Thanks Larry for your input
Sandra Allen
Records Management Supervisor
NB Power
506-458-3482
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Larry Medina
Sent: October 24, 2007 10:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [RM] Bucket Theory
On 10/24/07, Allen, Sandra <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Is anyone out there using the Bucket Theory for Retention schedules
> and/or is anyone currently practicing this theory? If so do you have
> any examples of how you are using the buckets and how many you are
> using? This seems to be the new buzz word around the Records circuit.
>
This "concept" isn't actually new, it's sort of on it's second
go-around.
The idea is to combine like-retention period records into fewer series
and then end up with a more limited number of both retention periods AND
record series. Works fine with limiting the number of retention
periods, but NOT the number of series, when it comes to
locating/identifying records.
No matter how many arguments people want to make about ontologies,
taxonomies, finding aids, searching, full text indexing, "everything is
miscellaneous" or whatever else... when you NEED TO FIND SOMETHING, the
fewer buckets it's in, the deeper you have to reach and the more water
you have to disturb to find something.
One manner of "big bucketing" that does work is to reduce the total
number of retention periods by lumping together records that pose little
if any risk by retaining them longer, such as if you have records that
have been assigned 6, 7 and 10 year retention periods all into a common
period of somewhere between 6 and 10 years. If there is a legal
requirement of 10 years for some series, and it does no harm to retain
the others a few years longer, then you can eliminate the other periods
from your schedule and simplify the retention process and retain them
all 10 years.
One area I'm seeing this happen is NARA's efforts to make changes to the
General Retention Schedules, in part by pushing the effort back on
Federal Agencies to have their own agency specific retention schedules,
which is the opposite of the direction things had been going before,
where agencies relied more o the GRS for retention citations. In one
agency, revisions are being evaluated to their environmental records
schedule which may have some potentially staggering financial
implications for their Contractors.
There are a number of record series currently under a Federally mandated
destruction moratorium that are being stored at the cost of the Federal
agency once their assigned retention is met... but the agency is
proposing to extend these 5, 10, 1nd 15 year records out to 75 years
now. In these cases, instead of the Agencies being required to pay for
storage of the records (which have extensive volumes) for the additional
60-70 years (or until the moratorium is lifted), the cost for storage is
shifted back to the CONTRACTORS now! To take a 10 year record and
extend it out to 75 years is a pretty big bucket if you ask me!
Worst problem though, is they are collapsing a large number of well
defined record series into a smaller number of more "generally
described" series, which will make locating specific records within the
series harder to find in the future without implementing the use of more
expensive finding aids and greater indexing, so I don't see where the
savings is in the long run...
except for the agencies as direct costs.
Carefully done in a smaller organization with a limited number of
records, I can see where it might be beneficial to implement a limited
bucket policy for retentions, say 2 years for administrative records, 6
years for financial/contract/procurements records, 10 years for
employment, 15 years for research, and permanent for a limited umber of
vital or otherwise critical corporate records... but not in a public or
other Federal scenario.
Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance To unsubscribe
from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place
UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
This e-mail communication (including any or all attachments) is intended only for the use of the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, any use, review, retransmission, distribution, dissemination, copying, printing, or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this e-mail, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please contact the sender and delete the original and any copy of this e-mail and any printout thereof, immediately. Your co-operation is appreciated.
Le present courriel (y compris toute piece jointe) s'adresse uniquement a son destinataire, qu'il soit une personne ou un organisme, et pourrait comporter des renseignements privilegies ou confidentiels. Si vous n'etes pas le destinataire du courriel, il est interdit d'utiliser, de revoir, de retransmettre, de distribuer, de disseminer, de copier ou d'imprimer ce courriel, d'agir en vous y fiant ou de vous en servir de toute autre facon. Si vous avez recu le present courriel par erreur, priere de communiquer avec l'expediteur et d'eliminer l'original du courriel, ainsi que toute copie electronique ou imprimee de celui-ci, immediatement. Nous sommes reconnaissants de votre collaboration.
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]
|
