Glossary of Records Management Terms

Active record: A record used on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Administrative record: A record relating to budget, personnel/payroll, purchasing, legal, financial and similar operational functions common to agency offices.

Case file: Material related to a specific action, event, person, organization, location, or project. Also known as a project file.

Disposition: The action taken regarding records no longer needed for current government business. Includes transfer to a storage facility, transfer to another department or agency, transfer to permanent archives, or destruction.

Inactive file: A record used infrequently, generally less than every three months.

Local government: Any city, town, county, consolidated city-county, or school district, or any subdivision thereof.

Non-current record: A record no longer required for the day-to-day conduct of an active business.

Office of record: The office that maintains an "official record" copy of a document, in support of state business, as opposed to a duplicate.

Official Copy: A document possessing public record status, created or received by a state officer or state employee, while conducting state business and serving state government in an official capacity. This document type may be referred to as the primary copy or matter-of-record copy and must follow the records management requirements as outlined in Title 2, Chapter 6, MCA and the Montana Operations Manual (MOM) Volume I-0800. Official records may be disposed of or expunged, only upon approval by the State Records Committee, after the agency has assured the State Records Committee that the official records have met state records retention requirements.

Program record: A record relating to the mission or the unique, substantive functions of an office.

Public record: MCA 2-6-202:(1) (a) "Public records" includes:

     (i) any paper, correspondence, form, book, photograph, microfilm, magnetic tape, computer storage media, map, drawing, or other document, including copies of the record required by law to be kept as part of the official record, regardless of physical form or characteristics, that:
     (A) has been made or received by a state agency to document the transaction of official business;
     (B) is a public writing of a state agency pursuant to 2-6-101(2)(a); and
     (C) is designated by the state records committee for retention pursuant to this part; and
     (ii) all other records or documents required by law to be filed with or kept by any agency of the state of Montana.
     (b) The term includes electronic mail sent or received in connection with the transaction of official business.
     (c) The term does not include any paper, correspondence, form, book, photograph, microfilm, magnetic tape, computer storage media, map, drawing, or other type of document that is for reference purposes only, a preliminary draft, a telephone messaging slip, a routing slip, part of a stock of publications or of preprinted forms, or a superseded publication.
     (2) "State records committee" or "committee" means the state records committee provided for in 2-15-1013.

Reading file: Material such as correspondence and reference materials, filed in chronological order; generally used for reference and convenience.

Record schedule: Instructions for what to do with public records that are no longer needed for current government business. Also called a records retention and disposition schedule, it provides a minimum period of time that a specific type of record must be preserved.

Rolling Disposal Request (RM6): A disposal request form implemented with the intent to provide an agency with the State Record Committee’s annual revolving approval to dispose of specific records series(‘). Rolling disposal requests may only be used for duplicated (secondary) record series, when within that requesting agency, the same record series exists in its primary or official format which serves as the state’s official public record. See State Forms.

Working Copy: A document possessing short-term or transitory, utilized as related or reference-only information for a business process or function. This document type may be referred to as a reference-only copy and its use does not alter the fact that it is a working copy. By definition, working copies are documents that have no administrative, operational, financial, legal or historic value in relation to public record management requirements. Working documents have a slightly elevated record value than do non-records (see General Schedule 9) and a far less record value than official copy documentation. Each agency is responsible for the declaration of working copies, as non-official documents, prior to their disposal.