Folks,
I haven't followed this whole thread but Patrick's recent post brought a few questions or comments to mind.  First, if one has a records management program in place why can't one "force" compliance?  That is, in my shop we just won't accept mixed record types in the same box.  Now a file within a box may have a mix of documents (e.g., a student file) but the scheduled "bucket" is for the entire file not each document within the file.  If there was a document that required a date certain disposal the preceded the "bucket" disposal date it would have to be boxed separately.  The records manager is supposed to do just that; manage the entities records.  I doubt that the accounting department would allow each unit to decide how its accounts would be handled.

A second problem might be in the inconsistency generated by treating records with the same retention period differentially.  That is, if you have a box of mixed records and only dispose of them at the end of the longest retention period why don't you keep all records with the shorter retention period longer.  It would seem to me that if you get into litigation and you have to explain why some records were held to the retention period and others weren't you would have a major inconsistency in your management especially if records needed under discovery had been disposed of but others with the same retention period had not been.  Maybe picking of nits but it seems a better policy to manage the records correctly rather than to create exceptions that may be hard for someone in the future to explain or justify in discovery.

I agree with Patrick that even if a record has passed its disposal date one is obligated to produce it if it is still extant.  I've certainly had to pull files from boxes on the loading dock awaiting pickup for disposal.  

I know it's difficult to convince the owners of the records to only implement systems that can flag records for disposal whether in imaging systems or ERM systems.  But I can tell you from experience that at some point the owners of those systems will be coming back to asking NOW how do we get rid of the records that are past their disposal date.  It can be painful, expensive and sometimes impossible to retrofit that functionality pos hoc.  IT folks in my experience are born with a mindset that storage is cheap and everything can be kept forever.  If that attitude prevails in your organization then what are you there for?

Just a late entry in the discussion.  Dick King, University of Arizona

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