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Records Retention Procedures

1. What records (or files) does your office create?

2. What records do employees in your department have (are these records orginally created by your office or were they transferred from another office, therefore making your office the new custodian)? [Note: If records are official orginal records that are transferred from another department, the new custodian has the responsibility to meet all retention requirements for those records. See number 3 for questions on duplicates.]

3. Use official (original, non duplicate) records for deciding on retention (see: official and non-official records for the distinction between them). [Note: Duplicates of orginal records can be destroyed when they no longer meet any administrative need, unless stated in the retention schedule that copies must be kept.]

4. If the file folder has multiple documents with differing retention periods, use the documents with the longest retention.

5. List records and then match them to the records retention schedule.

6. Write the retention on the file folder and the date of destruction or transfer. Do this for each folder (unless you know a complete group of file folders having all the same dates and belonging to the same series).

7. When the date of destruction or transfer arrives, fill out the appropriate form and send documents to be destroyed or to the archives. Forward a copy of the destruction and/or transfer form to the archives. Once you have recieved a signed copy of the destruction form back, you can then have the stated documents destroyed.

8. If the record is a permanent archival record (click here to see schedule), go to archives transfer section.

9. Get further help from the University Archivist.