A vinyl record on a blue background with the words Off the Record and the TSLAC logo in white.

Off the Record: Social Media

Welcome back to our occasional series “Off the Record,” a curated collection of articles we found interesting on a broad range of topics, some which are directly related to records management and others which might share common themes. No, we didn’t write these articles—hence the name of this series, “Off the Record”— but, fortunately, we…

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-highsm-02036

Social Media Policies and Procedures

Creating policies for social media records is vital to successfully managing those records and notifying the public of the areas that impact their use of agency social media tools.We’ve previously discussed the benefits and challenges of using social media, identification and retention of social media, and we outlined some methods of capturing these records. So…

Capturing Social Media Records

Once you tackle determining whether social media content are records, the job is not quite done; capturing social media records is an extremely important aspect to successfully managing the records. Social media capture helps guarantee your government body has access to the records for review, use and, ultimately, destruction at the end of its retention…

Social Media: Benefits and Challenges

Last year, a Confederate Muster Roll from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission reached an audience of 175. Normally, historical artifacts like this list of officers and soldiers are viewed by researchers or visitors to the library, who often do so individually. Through the power of Instagram, TSLAC is able to extend its holdings…

FAQ: When is Social Media a Record?

If the question is, “Can Social Media Content be a record?” then the answer is “Yes, it can be.” This is supported by the definition of a government record as defined in the Local Government Records Act (LGRA) and in the Government Code Chapter 441 for State Agencies; records can exist in a variety of…