RM University Editorial Team

Accessioning and Transfer to an Archives

When permanent records leave active management, they're transferred to an archives and accessioned into its custody. Here's how transfer and accessioning work.

Annual FOIA Reports and the Chief FOIA Officer

How federal agencies produce Annual FOIA Reports and the role of the Chief FOIA Officer in overseeing compliance, performance, and proactive disclosure.

Archival Appraisal: Selecting Records for Permanent Preservation

Archival appraisal decides which records have enduring value and become permanent. Here's how appraisal works and how it differs from retention appraisal.

Archival Arrangement and Description

A practical guide to archival arrangement and description, covering provenance, original order, multilevel description, finding aids, and standards for organizing permanent records.

Big Bucket vs. Granular Retention Schedules

A practical comparison of big bucket and granular retention scheduling, weighing compliance precision against usability, defensibility, and the realities of electronic records.

Breach Notification and the Role of Records

How records management underpins breach notification, from detecting what data was exposed to proving timelines, scoping affected individuals, and documenting the response.

Building Records Management Awareness and Training

A records program only works if people follow it. Here's how to build awareness and training that actually change behavior — not just a once-a-year checkbox.

Capstone Email in Federal Agencies

How the Capstone approach lets federal agencies manage email as records by role rather than message-by-message, and how it ties into NARA policy.

Capturing Chat from Collaboration Platforms

How to identify, preserve, and manage chat and channel messages from collaboration platforms as federal and organizational records.

Classification Challenges by Authorized Holders

An educational overview of how authorized holders formally challenge the classification status of national security information and the protections involved.

Collection and Chain of Custody for ESI

How to collect electronically stored information and document chain of custody so it stays defensible, authentic, and admissible in litigation and investigations.

Common Records Management Myths

From 'keep everything to be safe' to 'the cloud handles it,' records management is full of costly misconceptions. Here are the most common myths — and the reality.

Continuity of Operations (COOP) and Vital Records

Vital records are the heart of continuity-of-operations planning — the records an organization needs to keep running through a disaster. Here's how the two connect.

Cross-Border E-Discovery and Data Privacy Conflicts

How conflicting national data privacy laws complicate cross-border e-discovery, and the principles records managers use to reconcile preservation, production, and protection.

Custodian Interviews and Data Mapping for Litigation

How custodian interviews and data mapping work together to scope, preserve, and collect electronically stored information defensibly in litigation.

Data Minimization in Practice

A practical guide to data minimization for records managers, covering disposition, retention schedules, and reducing personally identifiable information across the lifecycle.

De-Identification and Anonymization of Records

An educational guide to de-identification and anonymization of records, covering techniques, re-identification risk, retention implications, and governance.

Defensible Deletion and E-Discovery Risk

How defensible deletion programs and litigation hold obligations intersect, and how disciplined disposition reduces e-discovery cost and legal risk.

The Deliberative Process Privilege (Exemption 5)

A plain-language guide to FOIA Exemption 5's deliberative process privilege, what it protects, its limits, and what records managers should know.

Digitizing Fragile and Bound Materials

How to digitize fragile, brittle, or tightly bound records safely while still producing trustworthy, standards-based digital surrogates.

Disappearing and Ephemeral Messaging Apps

How records management principles apply to disappearing and ephemeral messaging apps, where auto-deletion collides with retention, FOIA, and litigation duties.

Disposing of Source Records After Digitization

Reclaiming space after scanning depends on disposing of the paper originals — but only when the digitization meets standards and the disposal is authorized. Here's how to do it right.

Documenting Destruction: Certificates and Logs

How destruction certificates and disposition logs prove records were destroyed under authority, what they capture, and why defensible documentation matters.

Early Case Assessment in E-Discovery

A practical guide to early case assessment in e-discovery, explaining how organizations scope, cost, and strategize litigation before full document review.

The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM)

A plain-language guide to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model, its nine stages, and how it connects e-discovery to records management and information governance.

Email Journaling vs. Mailbox Capture

A practical comparison of email journaling and mailbox capture as methods for preserving messages as records, with their tradeoffs and governance implications.

Encryption and Email Record Integrity

How encryption protects and complicates email records, and how to preserve integrity, accessibility, and authenticity across an email record's full lifecycle.

Equities and Referrals in Declassification

How agencies identify other parties' classified interests (equities) and route documents through referrals during declassification review.

