The management of the records of the Federal Government is an important problem. It is important because ✰ records constitute the basic administrative tools by means of which the work of the Government is accomplished, ✰ records contain evidence of financial and legal commitments that must be preserved to protect the Government, records embody information necessary to protect the civic, legal, and property rights of private citizens, records represent an imposing fund of the recorded experience of the Government that is needed to give continuity and consistency to its actions, to make policy determinations, and to handle organizational and procedural as well as social and economic problems, and records contain informational data basic to researches in a wide variety of subjectmatter fields by specialists in scholarly disciplines and technical fields. The problem of managing Federal records is difficult because ✰ they are very large in volume, ★ they accumulate rapidly, ★ their uses for current administrative, legal, and fiscal purposes require careful con- their unnecessary retention in offices hampers operational efficiency and their reten- The most important element in solving the problem is that of making the proper disposition of Federal records at the proper time. They should be maintained at the place in which they can be used to best advantage. While they serve the primary administrative, legal, and fiscal purposes for which they were created and accumulated, they should be retained in the offices of Government agencies. When these primary uses have been exhausted or partially exhausted, however, records should be disposed of or scheduled for disposal at specified periods, or, if temporary values are attached to them, they should be removed to intermediate depositories, or, if they have enduring values other than administrative, fiscal, and legal ones, they should be transferred to an archival agency. In a word, systematic and expeditious disposition should be made of them. To assist Federal agencies in the disposition of their records, the National Archives has prepared this manual. It was written by Theodore R. Schellenberg, Program Adviser of the National Archives, and it supersedes How to Dispose of Records (revised 1946). In it will be found guidance on how to evaluate records to determine the disposition to be made of them, ✰ how to obtain information about records that is basic to planning their disposition, how to reduce the bulk of records by the microphotographic process, and Further assistance may be obtained from the records divisions of the National Archives. AN ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF RECORDS is essential to develop a program for their disposition. The disposition will depend on the currency and value of the records. The disposition will result in either the retirement, the microphotographic reproduction, Step 1. Analyze the organizational structure and functioning of the agency Step 2. Survey the record materials of the agency Step 3. Analyze the survey reports by organizational units and functions Step 4. Prepare a written plan for the disposition of the agency's records Appendix I. Selected bibliography of manuals relating to the disposition of Federal Appendix II. Laws and regulations relating to the disposition of Federal records 39 Chapter 1 A DISPOSITION PROGRAM Objective The primary objective of a disposition program is to control the outflow of records from an agency as methodically as their inflow is controlled, thereby systematizing the management of records from their beginning to their end. Since Federal records are large in volume and accumulate at a very rapid rate, planned programs for their disposition are essential in the interest of economy and efficiency. Under such programs records that have to be retained temporarily should be retired periodically either to inactive files or to records depositories, and, after their current usefulness has been exhausted, they should be destroyed periodically; while records that have to be retained permanently should be held in an orderly manner within the agency that created them until they have become noncurrent and then should be transferred periodically to an archival agency. The programs should thus establish a standard, uniform, and considered policy for the retention, transfer, and disposal of records. One phase of such programs is the selective preservation of permanently valuable records, reduced to the minimum consistent with the public interest. This process of selective preservation is a cooperative undertaking by the agency and the National Archives. The general standards for the selection of records are defined in chapter 3 of this manual, What Values Do Records Have? Agency officials can and should identify the records that are needed as evidence of the "organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government." The methods by which this should be done are suggested in chapter 4, How Should Records Be Analyzed? The National Archives staff also is vitally concerned in this selective process. In both its disposal and accessioning work the National Archives staff must identify the bodies of records in an agency that have permanent value. In appraising items on a disposal list or schedule, dependable judgments cannot be made as to what should be destroyed without knowing what is retained. Similarly in accessioning work, dependable judgments on the value of a given body of records offered for transfer cannot be made without knowing their significance to the over-all documentation of the agency. The National Archives staff therefore can make an important contribution to agency programs of records disposition by helping identify the records produced by the agency that have permanent value. This identification, however, is not enough. It is necessary that such records be marked for retention and that means be provided for their physical segregation from records of only temporary value and for their systematic transfer to the National Archives. Only through a periodic and systematic segregation of the useless materials can the permanently valuable records he brought under control. Another phase of disposition programs is the expeditious and systematic removal and disposal of temporarily valuable records, including their reduction to the minimum consistent with the operating needs of Government agencies. The most effective method of dealing with records that will become useless is to prepare a schedule for their disposal. A schedule requires an advance determination of the life expectancy of each type of record. It is simply a written plan of policy and procedure for the eventual disposal of records made on the basis of a systematic analysis of the materials produced by an agency. A schedule thus specifies the types of records to be disposed of and fixes the minimum retention periods for each type. If these retention periods are long, the removal of the records to an intermediate depository is indicated. Schedules thus provide for regularity in the removal and disposal of useless papers from current records series. If they are prepared carefully, they will guard the agency against premature destruction as well as against indiscriminate retention. Development In order to establish a systematic program of records disposition, the following steps will generally have to be taken within an agency: APPOINT A RECORDS OFFICER. A person should be chosen to handle the program who has a knowledge of the organization and functions of the agency and |