Articles

"Three Little Words": Is E-Mail Unmanageable?

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Abstract

In 2006, staff at the Public Records Division (PRD) of the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives proposed a change to a statewide retention schedule for routine correspondence—proposing to eliminate inconsistency from statewide practice by removing three words from the retention period for “General Correspondence,” including E-mail. They recommended changing “Retain no longer than two years” to “Retain two years.” After more than a year of deliberation, delay, and training, PRD staff ultimately abandoned the attempt to change the schedule. The resistance to this change serves as a powerful illustration of the misconceptions held by those outside the archival and records management fields about records retention and disposition, the responsibility of the record creator for the management of the records he or she creates, and particularly the perception of E-mail as a manageable public record. It provides not only snapshot of a year in the life of Kentucky’s state records managers but also a broadly applicable portrait of attitudes toward record keeping in a modern bureaucracy.

How to Cite:

Owen, C., (2010) “"Three Little Words": Is E-Mail Unmanageable?”, Archival Issues 32(1), 33–45. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/archivalissues.10966