Records Management is the professional management of information in the physical form of records from the time records are received or created through their processing, distribution, and use to placement in a storage and retrieval system until either eventual elimination or identification for permanent archival retention
The term “Official Record” as defined in Section 1600 of the State Administrative Manual defines records as “Recorded information, regardless of medium or characteristics, made or received by an organization that is evidence of its operations and has value requiring its retention for a specific period of time.” To have value a record must fall under one of these categories: Administrative, Legal, Fiscal, Research, Historical or Archival.
The State Record Center (SRC) provides state agencies low-cost storage, security, protection, processing and servicing of semi-active and inactive records. The records remain under the jurisdiction of the originating agency up until the point the SRC receives the “Authorization for Destruction” at the end of their retention period.
The California State Archives reviews the records retention schedules and "flags" those record series that have archival value. If records are flagged for review by the Archives' State Records Appraisal Program, the records must be transferred to CSA at the end of their retention period. Once records are transferred to the Archives, they become the responsibility of the Secretary of State and no longer fall under the jurisdiction of the originating agency.
All scanned records retention schedules can be found via our Records Retention Schedule Archive powered by SoftFile.