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Technical Bulletin: Avoiding Unnecessary Filing, Part II

Grateful acknowledgement to the Local Records Division of the Texas State Library and Archives which published a version of this article in The Local Record, Winter 1989.

To date, four technical inserts of The OSU Record have dealt with filing. Issued in Summer 1991, the first in the series, "Selecting the Best Filing System," described and gave suggestions for the appropriate application of three filing systems: alphabetical, numerical, and alphanumerical. There was also a comparison of direct and indirect access systems, as well as seven annotated questions to help you evaluate the filing system you are considering. The Fall 1991 and Winter 1992 technical inserts contained detailed discussions of several indirect access filing systems: subject, geographic, numeric, and alphanumeric.

In the Summer 1992 OSU Record, the technical insert dealt with a number of practices that lead to unnecessary filing. There was a discussion of the need for copy management, with sections dealing with the overuse of the copy machine, the concept of the record copy, convenience files, and multiple filing of the same document. Further suggestions for avoiding unnecessary filing are included in the following discussions of filing publications and dealing with routine communications.

File Fewer Publications

If you are like most university offices, you receive a flood of catalogs, brochures, flyers, circulars, newsletters, and other printed matter. Some of these have value to you; many do not. But unless you already have a systematic filing plan, most of them have found a place in your files. For the most part, they do not belong there and only make the task of retrieving information from your files more difficult. There are a number of steps you can take to control and channel the flood of printed matter.

Start first with periodically received publications such as newsletters and magazines. Determine who in your office reads them and whether or not you wish to continue receiving them. If not, get off the mailing list! If yes, establish a separate reference file for such publications and establish how many back numbers of the publication will be kept in the file.

Establish separate reference files for vendors' catalogs, flyers, and brochures. If you maintain purchasing records, such material is obviously valuable to you, but purchase orders, invitations to bid, invoices, and similar documents are "government records," printed matter is not. To mix the two in your files is to make the periodic disposal of either more difficult. Keep only up-to-date material in your reference files, get rid of obsolete catalogs promptly!

Some record keepers customarily receive and use file specific reports or documents from other departments, but if you are not one of these and you routinely receive printed material or copies of documents from other departments (or from the state or federal government for that matter) as a matter of courtesy and the material is not relevant to your work, establish a separate reference file for it and weed it out on a regular basis. The record copies of this material are kept by the offices that created them. Maintaining or preserving them should not be your concern.

Occasionally there will be an article or item in printed material that is relevant to a current project, and a staff member wishes it placed in the main files. In such instances, encourage the staff member to photocopy the item and file the photocopy rather than the entire publication. Do not burden your files with an entire issue of magazine or a full report when only a small part of it is pertinent.

Dealing with Routine Communications

Keeping your important records properly filed is enough of a challenge without having to deal with routine material. Although less of your incoming correspondence and memoranda will be as routine as that frequently encountered in business, it is still worthwhile to establish procedures for effectively dealing with what routine material you do get. Here are some tips for dealing with routine correspondence.

When responding to requests by mail for publications or routine information, attach the requesting letter to the material sent. By returning the letter, you will not have to file it.

Devise form letters as responses to frequently asked questions. Indicate on the incoming letter the date and the number of the form sent in response. Do not file a copy of the form with the letter!

Use the "endorsement method" whenever appropriate; i.e., if there is room, write your response on the face of the incoming communication and return it to the sender. This is a particularly effective way in dealing with routine interdepartmental memoranda if you do not feel a need to keep a copy. Some governments even use the endorsement method in handling correspondence from the public. Again, by returning the incoming material, you will not have to file it.

Be aware of the applicable retention period of various classes of correspondence and file them accordingly. Retention periods may vary from one year for Transitory Correspondence, a records series that was added to page 86 of the University Records Retention and Disposition Schedule as a part of the April 1994 update, to permanent for correspondence contained in the Historical Policies Records Series, found on page 75. Filing transitory correspondence along with permanent correspondence that pertains to office policy will result in bulging files that will have to be weeded before they are transmitted to permanent, archival storage.

Non-Record Materials

Oregon statutes recognize a category of documentation which does not fall under the retention and disposition requirements of ORS 192.005. These materials, termed collectively, "non-record materials" may be disposed of as convenience and necessity dictate. You may dispose of any of the material described below when they are non longer useful for normal operations of your department. There is in fact good reason for never filing or mixing materials that fall in to the categories below or near true university records. This list is taken from the one printed in the Archives and Records Management Handbook, page 25.

Library material: Includes books, pamphlets, circulars, newsletters, brochures, catalogs, advertisements, and similar published material. Also included are bibliographies, directories, and tabulations or compilations of information made or acquired and preserved solely for exhibition purposes. (ORS 192.005)

Extra Copies: Copies created and preserved only for reference convenience. (ORS 192.005)

Excess Stock: Includes both excess stock of publications and forms. (ORS 192.005)

Duplication Masters: Includes stencils, mats, ditto, dictation recordings if fully transcribed, tab cards, punched tape, punched cards, and magnetic recording media created and used solely for transfer of data from one medium to another. (OAR 166-40-055)

Individual Employees' Memberships: Files accumulated as a result of an individual employee's membership in professional, occupational, service, or community organizations, associations, or clubs. These never qualify as University Records.

Duplicated Records: Records which have been duplicated in another format, such as paper records that have been microfilmed, if the duplicate is retained as the record copy and its accuracy has been verified. Duplicates include photographs, micrographs, and other reproduction forms on paper, film, tape or computer-readable format. (ORS 192-170)

For copies of previous technical inserts, please contact the University Archives at 737-2165.

Also available are copies of the April 1994 revision of the Archives and Records Management Handbook which includes one new authorized record schedule and substantive revisions of 11 other record series. For copies of the revised pages or the entire handbook, please contact the University Archives at 737-2165.