Record Retention

Our library has a number of older Environmental Impact Studies (both draft and finals) which are taking up space, and we were wondering if we could discard them. Can a library make its own retention schedule for these or do libraries need to keep these for a certain amount of time so the public can access them?

Draft and final Environmental Impact Studies (or “EIS”) must be accessible during the “public comment” period of a construction or remediation project.  After that, a library can discard them.

We are looking to determine if there is a specific time frame for which email must be held. Can we designate in a policy that email will not be considered original documents - that all original documents must be in print format?  AND if this is possible, how long then are we required to hold onto archived e-mail? 

This has been a tough question to mull over!  That is because the answer is superficially “yes,” but in reality: “no.”

How do we get to this disjointed conclusion?  Schedule MI-1, as the member did, is a great place to start.