This page intended for use by employees of Washington County

Welcome to the Archives & Records Center
We are Here to Help You Manage Your Inactive Records
Please Feel Free to Call On Us Anytime

CREATION & MISSION

• Pursuant to Washington County Ordinance 90-19, an Archives and Records Management Program was established for Washington County, Arkansas on August 13, 1990. The Office of Archives & Records Management was created in 1997 as a department of the Washington County Judge's Office.

• The Office of Archives & Records Management is charged with assisting all county offices manage their inactive records. Its main responsibility is to establish, implement, and oversee an efficient, economical and legally compliant archives and records management program which develops and implements policies and procedures governing retention, storage, reference, preservation, and destruction of county records.

Archives are the official records of an institution having permanent informational or evidential value for legal, administrative, or historical purposes. Archives does not mean old records; they include both old and new, BUT INACTIVE, documents identified as being permanent in nature.

• Archives:
  
  Archives also means the physical location in which archival records are stored; for our purposes the Washington County Archives is on the 2nd Floor of the Historic Washington County Court House in the areas formerly housing the Circuit Clerk and County Clerk.
  
  
• Records Center:
  
  The physical location in which non-archival records having short-term temporary value are stored; for our purposes, the 1st Floor of the Historic Washington County Court House in the areas formerly housing the Assessor and Collector.
  
  
• Records Management:
  
  The systematic control of all recorded information, regardless of its characteristics or media, throughout its life cycle. Good records management helps ensure that the right record is in the right place at the right time and is available for use when needed.
  
  
• Public Records:
  
  All documents,  regardless of physical form, which have been created or received by any county office or its lawful successor. Documents include, but are not limited to, paper, electronic, photographic and audio media.
  
  
• Active Records:
  
  Documents that are regularly referred to for current use, including, but not limited to, open court case files, current year financial records, and any un-audited documents which are referred to more than once a month.
  
  
• Inactive Records:

          Documents still needed by an organization but not needed for current operations and referred to
          less than once a month.

• Disposition:

           Disposition refers to the decision regarding the final status of records. For our purposes, it
           determines whether original documents will be:

            A.    Preserved in the Archives,
            B.    Destroyed,
            C.    Copied onto microfilm or microfiche and then preserved in the Archives,
            D.    Copied onto microform and then destroyed, or
            E.    Stored in the Records Center for a designated period of time and then destroyed

• Records Retention:

            The period of time during which records must be maintained,
            per county, state, or federal records-keeping statutes.

STORING RECORDS IN THE ARCHIVES & RECORDS CENTER

• Participation

Participation in the Washington County Archives & Records Management Program is voluntary. However, as a means to reduce expensive storage space needs, it is strongly recommended that all county offices participate wherever possible. Participating will help provide for a constant freeing up of space for your active records.

• Records Coordinators

Each office or department should identify one person (preferably the elected official, chief deputy, or department head) as that offices’ records coordinator. Doing this helps maintain a clear and unbroken chain of responsibility for transferring records to the archives or records center. The records coordinator shall be responsible for communicating with us what records are to be transferred to the records center, when, if ever, said records can be destroyed, and whether or not said records should be microfilmed. The records coordinator should, whenever possible, be the person requesting records from the archives and records center.

• Retention Scheduling

When an office has a question regarding the retention of any record, Archives & Records Management will conduct research into current State of Arkansas records retention requirements, if such exist. If no definite retention requirement is found, the elected official and records manager will attempt to define a legally acceptable retention period. Your office may keep records longer than what is required, but in no instance should they destroy records before they have been audited.

• Which Records Should Be Sent ?
  
  Send us only those records which are seldom used. If you need records on a daily basis, don’t send them here. If you believe you will never need the records again, schedule a time that we may pick them up for shredding and recycling. If you have difficulty in deciding what to do with any or all of your inactive records, let us know. Please, do not send us furniture, computers, or antiquated office equipment. These items need to be disposed of in a different manner.

• Boxing Records

The Office of Archives & Records Management will provide standard-sized cubic foot boxes to all offices transferring  records to the Records Center. They are available, at no cost to your department, from the Purchasing Office or one of our friendly maintenance men.

Use the standard-sized boxes provided to you. This helps maximize storage space in the records center. DO NOT USE bankers boxes, copy paper boxes, or any other boxes other than those provided.

Do Not Mix groups of records in the same box; e.g., warrants, leases, canceled checks, budget reports, purchase orders, restitutions, hot check reports, etc. are different groups of records which should be boxed separately. Keeping different types of records separate makes it easier to inventory, maintain, and eventually film and/or discard them.

Pack boxes in a logical order your office understands; e.g., chronologically, alphabetically, or numerically. This will help us retrieve documents more quickly than if the boxes are packed haphazardly. Do not over pack or under pack boxes. If you do not have enough files to fill a box, chances are you do not need to send those types of records here at that time. Put another way, do not send us just 1 file folder at a time, as this increases chances of losing your record!

Please label boxes in the appropriate place, clearly stating office of origin, type of records stored, and dates of records. If records can be destroyed, also write the year you want them destroyed.

• Sending Records

When you are ready to send records, please call us in advance so that we may prepare a space for them.

