Long time, no see! We haven’t been posting much in the last few weeks, but that’s not because we’ve all been vacationing in the Caribbean. Well, one of us did, and besides Disneyworld in 1986, this was my first real vacation and it was awesome.

Anyway, all of us in the RMA unit have been enjoying our own summertime fun outside of work – going to shows, planning a wedding, volunteering, and healing broken bones- but we wanted to fill you in on a few things we’ve been working on behind the scenes:

• We’re revamping our in-person and online classes, planning fresh new webinars and researching new topics in the field of records management to write about and share on our blog.

• We’ve all had on-the-road assignments the past couple months: Dallas, Corpus Christi, Bay City, Gonzales County, MER conference in Chicago, and Lansing, MI for the annual NAGARA conference.

• We participate in several new committees meetings that will shape the future of records management in Texas:
  • The Local Government Records Group – This group was originally formed by the Commission to develop local government storage standards. Now the group’s focus has shifted to be an advisory group for TSLAC and to help support local governments in the management of local records.
  • Records Subcommittee of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission – The RMA division is collaborating directly with several Commissioners who will review and approve our upcoming revisions to the state and local government retention schedules.
  • State Electronic Records Rules Committee – comprised of several state agency RMOs seeking to revise and republish our Bulletin 1.
  • Juvenile Records Advisory Committee – An advisory committee examining and recommending revisions to any state laws pertaining to juvenile records. TSLAC is participating to gain a better understanding of issues surrounding juvenile records to help us update the related records series on the local government retention schedules.

• As always, we routinely review state and local retention schedules submitted for approval. During our transition to Texlinx, this can make the process seem to slow down, but that’s because we’re simultaneously trying to bring our procedures up to date now that we are using software to streamline the old-fashioned workflow.

• We’re formatting and doing data-cleanup of all approved state retention schedules to prepare for feeding them all into our new Texlinx records tracking system so that RMOs can start managing their schedules and storage within one cohesive system. We’ll continue to work with RMOs on an individual basis for getting their schedules ready for Texlinx.

• And of course we continue to make customer service a cornerstone of our purpose in the Records Management Assistance division by answering emails and phone calls from state and local records managers seeking advice on records retention, disposition, and how to get into compliance or receive further training.

Tell us in the comments if you’ve had any exciting things happen this summer, or give us a call or email if you have questions.