Event-Based vs. Time-Based Retention

An in-depth comparison of time-based and event-based retention triggers, how they work in records schedules, and how to apply each correctly.

Expedited Processing Under FOIA

A plain-language guide to expedited processing under the federal Freedom of Information Act, covering the legal standard, how to request it, and agency obligations.

Federal Agency Records Programs Under 36 CFR

An educational overview of how federal agencies build records programs under 36 CFR, covering responsibilities, scheduling, electronic records, and NARA oversight.

FERMI: The Federal Electronic Records Modernization Initiative

A plain-language guide to FERMI, NARA and OMB's effort to modernize federal electronic records management through shared standards, requirements, and acquisition tools.

File Formats for Long-Term Preservation

Some file formats survive decades; others become unreadable. Here's what makes a format preservation-friendly and which formats are commonly chosen for long-term records.

Fixity and Integrity Checking in Digital Preservation

A principle-based guide to fixity and integrity checking in digital preservation, covering checksums, verification workflows, governance, and trustworthy repository practice.

FOIA Backlogs and How Agencies Manage Them

A practical guide to why FOIA request backlogs build up at federal agencies and the operational, technical, and policy tactics used to reduce them.

The Privacy Exemptions: (b)(6) and (b)(7)(C)

A practical guide to FOIA Exemptions (b)(6) and (b)(7)(C), the personal-privacy protections, how agencies balance privacy against public interest, and why recordkeeping matters.

Forms of Production for Electronically Stored Information

How electronically stored information is produced in litigation and disclosure, covering native, near-native, image, and paper forms and their tradeoffs.

The GDPR Right to Erasure and Records Retention

How the GDPR right to erasure interacts with records retention obligations, and how organizations reconcile deletion demands with lawful recordkeeping.

Glomar Responses: Neither Confirm Nor Deny

A complete guide to the FOIA Glomar response, the refusal to confirm or deny records exist, including its origins, legal basis, limits, and recordkeeping implications.

How Declassification and FOIA Interact

How classified records and FOIA requests intersect, including exemptions, mandatory and automatic declassification, and the agencies that govern both.

How Legal Holds Suspend Disposition

An in-depth explanation of how legal holds override retention schedules to suspend the disposition of records subject to litigation, audit, or investigation.

How Recordkeeping Drives FOIA Timeliness

Why disciplined recordkeeping is the hidden engine behind on-time FOIA responses, and how schedules, metadata, and ERM practices shorten search and review.

Imaging Formats for Preservation

The file format you scan to determines whether digitized records remain usable for decades. Here's how to choose preservation-friendly imaging formats.

In-House vs. Outsourced Digitization

A principle-based comparison of in-house and outsourced digitization programs, covering cost, control, quality, security, capacity, and governance trade-offs.

The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP)

A plain-language guide to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, the body that decides classification challenges, declassification reviews, and exemption appeals.

ISO 30300: Management Systems for Records

ISO 30300 is the international management-system standard for records, applying a high-level management approach so recordkeeping is governed like quality or security.

Legal Holds and the Duty to Preserve

A principle-based guide to legal holds and the common-law duty to preserve, explaining when it triggers, what it covers, and how to defend it.

M-19-21: The First Electronic Records Mandate

M-19-21 was the federal directive that first set agencies on the path to managing all records electronically, laying the groundwork for later mandates.

Marking Classified and Declassified Documents

A principle-based guide to how classified and declassified documents are marked, including portion marking, declassification instructions, and downgrading.

The Meet and Confer Conference and ESI Protocols

A practical guide to the meet-and-confer conference and the ESI protocols that govern scope, format, search, and preservation in electronic discovery.

Metadata Capture During Digitization

How records programs capture descriptive, technical, and administrative metadata during digitization to keep scanned records trustworthy, findable, and usable.

Migrating Legacy Email Archives

A principle-based guide to planning, executing, and validating the migration of legacy email archives while preserving recordkeeping integrity.

Migration vs. Emulation in Digital Preservation

Two core strategies keep digital records usable as technology ages — migrating records to current formats, or emulating the old environment. Here's how they compare.

Mobile Messaging and Recordkeeping Policy

How organizations govern text messages, chat, and other mobile messaging as records through policy, capture, retention, and legal-hold practices.

NARA Digitization Standards for Permanent Records

An overview of how NARA governs the digitization of permanent federal records, including imaging requirements, metadata, validation, and transfer expectations

The NARA Federal Records Management Self-Assessment

A plain-language guide to NARA's annual Federal records management self-assessment, including what it measures, how agencies report, and how results shape oversight.

