FAQ's

We do not provide for storage for active records. Special Collections & Archives staff can provide on-site appraisals if you are unsure which records have archival value.

A retention and disposition schedule defines the period of time that each record type should be retained by units. It allows units to dispose of records in a timely, systematic manner and to identify those records that have historic value and should be transferred to Special Collections & Archives.

Once materials have been transferred to Special Collections & Archives, archivists will create an accession record. This documents the legal and physical transfer of materials and describes the contents.

Records then enter into the queue for processing. Processing includes the appraisal of the content and the elimination of duplicates and non-records that do not warrant long-term retention.

The final step in archival processing includes the preparation of a finding aid. The finding aid provides an overview of the transferring unit and a description of the records summarizing the content, date spans, and how they are organized.

If you need to save space, we suggest spending the time you would have devoted to digitizing records to identify which ones can be discarded and those which can be transferred to Special Collections & Archives.

Submit a reference request and an archivist can find the documents and deliver them to you electronically. If the request exceeds a certain amount of time needed to ascertain the requested information, we will book an appointment for you to review the materials at Special Collections & Archives. Requests and appointments can be made here.

Email is the modern equivalent of correspondence and may be considered an official record. Union College uses the Capstone Approach and identifies accounts where email needs to be retained to meet legal requirements and to document important decisions made at the College. For those account holders, email should be exported as .MBOX file prior to be being transferred to Special Collections & Archives.

We advise that you find a system that works for your unit or department and be consistent. There are general best practices in the slide below.

• Go from general to specific:
  • department_project_purpose_date
    


• 21-32 characters is standard
  • what_makes_for_the_best_filename
    


• Lowercase is standard (uppercase can be used to distinguish words in a filename
  • 2022FilenameBestPracticesNotes
    


• Don't use special characters : \ $ ? < > (keep it human readable) Dates
  • YYYYMMDD or YYYY
    


• Don't use spaces! Use underscores, hyphens or nothing at all
  • filenameusingnospaces