Posts pertaining to local governments (counties, cities, school districts, special districts, etc.)
There is a term in records management circles you might have heard of called “big buckets.” Have you ever stopped and thought, “What is this? Should I be doing this? Am I missing out on something?” (Coincidentally, there’s the pop culture acronym F.O.M.O. which stands for “fear of missing out” that comes to mind. Google…
Whether you are new to records management or an experienced records management officer, you all face or have faced the following question: “How do I make records management relevant in my office?” Depending on your office environment, knowing when and how to talk to your office leadership about records management can be challenging. Your peers…
We know how to dispose of paper records. You can either destroy the records by burning or shredding them. Although these methods of destroying records may have been a viable option in the past, these same methods might not be enough to remove all traces of data from records being stored electronically. Before destroying an electronic…
Edited to update hyperlinks on October 5, 2021 Recently, many questions have been raised about how to establish a electronic records (e-records) management policy. One of the main questions we’ve received is what is covered within an e-records management policy. An e-records management policy enhances the organization’s policy on information management and storage. A well-crafted…
Picture this: After a seventh consecutive day of raining, there are flood warnings for the surrounding area—a common problem for central Texas— and your government building is in the flood zone. Does work need to carry on regardless of the conditions? How do you ensure business continues? Imagine your office building has a suspected gas leak…
Updated May 2020 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…
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…
Despite the acceleration of new technologies over the last couple of decades, if you ask archivists or records managers about best practices of long term preservation of records, they’ll still say microfilm is a solid choice. Much like paper (which has a life expectancy of thousands of years), microfilm can be stored for hundreds of…