The National Declassification Center (NDC)

An overview of the National Declassification Center, NARA's hub for coordinating and streamlining declassification review of historically valuable federal records.

OCR and Searchable Records

Optical character recognition turns scanned images into searchable, usable text. Here's what OCR does, where it helps, and its limits for records management.

OGIS: The FOIA Ombudsman and Mediation

OGIS is NARA's FOIA Ombudsman, offering mediation between requesters and agencies and reviewing FOIA compliance across the federal government.

Original vs. Derivative Classification

How original and derivative classification differ, who may perform each, and why derivative decisions must faithfully carry forward existing markings.

Permanent vs. Temporary Federal Records

How federal agencies distinguish permanent from temporary records, how that status is set through appraisal and scheduling, and why it matters.

Physical vs. Electronic Records

Paper and electronic records share the same lifecycle but pose different management challenges. Here's how they compare and why most programs must manage both at once.

Planning a Digitization Project

A successful digitization project starts with the end in mind — goals, standards, metadata, and a plan for the source records. Here's how to plan one that delivers.

Preservation Metadata and PREMIS

Preserving digital records over time needs more than storage — it needs preservation metadata. Here's what it captures and how the PREMIS standard frames it.

Privacy by Design in Recordkeeping

How privacy by design embeds proportionality, minimization, retention discipline, and access controls into recordkeeping systems from the start rather than as an afterthought.

Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs)

A practical guide to Privacy Impact Assessments — what they evaluate, when to conduct them, and how PIAs intersect with records management and retention.

Privilege Review and Privilege Logs

How privilege review identifies protected material in e-discovery and how privilege logs document withheld documents under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Proactive Disclosure and FOIA Libraries

How proactive disclosure and FOIA libraries let agencies publish records before they are requested, and the records management practices that make them work.

Processing and De-Duplication of ESI

How electronically stored information is processed, filtered, and de-duplicated during ediscovery to reduce review volume while preserving defensibility and metadata.

Proportionality in E-Discovery

How proportionality limits the scope and cost of e-discovery, balancing the value of evidence against the burden of producing it.

Quality Control and Assurance in Scanning

A practical guide to quality control and assurance in document scanning, covering image quality, metadata accuracy, completeness checks, and conformance to digitization standards.

Record Copy vs. Convenience Copy

The record copy is the official version managed under your schedule; convenience copies are duplicates kept for ease of use. Knowing the difference prevents both clutter and lost records.

Records Management Metrics and KPIs

A practical guide to records management metrics and KPIs, covering what to measure, how to build a balanced program, and how to tie indicators to compliance.

Records Storage: On-site, Off-site, and Cloud

A principle-based guide to choosing among on-site, off-site, and cloud records storage and balancing access, cost, security, and retention obligations.

Redaction Best Practices for FOIA Releases

A principle-based guide to redacting FOIA releases correctly, covering exemptions, tools, segregability, metadata risks, and quality review to prevent disclosure failures.

Responding to Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs)

A practical guide to handling data subject access requests, covering intake, identity verification, search and retrieval, redaction, and timely response under privacy law.

Roles in a Records Program: Who Does What

A records program works when responsibility is clear — from a records officer and executive sponsor to record liaisons and every employee. Here's who does what.

Securing Records That Contain PII

How records managers protect personally identifiable information across its lifecycle using classification, access controls, encryption, retention limits, and secure disposition.

The Sedona Principles and Cooperation

How The Sedona Principles and the Cooperation Proportionality framework shape defensible, good-faith e-discovery and electronic records governance.

Setting Resolution and Color Depth for Digitization

A practical guide to choosing scanning resolution and color depth for records digitization, balancing fidelity, file size, legal sufficiency, and preservation needs.

Setting Retention Triggers and Cutoffs

How records managers define event-driven and time-driven retention triggers and cutoffs so files are filed, closed, and dispositioned consistently.

Spoliation and Sanctions in E-Discovery

A principle-based guide to spoliation, the duty to preserve electronically stored information, and the sanctions courts impose when evidence is lost.

Storage and Media Strategies for Long-Term Preservation

A principle-based guide to storage media, formats, redundancy, and migration practices that keep records authentic, readable, and trustworthy over decades.

Superseded and Obsolete Records

How records management programs identify, retain, and dispose of superseded and obsolete records under approved schedules without destroying anything that still has value.

