Running head: MISSION ARCHIVIST

Mission Archivist
Kevin Cook
Marziah Karch
Word for Mac 2011

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Mission Archivist
1. What are your priorities?
The Toy Recycle Center, a company responsible for recycling and refurbishing oldfashioned toys for underprivileged children, has been served with a sexual harassment lawsuit.
The litigation requires all paper and electronic documents involving the ex-employee. The
Archivists priority is to identify the records needed for the lawsuit only relating to the said
employee. The security and privacy of the current employees are important, so we will only
focus on finding and sharing the physical and electronic documents with direct involvement from
the former employee. Privacy and integrity of all documents, involved in the lawsuit or not, is
the next priority.
All email activity will require less effort because Microsoft Outlook saves all email
activity including messages from Lync, an instant messaging program used with Microsoft
Outlook. The Information Technology department will have the responsibility of locating all
emails from the ex-employee before the 28-day time line. Most of the efforts will be to find any
paper and electronic documents created by the ex-employee.
The next priority is to inform employees about the lawsuit. The employees will be
approached professionally and directly to ensure complete cooperation and make the process run
as smoothly as possible.
2. How do you accomplish the litigation demands?
First, we identify the types of records that must be provided per the lawsuit. The existing
email system, Outlook, will be used to retrieve all email messages. Personnel records will be
scanned from the existing HR folder system. Since there are a limited number of employees, we
will personally visit each employee at their desk and ask for appropriate records. Tone is
important. We will approach this as a request to help the team's case, not an accusation. We will
scan any hand-written notes, and then copy relevant electronic documents onto a thumb drive.
We will have individually labeled thumb drives for each employee to make it easier to tag later.
The physical papers and notes will also be retained and held in a protected area. We want to
make sure we can show that we did our best to get all relevant documents and that the
organization has nothing to hide.
3. How do you plan the ongoing records program?
There are several procedures we need to establish for an ongoing records program at The
Toy Recycle Center. The procedures require careful planning and training of current and future
employees to be successful. First, all records must be identified and indexed for future retrieval.
All documents, paper and electronic, must be given a grade on how essential they are. The
records that are most essential to the business operations of The Toy Recycle Center will be
labeled as vital. According to Franks ( 2013), as a rule, not more than 7 percent of an
organizations records are considered vital, (p. 202). Vital records must be separated from the
other records because they will have a different retention schedule as well as a higher necessity.
Vital records will be stored in a locked location that is also protected from disasters such as
weather and building calamities.
Next, we will create information retention schedules. The records manager must do an
analysis every document in relation to the companys need for that document. The more vital the
record is, the longer the retention will be. After the analysis is complete, a schedule must be
created and added to the procedures manual for future reference. Once the record has gone
through its scheduled life cycle, it goes to the disposition step where it is destroyed or archived

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off site in storage. Without a retention schedule, the company will collect everything and
eventually run out of room to store records on site. In some cases, keeping documents longer
than the lawful retention period will have negative effects.
A sufficient filing and storage system should be created after all records have been
identified and analyzed for the retention schedule. The records manager should plan for paper
and electronic filing as well as the conversion of paper to electronic records. At The Toy Recycle
Center, digital records will be collected in Microsoft SharePoint because a properly customized
system is easy to maintain, searchable, and affordable. All records must be labeled as active and
inactive to determine where to store them, and this can be set up through required columns
settings for all documents uploaded into SharePoint. Eventually most records should be
electronic, but this organization still maintains a lot of paper records and receipts. Active records
will be stored on site for easy access but out of the reach of non-employee hands. They will be
indexed and filed in a manner that allows for daily access and use, (Franks, 2013, p. 120).
Electronic records requiring the same frequency of usage will be filed in the same manner.
A uniform style of filing will be constructed to promote quick and accurate retrieval.
Because the company just experienced a lawsuit, there will be a record hold system to allow for
quicker litigation periods. Vital records must have copies made in case of an emergency or
disaster. The purpose of organizing records is to make retrieval easier.
The Toy Recycle Center has a basement that once served as a storage space for office
supplies. Now it has be repurposed as on-site record storage. A dehumidifier will be installed to
prevent the damage to the paper records as well as preventing the growth of mold.
In order to protect the company, employees, and clients of The Toy Recycle Center, will
advocate for a disaster recovery plan. According to Franks (2013), the disaster recovery plan
should be tested so it can be implemented in an emergency, (p. 219). Testing the plan will
allow for the records manager to find weaknesses and fortify those areas. Once the records have
been filed, privacy and integrity becomes top priority.
Disaster may come in different forms from weather related to internal sabotage. All
efforts should be made to prevent as much of these problems as possible. With the realization
some disasters cannot possibly be prevented, a disaster plan will be added to the records
procedures manual. Most importantly, there should be a hierarchical list of employees to call in
cases of disaster. Prevention, safety, and cleaning tools such as masks, gloves, fans, shop
vacuums, and fire extinguishers should be identified and kept on the site. For digital recovery,
an offsite server will be purchased to store backups of all electronic files in case the building is
completely demolished by a disaster.
To ensure the mission of The Toy Recycle Center and the privacy and integrity of all
records created by the company, we will create a records procedures manual. This should be a
significant part of the orientation for new hires and volunteers. The manual will be reviewed
every business quarter to ensure all procedures are capable of preventing or ensuring an easy
recovery of records. There will be a breakdown of every position and their correlation with
records management. This will allow employees and management employee roles and
permissions when it comes to records creation, retention, and disposition.
4. How do you determine the annual budget? Provide an idea of the annual costs
and explain how you arrived at this figure. Feel free to provide a financial breakdown.
Microsoft lists SharePoint Server Online 2013 pricing at $8 per user per
month(Microsoft, n.d.). That's $400 per month for 50 employees, and $6000 per year.

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Price of one full time records manager: $60,000-$80,000 (Records Manager Salaries,
n.d.). It is a non-profit position, so we will try asking for someone willing to work slightly below
median of $78,169/year.
We will call for volunteers for scanning/tagging. We will ask the nearby university about
internships. Using a volunteer workforce will save money, but we should also provide pizza or
snacks once every other month at a cost of around $100 per month. Interns will also cost The toy
Recycle Center time to train.
We will need to rent off-site storage space, most likely through the Underground Vaults
and Storage "the caves" system. Although the price of storage is not listed, SubTropolis
(Subtropolis storage, 2015) lists the price of large RV storage at $285 per month, so that will
be our pricing assumption. In addition to storage, Underground Vaults also offers scanning, bar
coding, and quick retrieval systems. One can assume that document storage likely takes less
physical space but more labor, making it an equivalent price.
The total for all the listed expenses is $70,620, but it is important to also allow for
unknown and miscellaneous expenses (as well as the likely reply that the money is not there, so
please make it work with less.) We would recommend asking for a total of $100,000 per year
and hope that the actual budget was set at $80,000.

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References
Compare SharePoint plans and prices. (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2015, from
https://products.office.com/en-us/sharepoint/compare-sharepoint-plans
Franks, P. C. (2013). Records & information management. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, an imprint
of the American Library Association.
Salary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved April 6, 2015, from http://www1.salary.com/Records-ManagerSalary.html
Subtropolis storage. (2015). Retrieved April 4, 2015, from http://www.subtropolis.biz/