Temporary Records
Records approved for destruction after a specified retention period because they lack enduring value — the large majority of all records.
Temporary records are records that have been appraised and approved for destruction after a defined retention period, because they do not have enduring historical or evidential value. They make up the large majority of an organization’s records.
Temporary does not mean unimportant or short-lived — a temporary record may need to be kept for many years to satisfy legal, fiscal, or operational requirements. It simply means the record will eventually be destroyed rather than preserved permanently like permanent records. Managing temporary records well means keeping them exactly as long as required and then disposing of them defensibly — neither destroying them too early nor retaining them indefinitely.