System of Records Notices (SORNs) Under the Privacy Act

A practical guide to System of Records Notices (SORNs), the public notices agencies must publish under the Privacy Act before maintaining records retrieved by personal identifier.

Systematic Declassification Review Explained

An educational guide to systematic declassification review, the time-triggered process agencies use to evaluate permanently valuable classified records for public release.

Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) and Predictive Coding

How technology-assisted review and predictive coding use machine learning to find relevant records faster and more defensibly in e-discovery and large reviews.

The Business Case for Digitization

Digitization costs money up front but pays back in space, access, resilience, and efficiency. Here's how to build a business case — and where the value really comes from.

The Cost and Risk of Over-Retention

Why keeping records longer than required raises legal, privacy, security, and cost exposure, and how disciplined disposition reduces organizational risk.

The OAIS Reference Model Explained

A plain-language guide to the OAIS reference model, the ISO standard framework that defines how archives ingest, store, manage, and preserve digital information over the long term.

The Presidential Records Act Explained

A plain-language guide to the Presidential Records Act, explaining how it makes White House records public property under NARA stewardship.

The SAORM Role in Federal Agencies

How the Senior Agency Official for Records Management directs, oversees, and is accountable for an agencys records program under federal law and NARA policy.

Trustworthy Digital Repositories: OAIS and ISO 16363

How OAIS and ISO 16363 define and audit trustworthy digital repositories that preserve authentic, usable records over the long term.

Trustworthy Digitization and Legal Admissibility

How organizations digitize records so the resulting images can be trusted as accurate, reliable, and admissible substitutes for original documents.

Unauthorized Destruction of Federal Records

An overview of what unauthorized destruction of federal records means, why it is unlawful, how it happens, and how agencies prevent and respond to it.

The Universal ERM Requirements: A Deep Dive

A detailed look at how NARA's Universal ERM Requirements are structured, what functional capabilities they cover, and how agencies and vendors apply them.

Web Archiving and Capturing Online Content

A principle-based guide to web archiving — why organizations capture websites and online content, the methods and standards involved, and how to govern captured material as records.

What Is a Recordkeeping System?

A recordkeeping system is the whole apparatus — people, policies, processes, and technology — that captures and manages records as trustworthy evidence. It's more than software.

Automatic Declassification at 25 Years

Most classified records of permanent historical value are automatically declassified at 25 years unless a specific exemption applies. Here's how the 25-year rule works.

Building an Audit-Ready Records Program

Compliance is something you demonstrate, not just claim. Here's how to build a records program that can prove its records are trustworthy and properly managed when an auditor asks.

BYOD and Personal-Device Recordkeeping

When employees use personal phones for work, business records end up on devices the organization doesn't control. Here's how to manage recordkeeping in a BYOD world.

Capturing Records from Line-of-Business Systems

Many records live in databases and applications — ERP, CRM, case management — not in document repositories. Here's how to bring those records under management.

Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) Explained

CUI is sensitive but unclassified federal information that requires safeguarding and consistent handling. Here's what the CUI program is and how it relates to records management.

E-Discovery and Information Governance

Good information governance makes e-discovery faster, cheaper, and less risky. Here's how the two connect — and why disposing of what you don't need is e-discovery cost control.

Email Archiving vs. Records Management

An email archive captures and stores messages; records management governs which are records and how long to keep them. They overlap but aren't the same — here's the difference.

Email Retention Strategies

Email is the largest source of records in most organizations — and the hardest to retain well. Here are the main strategies, from role-based Capstone to retention by content.

Executive Order 13526 Explained

Executive Order 13526 is the framework governing how the U.S. government classifies, safeguards, and declassifies national security information. Here's what it sets out.

File Plans and Classification

A file plan is the classification scheme that organizes records into categories tied to retention rules. Here's how to design one that people — and automation — can actually apply.

FOIA Fees and Fee Waivers

FOIA allows agencies to charge limited fees that depend on the requester's category — and to waive them when disclosure serves the public interest. Here's how fees and waivers work.

Format Obsolescence and Digital Continuity

Digital records can become unreadable as formats and software age. Digital continuity is the practice of keeping records usable over time. Here's how format obsolescence happens and how to prevent it.

How to Appraise Records: Value-Based Retention Decisions

Appraisal is the judgment that determines how long records are kept and whether any are permanent. Here's how to weigh administrative, legal, fiscal, and historical value.

