Council on archives international records management trust

Disposal

Consider the following example, taken from: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Office of Records Administration. Managing Electronic Records. Instructional Guide Series (Washington, DC: NARA, 1990), page 22.

(A master file [may also be called a main file] is a relatively long-lived computer file containing an organised and consistent set of complete and accurate data. It is usually updated periodically.)

For an ongoing system, where the administrative needs of the agency prevent the use of such periodic file breaks, routine system update procedures could be used to trigger the transfer of data to the archival institution according to disposal instructions. Appropriate benchmarks and explicit instructions should be established to measure the success of such procedures.

Consider the following example taken from US NARA, Managing Electronic Records, pages 22-23.

Copy records from history file to current master file for any case where new transactions occur after the case record was migrated to the history file. Destroy agency copy of history file when one year old.

(History files are electronic files copied from inactive master files for long-term or permanent retention.)

Accessioning and Processing

At present, magnetic tape cartridges (specifically 3490 magnetic tapes) tend to be the preferred medium for storage after transfer. There are other storage media (such as diskettes, magnetic cartridges, CD-ROMs and so on), but in practice most archival institutions are still using tape. Various organisations are continuing to test alternatives and it is important to stay abreast of new developments.

The goals of processing electronic records are

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  to ensure that the records appraised as permanent are the records that are being transferred
  
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  to ensure that there are no transportability problems with the records that would prevent them from being processed and made available. (Transportability is the ability to move records from the system on which they were created to the system used by the archival institution and then to users of the records.)
  
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  to ensure that the documentation that has been compiled during processing is sufficient to allow the records to be read, used and understood.
  

Records professionals generally agree that there are a set of basic steps necessary to process electronic data files (records). These basic steps are listed below and described in detail in subsequent sections.

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  arranging for the transfer of the data file (record) from the original custodian to the records facility
  
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  verifying the data and documentation
  
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  resolving errors.
  

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  in-house: establish an internal processing programme either with existing funds or supplementary external funding
  
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  contractual: contract with a service provider (such as time sharing arrangements with a computer centre) that can support the preservation programme
  
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  consortium: form a consortium with other organisations to share the costs of processing
  
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  external: establish a monitoring programme when long-term access will not be directly managed by the archival institution
  
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  combination: a mix of the types may be required to meet the needs of the records creators or to address a wide variety of electronic record types.
  

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  Tape processing capability: The computer centre must be able to process tapes created at other computer centres, transfer data to new magnetic tape, convert the data to a standard archival format and provide printouts needed for verification. Computer centres with industry standard hardware and a wide range of software packages are best able to handle and reformat tapes.
  
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  Hardware compatibility: Consideration must be given to the compatibility between the type of hardware available at the computer centre and the type used by the creating department.
  
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  Availability of external support: The availability of consultants, analysts and programmers is important for archivists who need technical assistance with reformatting data files.
  
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  Data security: Good data security is essential for repositories that plan to preserve confidential information in electronic form.
  
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  Cost: While cost is a concern, a records programme is likely to incur most of its costs for programming services rather than for actual computer use.