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Records managers and municipal clerks hear it all the time: "Stop keeping transitory records." And yet — on every on-site disposition project, transitory records make up at least 60% of what's in the room. So what's actually going wrong? The problem isn't creation. It's retainage. And the solution isn't telling staff to stop — it's training them to recognize transitory records the moment they're created, label them correctly, and let them go before they become someone else's

If I could only give you one piece of advice about records management — which, trust me, would be extremely difficult for me — it wouldn't be about retention schedules. It wouldn't be about folder naming conventions or digital asset management or even compliance. It would be this: get humble and start asking questions. I know. That probably doesn't sound like the riveting records-nerd insight you were expecting. But stay with me. The Book That Changed How I Work When I was wo

If you work with records long enough, you'll see it: boxes labeled "historical" sitting in a basement, or a colleague proudly handing you an old document saying, "This has to go to the archives!" But old does not automatically mean important. And it absolutely does not automatically mean archival. Quick caveat before we dive in: this post reflects lessons I've learned from working with archivists and records professionals. Most of my experience has been in Washington State, s

The old best-practice list is showing its age. Here’s what to use instead — and the one rule that matters more than all the others combined. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me to write them an “organization-wide nam ing convention,” I could fund a small team to do nothing but fix file names all day. It’s the number one request I get — from clients, from students in my classes, from colleagues who corner me at conferences. “Can you suggest a naming convention?”