When you read TSLAC’s local government retention schedules (“local schedules”), you may notice the word “obsolete” pops up in lots of different places. Some folks ask us what we mean when we say obsolete. Obsolete generally refers to a record that is no longer active. How your records management program must treat an obsolete record…
This is the second post of a multi-part recap of the 2017 e-Records Conference. Presentation materials from the conference are available on the e-Records 2017 website. Information Governance: Take Control and Succeed The Public Information Act and Updates from the 85th Legislative Session After the Opening Remarks, Justin Gordon from the Office of the Attorney…
It’s been almost 6 years since we addressed this question originally. In that time, the popularity of text messaging (“texting”) has skyrocketed while awareness that text messages (“texts”) are potentially government records has increased very little. Here we go again! The definition of a government record in Texas is media neutral. A record is defined…
This is the third post of a multi-part recap of the 2016 e-Records Conference. Presentation materials from the conference are available on the e-Records 2016 website. 1. At the Intersection of Technology and Records Management 2. “Accessing the Texas Digital Archive” and “Enterprise Information Management in Sharepoint 2016” 3. “Process Mapping as a Best Practice” and “Email…
If you work in a county government, you might have heard us use the phrase countywide RMO. Today’s topic is about who the countywide records management officer (RMO) is and what they do. The commissioners court designates an individual to serve as the countywide RMO. That person then serves as the RMO for all the county’s…
Get ready county clerks, because this post is just for you… A common question posed to the analysts here at TSLAC concerns the difference between records series on Local Schedule CC that look nearly identical but have different retention periods. A good example is series CC1400-11 and CC1400-10. Both are for deputation records, but only…
Recently TSLAC has received a flurry of questions from state agencies and local governments about retaining records related to public information requests. Some people have asked if the government must make extra copies of the requested records and retain the extra copies with the correspondence and documentation that initiates, processes, and responds to the request. The answer is…
This is the last in a series profiling the Who’s Who in Records Management. Over the last few weeks, we’ve looked at the Records Management Officer (RMO), records custodians, and records liaisons, who are all very much in the thick of things when it comes to records management. Today we’re taking a step back from hands-on records management to…