Call the Buildings & Grounds Office to make arrangements with them for shipping boxes to the Archives.

Upon departure of records from your office, please notify us once again so that we may meet them as they arrive at the old courthouse. If we don’t know your records are coming,  we can’t be responsible for boxes left in the basement hallway. As the old courthouse is not as busy as it once was, it is dangerous to have your records sitting unattended and exposed to unknown persons who may not need to see them.

• Records Storage

Upon receipt of records, we efficiently arrange them in the archives or records center. Storing them in centralized and uncluttered areas allows us to retrieve records at a moment’s notice. We also provide elected officials and department heads with a regularly updated records inventory & retention schedule. (See later discussion, for more information.)

We retrieve archival records for both the general public and employees of Washington County. We assist persons unfamiliar with Washington County’s records by showing them what records we have, what type of information can be found in each group of records, and how to find desired information through the correct use of our numerous handwritten and computerized indexes. We also help them make photocopies from either the original document or from our microfilm, depending upon the age of the document. (Researchers can look at original copies of most 19th century and early 20th century documents; however, copies of these documents must be made from microfilm). You may pick up a document from our office or we can fax it to you or bring it to your office the next day. All documents that leave the archives must be signed out.  

• Non Archival Records 

We retrieve non-archival records only for employees of Washington County. If someone other than an employee needs a non-archival record, we request that they first obtain permission from your office and that you then contact us before we retrieve requested records. For security reasons, we try to keep non-archival records stored in the records center locked and we prefer that you do not attempt to retrieve records from that location yourself. When a file is needed from this area, please give us a call and we will retrieve it for you. You may pick it up from our office or we can either fax the document to you or bring it to your office the next day.  If you need several boxes, we can pull the boxes for you to view here. As with all archival documents, all documents leaving the records center, must be signed out.

RECORDS DESTRUCTION

There are many records that can be destroyed on a regular basis. They include records having temporary value of 1 to 10 years after audit, as well as some records which have been accurately copied onto microfilm. In accordance with Arkansas records-keeping statutes, we coordinate the timely destruction of those inactive records which do not have long-term historic, legal, or administrative value. Before records are destroyed, a list of said records is provided to the elected official for their final approval either by memo or email. Records are not destroyed until said official or their designate okays said destruction. All records scheduled for destruction are shredded by our records management vendor, currently Advanced Information Management of Springdale. The regular destruction of records not having permanent value frees up space in the records center so that future records can be stored there. It is not necessary to use standard-sized boxes for documents that will be destroyed immediately after leaving your office.

RECORDS PRESERVATION

• Electronic Imaging

The digitizing of records and storing them electronically is an efficient method of short-term record delivery and retrieval. It is not to be used as a method for long-term records preservation. Electronic imaging is administered through the Information Systems Department. Please remember, if your office scans archival records, send us a paper copy so that we may microfilm it for long-term preservation. It is not necessary to send us copies of scanned records having no archival value.  

• Micrographics
  
  Microfilming is a method of photographically reproducing records onto either microfilm (16 or 35 mm roll film) or microfiche jackets. It is the most proven method for long-term preservation of the public's records. Any record that is worth preserving long-term should be copied onto microfilm even if it is also in an electronic format. In a worse case scenario, microfilm can be read by the human eye and information can be restored, by hand, if necessary. The regular filming of records ensures that future generations will have access to valuable information should the original paper or electronic version of the document be lost or destroyed.

Microfilming involves the inventorying and arranging of records before they are copied onto film. Before filming, we closely examine books and papers to make sure they are in order and to note missing documents. Filming records without properly arranging them first, is as bad as throwing them away, simply because poorly arranged documents on microfilm are almost impossible to locate.

Our microfilming vendor provides us with 1 master roll and 1 duplicate roll. The master roll is stored in our vendor’s temperature and humidity controlled vault. The duplicate roll of film is stored in the archives. (If your office would like to purchase duplicate rolls of microfilm, please let us know and we can order them for you.) Upon receipt of microfilm, we carefully inspect each roll of microfilm for clarity of image, proper sequence of documents, and proper labeling. If you would like to have any of your records filmed, please let us know and we will be happy to discuss the possibility with you.

RECORDS INVENTORIES & RETENTION SCHEDULES

• Records Inventory & Retention Schedule
  
  The records inventory and retention schedule is arranged alphabetically by records groups and series of records. The inventory lists date of records, the number of volumes, boxes, file cabinet drawers, woodruff drawers, or shelves, whether or not a microfilm copy of the records exist, whether it is available electronically and the length of time said records are kept. 

• Retention Schedule
  
  Retention is based upon State of Arkansas records-keeping statutes (A.C.A. 13-4-301 - A.C.A. 13-4-308 and others) and/or discussions with elected officials. At this point, many records do not have state-mandated records retention periods. With these records, retention requirements are based upon the informed judgment of the elected official. Officials can keep records longer for the minimum retention period, but we cannot discard them any earlier. Also, when retention is listed as 7 years, that usually means 7 years after audit. 

• Accessing Your Records Inventory & Retention Schedule
  
  The Archives and Records Management staff will periodically update your records inventory and retention schedule and will forward you updated copies. Feel free to call this office anytime you have a question about records stored in the Records Center.