Information Governance Maturity: From Ad Hoc to Optimized

Information governance programs evolve through maturity levels. Here's what the stages look like and how to move from reactive, ad hoc practices to a managed, optimized program.

Managing Text Messages as Records

Text messages are records when they document business — and regulators have penalized organizations that failed to capture them. Here's how to manage texts as records.

Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) Explained

MDR lets any member of the public ask an agency to review a specific classified record for release. Here's how it works, how to use it, and how it differs from FOIA.

Metadata for Electronic Records

Metadata is what makes an electronic record findable, understandable, and trustworthy. Here are the kinds of metadata records need and why capturing it early matters.

NARA's Role in Federal Recordkeeping

The National Archives both preserves the government's permanent records and oversees how every federal agency manages its records. Here's what NARA does and why it matters.

Privacy, Security, and Records: The Information Governance Intersection

Records management, privacy, and security overlap constantly. Here's how they intersect — and why governing them together beats running them as separate silos.

Records Disposition Methods: Destroy, Transfer, Preserve

When records reach the end of their retention period, disposition takes one of three forms — destruction, transfer, or permanent preservation. Here's how each works.

Managing Records in SharePoint

SharePoint is where many organizations' records now live — but it isn't a records program by itself. Here's how to manage records well in SharePoint and Microsoft 365.

Managing Records in Microsoft Teams and Slack

Collaboration platforms like Teams and Slack generate records — chat, channels, files, and decisions. Here's how to manage them as records instead of letting them slip through the cracks.

ROT Remediation: Cleaning Up Redundant, Obsolete, and Trivial Data

Most organizations are buried in ROT — redundant, obsolete, and trivial data. Here's how to clean it up defensibly to cut cost and risk without destroying anything you must keep.

Scheduling Agency Records with NARA

Federal agencies must get authority to keep or destroy their records by scheduling them with the National Archives. Here's how records scheduling works and why it's mandatory.

Managing Social Media as Records

Government and organizational social media posts can be records subject to retention and disclosure. Here's why social media is a recordkeeping concern and how to capture it.

The Federal Records Act Explained

The Federal Records Act is the foundational U.S. law requiring agencies to create, manage, and preserve records — and to dispose of them only under NARA-approved authority. Here's how it works.

The FOIA Appeal Process

If a FOIA request is denied or only partly granted, requesters have the right to appeal. Here's how administrative appeals work, the role of OGIS, and going to court.

The General Records Schedule (GRS) Explained

The GRS provides government-wide retention authority for records common to most federal agencies. Here's what it covers, how agencies use it, and why it exists.

The Information Governance Reference Model (IGRM) Explained

The IGRM is a framework showing how information governance unites business, legal, RIM, IT, and privacy/security across the information lifecycle. Here's how to read and use it.

The Privacy Act of 1974 Explained

The Privacy Act governs how federal agencies collect, maintain, use, and disclose records about individuals — and gives people rights to access and amend their own records.

What Makes an Electronic Record Trustworthy

A trustworthy electronic record preserves its content, context, and structure, with metadata and controls that prove authenticity and integrity. Here's what that takes in practice.

Understanding PII: What Counts and Why It Matters

Personally identifiable information is any data that can identify a specific person. Here's what counts as PII, why some is especially sensitive, and how it shapes recordkeeping.

The Universal ERM Requirements and FERMI

NARA's Universal Electronic Records Management Requirements — established under FERMI — are the modern federal reference that replaced NARA's endorsement of DoD 5015.2. Here's what they are.

Audit Trails: How You Prove Recordkeeping Compliance

Standards and laws are demonstrated through evidence. Audit trails — the record of who did what to a record and when — are how an organization proves its recordkeeping is trustworthy.

Managing Records in Microsoft 365 and Cloud Systems

Records increasingly live in M365, Google Workspace, and other cloud platforms. Managing them takes a deliberate strategy — not an assumption that the platform does it for you.

Defensible Disposition: Destroying Records the Right Way

Disposing of records isn't just deleting them. Defensible disposition means routine, documented, authorized destruction — with holds that stop it when litigation looms.

Records vs. Non-Records: Drawing the Line

Not everything you create is a record. Knowing the difference between records and non-records is the first decision in the lifecycle — and a common source of risk.

Digitization Quality and the FADGI Guidelines

A scan is only trustworthy if it's done to a standard. FADGI provides the technical benchmarks for digitization quality that make a digital surrogate defensible.

