UC Santa Barbara Policy 7060
Policies
Issuing Unit: Administrative Services Date: July 1, 1985
VITAL RECORDS
I. REFERENCES:
A. University of California Records Disposition Schedules Manual
(see pink tab in the last volume of the UCSB Policies Manual)
B. University of California Business and Finance Bulletin, RM-4,
Vital Records Protection.
C. UCSB Policies Manual, Policy 7055, UCSB Archives.
II. POLICY:
A. Definition:
There are two kinds of University records which are classified
as vital:
1. Records which are essential to the protection of the
rights of individuals.
2. Records which are essential to the protection of the
University's rights and/or the execution of its public
(contractual) obligations.
Examples of the first type of vital records are current payroll
records necessary to pay employees, master student academic
records necessary to show completion of course work, and the
employee service records required for protection of tenure and
retirement status.
The second type of vital records is exemplified by drawings and
specifications required to repair and maintain the University's
facilities; deeds and other records necessary to establish
University ownership of buildings, equipment, and land; and the
records of current contracts between the University and other
public or private agencies.
Vital records should not be confused with archival records.
Vital records are current records which require special
protection; they may or may not have historical value. Archival
records are records which have significant historical value.
See UCSB Policy 7055.
B. Campus Responsibility:
The campus Records Management Coordinator (Assistant
Chancellor, Budget and Administrative Operations) is
responsible for administering the Vital Records Program at
UCSB.
C. Identification of Vital Records:
1. Pre-identified Vital Records:
The following are those records held by the University
which have been pre-identified to be vital:
Student Grade Record Card, including University Extension
General Ledger, including Manual of Accounts
Library Card Catalog and Shelf List
As-Built Drawings
Promissory Notes and Evidence of Other Receivables
Central Payroll Records
Employee Folders (Accounting Office, Payroll)
Employee Records (Academic Personnel, Staff
Personnel)
Health Plan and Life Insurance Enrollment, Change, and
Cancellation Forms (U1630)
Gift and Other Donation Files, by Donor
Ownership Records of Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Major
Assets
Equipment and Inventory Records
Contracts and agreements.
2. The list above is not intended to be all-encompassing;
additional vital records may be identified by departments
in accordance with the criteria above. Exact
identification of a particular record as vital can be
accomplished only on a judgmental basis. The owners or
users of the record are most able to apply such judgment.
Many types of records are of great importance but not of
vital importance. Such records require much effort and
expense to reconstruct, if lost, or have intrinsic histor
ical value. The vital records program does not involve
these important records, although the standards and
methods of protection outlined below may well be applied
by any department to them to the degree that the values,
risks, and available resources for protection make
appropriate.
D. Protection of Vital Records:
Primary methods of records protection are as follows:
1. Preservation of existing duplicate copies at another
location. Many records already have a form of "natural
protection" because of the regular paperwork routine. If
such duplicates exist for a vital record series, the
preservation of these duplicates is a very effective
method of protection. The likelihood of both copies being
destroyed at any one time is extremely low. This method is
equally effective for long- and short-term retention,
durable or fragile records, and high- or low-access
requirements.
2. Creation of special duplicate copies for preservation at
another location. Special, duplicate "security" copies of
many University records series are now being created.
Methods of creating these copies range from direct
reproduction on copying machines to microfilming,
duplication of magnetic tapes, and production of special
"protection" carbon copies at the time of original typing.
This kind of protection is as effective in all ways as the
first method above. However, the cost of creating
duplicate copies is relatively high.
3. Preservation of source records which would be used to
reconstruct vital records. In many cases documents which
are sources for vital records are held by the University
or by another agency. If such sources can be identified
and agreements made on holding them for the length of time
protection is required, this method of protection can be
as nearly effective for all situations as the first two
above. Effectiveness is reduced only slightly because
several source document series may be involved, any one of
which might be destroyed. The overall cost of this method
may be higher than the first method, because larger
volumes of source records must be retained for longer
periods than would ordinarily be the case. However, the
net cost of these methods will usually be much less than
the cost of creating special duplicate security copies.
4. Storage in special equipment such as fire resistant
cabinets, safes, or vaults. Original and unique copies of
vital records can be protected from most hazards through
the use of special storage equipment. While the protection
thus obtained is not absolute, its relative effectiveness
is only slightly lower than the first three methods.
However, of all protection methods, the use of special
storage equipment is usually the most costly. This method
should be considered only when the other methods are
physically not feasible.
5. Removal of hazardous conditions from area of storage. By
removing unnecessary hazards such as combustible materials
and steam or water pipes and by eliminating undesirable
conditions such as air-borne chemicals and extremes of
heat or humidity, a relative improvement can be achieved
in protection of records. Since the effectiveness of this
method is low, it should be considered only when other
methods are economically unfeasible.
6. Relocation of records to a less hazardous area. Because of
differences in construction, some University buildings are
less hazardous for records storage than others. The
effectiveness of relocation as a method of protection can
be equal to or slightly better than that for the removal
of hazardous conditions. Cost will be equally low or
lower. However, when requirements exist for frequent
access to the records, this method may prove infeasible.
If relocation is considered, the campus Records
Coordinator should be consulted to determine the relative
safety of various storage places.
More than one of these methods can be used to protect a
given vital record series. It is not uncommon to protect
the active portion of a series through the preservation of
existing duplicates while protecting the inactive portion
through other means, such as microfilming.
E. Selection of Methods of Protection:
The most important factor guiding the selection of a method
of protection for vital records is the ratio of protection from
hazards to the cost of that protection. Since it is possible to
attain no more than relative security, the best choice is the
one for which the cost of security is most closely in line with
the degree of risk. Beyond the evaluation of actual risks of
loss for vital records, other factors have a measure of
importance in the selection of protection methods:
1. Need for Accessibility: Vital records which must be close
at hand and available for use at all times may require
different methods of protection from those records
infrequently used.
2. Length of Retention: The best methods for protecting vital
records of short-term nature may be different from those
methods best for long-term or permanent records.
3. Physical Qualities of Records: Susceptibility of records
to destruction from heat, water, chemicals, and aging
varies with both the record medium and the duration of
retention. Magnetic tape and film often require different
protection from that needed for paper documents. Paper
itself varies greatly in its ability to withstand aging.
Please direct questions about these policies to Meta.Clow@vcadmin.ucsb.edu. For questions or comments regarding the format of the above information, please contact webcontact@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu.
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Last Modified By: EBH, 7/09/98