The Journey of an Archival Record, Part I: Appraisal

Connecting the Docs: True Stories from the Old North State

Welcome back to Connecting the Docs!

In this brand new season, we have several mini-series covering a range of topics including a look west with information about “Mountain Speak” and a series on the true stories of Coastal Carolina inspired by the film, Where the Crawdads Sing. We open season three in Raleigh, with our first series, “The Journey of an Archival Record.” In this three-part series, you’ll hear from archivists who normally work behind the scenes about how a document created by a state agency becomes a part of the collections of the State Archives of North Carolina. In the first episode, Appraisal Archivist Colin Reeve and Records Description Unit Supervisor Josh Hager tell John about the first stage in this process: records retention and appraisal. This episode has a little bit of everything: You’ll learn how even a sticky note can become a public record, how a retention schedule can help agencies whittle down their records to a small percentage that comes to the Archives, and how an agency could (legally) destroy a record using an acid vat! We hope you appraise this episode as a great return to the show.

Links:

Functional Schedule for Records Retention and Disposition for State Agencies: https://archives.ncdcr.gov/government/state-government-agencies/functional-schedule

Records Management Frequently Asked Questions: https://archives.ncdcr.gov/government/records-management-tools/faq

Tutorials created by the Records Analysis Unit of the State Archives: https://archives.ncdcr.gov/government/training/online-tutorials-and-resources

General Statute 121: https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/GeneralStatuteSections/Chapter121

General Statute 132: https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/GeneralStatuteSections/Chapter132