Records Management and Privacy Laws: GDPR, State Laws, and Retention

Privacy laws like GDPR and U.S. state acts grant rights to access and delete personal data. Meeting them depends on knowing what you hold and disposing of it on schedule.

Classification Levels and Markings Explained

National security information is classified Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret, with specific marking rules. Here's what the levels mean and how markings drive declassification.

State Public Records Laws: How They Differ from FOIA

Every U.S. state has its own public-records law. They share FOIA's spirit of openness but differ in scope, exemptions, deadlines, and who can request. Here's what to know.

The Nine FOIA Exemptions Explained

The Freedom of Information Act presumes disclosure but allows withholding under nine exemptions. Here is what each one protects and how agencies apply them.

Digital Preservation: Keeping Records Alive for Decades

Digital records decay and formats go obsolete. Digital preservation uses migration, emulation, fixity checks, and redundant storage to keep records authentic and usable over the long term.

Off-Channel Communications: Lessons from Recent Enforcement

Regulators have fined firms heavily for business conducted on unmonitored texting and messaging apps. The lesson for everyone: capture business communications wherever they happen.

Vital Records Programs: Protecting What Keeps You Running

Vital records are the small set of records an organization needs to survive an emergency and protect legal rights. A vital records program identifies and safeguards them in advance.

Digitizing Records: Standards, Quality, and Disposing of Originals

Successful digitization is about more than scanning — it requires quality standards, metadata, and a documented basis for disposing of the paper originals afterward.

Records Retention and Privacy: Why Keeping Less Is Safer

Retention schedules and privacy law share a goal — don't keep personal data longer than necessary. Aligning the two reduces both compliance risk and breach exposure.

ISO 15489 and ISO 16175: The International Records Standards

ISO 15489 defines the principles of records management; ISO 16175 sets functional requirements for records in digital environments. Together they frame trustworthy recordkeeping worldwide.

Managing Email as Records: The Capstone Approach

Capstone is NARA's role-based approach to email records — capturing senior officials' email as permanent and applying time-based retention to the rest. Here's how it works.

Building an Information Governance Program: Roles and Accountability

An information governance program needs executive sponsorship, a cross-functional body, clear policy, and defined roles. Here's how the pieces fit together.

DoD 5015.2 Explained: The Records Management Standard

DoD 5015.2 long defined the functional requirements for U.S. government records management software and became a de facto baseline — until NARA revoked its endorsement in 2022. Here's what it covers and where it stands now.

Auto-Classification: Letting the System File Your Records

Auto-classification uses rules and machine learning to file records against a retention schedule automatically, solving records management's hardest problem — capture at scale.

How Declassification Works: Automatic, Mandatory, and Systematic Review

Classified records are released through three pathways — automatic declassification, mandatory declassification review, and systematic review. Here's how each works.

Transferring Permanent Records to the National Archives

Federal records appraised as permanent are eventually transferred to NARA. Here's how the transfer process works and why electronic transfer is now the rule.

The FOIA Request Lifecycle: From Intake to Release

A FOIA request moves through intake, search, review, redaction, and release. Understanding each step shows why good recordkeeping is the foundation of timely disclosure.

Information Governance vs. Records Management: What's the Difference?

Records management is a core part of information governance — but governance is broader, uniting records, privacy, security, and e-discovery under one accountable framework.

Electronic Records Management Systems (ERMS): What They Do

An ERMS captures, classifies, secures, and disposes of electronic records under a retention schedule. Here's what these systems do and what to look for.

Understanding OMB/NARA Memorandum M-23-07: The Move to Electronic Records

M-23-07 directs U.S. federal agencies to manage all records electronically. Here's what the mandate requires, the key deadlines, and what it means in practice.

Conducting a Records Inventory: A Practical Guide

A records inventory is the survey of what records you have, where they live, and in what volume. It is the foundation of every retention schedule. Here's how to do one.

How to Build a Records Retention Schedule: A Step-by-Step Guide

A practical walkthrough of creating a defensible records retention schedule — inventory, appraisal, setting retention periods, approval, and maintenance.

Why Records Management Matters: Risk, Cost, and Accountability

Good records management reduces legal risk, controls cost, ensures compliance, and preserves institutional memory. Here's the business case for doing it well.

The Records Lifecycle: From Creation to Disposition

Every record moves through a predictable lifecycle — creation, active use, maintenance, and disposition. Understanding each stage is the key to managing records well.