no option other than
to keep the roll for the record with the longest retention period.  It's
much easier when it is digitized as someone can go through the records
and remove the ones which have been deleted.  This is a best practice.

For the future, keep like minded retention periods together, whether
they are physical or film.    

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Sara Rusher
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2011 9:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Keeping "destroyed" records?!?!

By way of brief introduction:  I have posted before, but it is on a rare

occasion.  I am however, a frequent lurker.  As a very "green" RM, I
have 
found this forum to extremely insightful, helpful, and often times quite

amusing...

Now my question:

Recently a staff member approached me with a question regarding a 
situation in which permanent records were stored on the same roles of 
microfilm as records that had met their retention.  They wanted to
digitize 
the microfilm (for ease of use and retrieval), but did not want to weed
out 
the non-permanent records, nor be responsible for those non-permanent 
records since they had reached their retention.  I sort of took the all
or 
nothing approach: If you do want to sort through them, and you want to 
keep them all, you have to be responsible for, and maintain, all of
those 
records (permanent retention or not).

I just got an email yesterday saying that, when asked, an official at
the 
State Archives told this staff member:  "we could just keep the entire
film 
and just mark it as "perm".  I could fill out my destruction form and
sign-
off to show all other cases (non-perm) were gone due to retention."

For some reason this doesn't sit well with me. Authorize and sign off on

the destruction of records, which in fact you are knowingly retaining 
permanently?? 

I supposed this is better than the opposite: destroying records without 
the authorization, however it still seems to be incongruent with Best 
Practices, if you will.

Any advice, words of wisdom, or related experience would be greatly 
appreciated!!

(And would it matter if they were criminal justice records...?)


Much thanks,

Sara Rusher
City of Longmont, Colorado
Records Manager
[log in to unmask]
303.651.8648

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