The Utah State Archives and Records Service will relocate the State Records Center from the warehouse in West Valley (Decker Lake) to a new State owned facility in Clearfield. This move is scheduled to begin on February 1, 2012 and will take an estimated 4 weeks to complete. In order to facilitate this move, some services will be temporarily …
SAVE THE DATE! Utah State Archives April 2012 RIMM Conference
Information professionals have centuries of experience working with records on paper, and have developed effective practices for controlling these records. Yet, we have only a couple of decades of experience actively managing electronic records. As a profession records managers are engaging the unique challenges of this radically new format and are developing approaches to efficiently manage e-records. In …
Retention Talk – A Few Thoughts about Utah General Schedules.
When it comes time to schedule records with the Utah State Archives and Records Service there may be some confusion about general retention schedules. What are general schedules? What purpose do they serve? How do I use a general schedule? ARMA International defines a retention schedule as: “A comprehensive list of records series, indicating for each the length of time it is …
Alliance for Response: Safeguarding Utah's Cultural Heritage
Some of Utah’s cultural heritage custodians met with first responders and disaster planners at the Utah Alliance for Response forum on November 2, to discuss actions that can be taken to protect records and other cultural heritage artifacts in the event of a disaster. Planners hope that the outcome of this forum will be the creation of partnerships and strengthened communication between …
Volunteer Program Development Training
Have you ever wondered how in the world you would reduce your backlog? Or how you would complete a project that you never find time for? Maybe what you need are volunteers to assist you. If you have ever thought about how to find volunteers and how to keep them coming back, we have a training session …
Records Management Zombies: Or, the Challenges of a Mindless RM Program
Records managers can learn from zombies. A general observation about zombie behavior: Zombies wander aimlessly. They lack direction or the ability to plan ahead. Zombies do not exhibit signs of motivation until they see one of the living. If a zombie meets a person they then stumble and charge to get to their next meal, often hurting themselves in the process. Similarly, records management …
When a Note is a Record
With more than 15 references to the term “personal” in the Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA), it comes as no surprise that Utah governmental agencies struggle to apply the term to the records managed by their office. GRAMA references: “personal use,” “personal privacy,” “personal notes,” and more. Yet, there is no definition provided by the law to guide …
eDiscovery, Litigation, and Utah's Retention Schedules
On September 22nd I attended the Intermountain eDiscovery 2011 conference in Salt Lake City. At the conference Ralph C. Losey, of Jackson Lewis LLP, discussed the challenges and latest solutions to electronic discovery. Three significant points were: 1) If you “reasonably” expect litigation, then you must stop all records destruction; 2) In Manhattan it is considered gross negligence if an IT …
2012 Utah State Archives Records Management Training Dates
The Utah State Archives is pleased to announce the 2012 training dates. It will be an exciting year for training as we introduce two new workshops: “What’s In Those Cabinets: Tackling the Records Inventory and Appraisal Process” and “Essential Records Protection and Disaster Recovery.” Participants of these workshops will begin the process of inventorying in-office records, create a standardized rubric …
Alliance for Response Forum
An Alliance for Response Forum is scheduled for Wednesday, November 2, in the State Office Building Auditorium. This forum is part of a national program which seeks to strengthen communication between the cultural heritage and emergency response communities before disasters happen. Cooperative planning will enhance disaster responses and provide better protection for Utah’s cultural heritage. Speakers at this forum will include …