Welcome back to our occasional series “Off the Record,” a curated collection of articles we found interesting on a broad range of topics, some of which are directly related to records management and other which might share common themes. No, we didn’t write these articles—hence the name of this series, “Off the Record”—but, fortunately, we…
Goddess of Liberty at the State Capitol, February 1888 (Austin History Center) In this edition of Remarkable Records, we are going to look at photographs that document local governments and state agencies. Photographs capture a moment in time as a visual representation that represent infrastructure, events, and people that help to shape the state we…
Since 1972, the State and Local Records Management Division (SLRM) has operated the State Records Center (SRC) on Shoal Creek Boulevard in Austin. The original building included space to store more than 152,000 cubic feet of records, with an extension added in 1986 providing another 232,000 cubic square feet of storage for state agencies and…
An RMO walked into my office like a shredded record—all cut up and bent out of shape. I was used to that sort of thing. “What seems to be the trouble?” I said. “I got these records, see? And I just can’t classify ‘em no matter what I do.” “You got no information about ‘em?…
One of the ways we at the State and Local Records Management Division (SLRM) assist state agencies and local governments in ensuring records and information are accessible for the short-, medium-, and long-term is by operating a full-service, cost-recovery image conversion center, the Imaging Services Department. We recently asked Imaging Services Supervisor Jacqueline Jacobs and…
In the State and Local Records Management Division (SLRM) here at TSLAC, we receive a lot of questions in regard to permanent records. “Why do they need to be saved?” “How should permanent records be stored?” “What do we do if there is any damage?” To begin to answer these questions, it helps to learn…
Those of you who work for state agencies may be familiar with the recertification process, where the Records Management Officer (RMO) submits a records retention schedule of all the records of the agency with instructions on how to manage them. Each state agency must recertify their schedule every five years for review and approval. Recently,…
Classifying local government records can feel like a Rube Goldberg machine. A light marble (Outlook meeting notice) will float over a weighted ramp, launching itself through the funnel of GR1000-26c, Routine Correspondence. Let’s switch the marble to a metal ball (regular operational correspondence). The metal ball doesn’t weigh the ramp down, but its weight pulls…