I am in the process of updating our retention schedule and I was wondering if anyone has one that includes electronic documents such as e-mail and digital pictures. I have gone on the MML site to check out the retention schedule and while it was helpful, it did not give specific time lines for retention of electonic records.

Lois,

I know that the City of Birmingham has a great retention schedule that Nancy Wiess forwarded to me.

Either call her or I may be able to forward that to you via email.

Janet Santos

The State Archives of Michigan has worked with various local government associations to create General Retention and Disposal Schedules that can be used by local agencies.

Remember, records are kept based on the information within the records, not necessarily how they are received. If an electronic record is labeled as "General Correspondence", that would be kept under a different retention schedule, than if the e-mail contained vital information on a legal matter, as an example.

Records should not be classified as how they are received or kept, but what information is found WITHIN that medium.

Stephen M. French, CMC