To practice good record keeping, you are encouraged to use the guidelines reported below for the retention of documents in the various divisions, and the office of the President of Oberlin College. A pattern of consistency in the care of records will assist your office in many ways—especially in preventing the loss of records and in the saving of staff time. Information that is retained in hard copy or electronic files is the property of Oberlin College.

Following is a list of records found in most administrative offices and departments of Oberlin College. The suggested retention periods listed below are considered to be the normal or minimum time a record is retained. It is left to the discretion of the department head or administrative director as to how long records are retained beyond that time.

The following specific types of materials are designated as nonrecord materials and may be disposed of by offices as soon as they have served their intended purpose.

1. Extra copies of documents retained only for convenience of reference, such as "information" or "follow up" copies of correspondence; extra copies of materials of which official copies have been retained within the agency for purpose of record. Duplicates need to be weeded on an annualized basis.

2. Stocks of superseded, outdated, or otherwise valueless publications, forms and printed documents. (Two copies of each publication should be filed with the Archives at the first issue.)

3. Preliminary drafts of letters, memoranda, reports, worksheets and internal notes which do not represent significant basic steps in the preparation of record documents.

4. Letters of transmittal which do not add any information to the transmitted material and other types of routine correspondence that do not show any significant activity of the administrative unit or department.

5. Shorthand notes, rough notes, and mechanical recordings that have been transcribed into typewritten or printed form.

6. Miscellaneous notices or memoranda which do not relate to the functional responsibility of the office; i.e., notices of community affairs, employee meetings, holidays, etc.

7. Automatic Data Processing Recording Media: punched cards, paper tapes, magnetic tapes, magnetic discs, and other media used for "communicating" with data processing equipment.

8. Microfilm that has been created for systems applications when original documents are retained or prints created for record purposes.
9. Offset plates, multilith masters, ditto masters, addressograph plates, stencils, photographic negatives or other media used for printing or other reproductive processes.