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

Off the Record: Fire

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…

Hand in file folder

Tips for Folder Structure Design and Cleanup

Shared file environments can be a real challenge to organize and maintain. Below are some tips to help your shared drive structures get into and stay in shape. Consistency Structure and Control Change Management Disposition Shared drives can be chaotic, but they don’t have to be that way. Employing simple techniques like the ones above…

Welcome

Adding to Our Team

The records management assistance team at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission welcomes back Erica Wilson-Lang! Erica is returning as an analyst after a hiatus. Read more about Erica who is now the point of contact for local governments in the Central region of Texas. The Central region is comprised of the following counties: Bastrop…

Getting Certified in Records Management

During the course of consulting, we analysts are sometimes asked if TSLAC has a certification program for records management. The answer is that we don’t – we provide training through classes, workshops, and webinars for which you are given a certificate of completion, but we do not offer something that would be recognized as a…

Beyond A to Z: Filing Tips to Organize Better

I am not a naturally organized person.  Last weekend, my husband watched me paw through a laundry basket of essentially all black clothes looking for a black tank top and the two I came up with weren’t the right one.  But I have to be organized at work, because others need to find things quickly…

How Can I Set Up an Email Filing System?

Setting up a filing system for your emails is a huge step in managing those sometimes insurmountable inboxes. However, sometimes those filing systems are as difficult to manage as the inboxes themselves, if folders are created on-the-fly or as seemingly needed for specific emails. One way to avoid this is by developing a filing system…

Using Personal Email for Government Business is a Bad Idea – Here’s Why

We’ve all recently read about several government officials using personal email accounts or email servers to conduct government business.  But they are not alone by any means – a recent survey of 412 high-level government employees conducted by Atlantic Media’s Government Executive Meeting Group revealed that approximately one-third of the employees surveyed said they sometimes…