Purpose of Retention Schedules in Archives and Records Management

 Why should I Create a Retention Schedule?

This is the first in a series of blogs about various topics in archives and records management.

In this vlog I will be addressing the matter of having a Retention Schedule, a document that is absolutely critical to the efficient management of records in organizations.

For proper records management to be practiced in an organization it is compulsory for the Records Manager to see to the creation of a Records Retention schedule as soon as possible. Lets go to a quick definition before we go any further. Simply put, a records retention schedule is a document that "identifies records maintained by all or part of an organization and specifies the period of time that records are to be kept" (Saffady pp 37).

Most organizations have a tendency to store every possible record without realizing that they need not save every receipt, every invoice, every conceivable  document and this  often continues until there is an overwhelming crush documents, paperwork and (yes I said- digitial files). It is often at this point that the records manager and sometimes at a later date the archivist has to dive in to save the day. 

As stated before you don't have to save everything! Not every single page of every document or record needs to be saved perpetually however, this also does not mean you should wantonly shred and destroy documents without due care and proper established documentation and procedure. 

Hopefully, your records have not all piled up and are not in total disarray and you would have put in the necessary planning and depending on your organization ensure that you receive the appropriate approvals from upper management. 

Now that you have seen what retention schedule is, do you want to create one?

More to come in my next Blog titled "How and why you need to create a Retention Schedule." 


Works Cited 

Saffady Wiiliam, "Records and Information Management: Fundamentals of Professional Practice" 4th ed., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021.


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