I am a retired government Records Management specialist with a Ph.D. in History. The reason I got into the business was because I believe in preserving the historical record of our local, state and federal government AND making sure that these records are accessible to future generations.
That said, let me tell you why I think that the current Hillary kerfuffle is a tempest in a teapot, promulgated by journalists who know little and care less about how government records are managed.
I won't bore you with a long and detailed lesson on archives and records management; however, if you follow me beneath the fold I will outline a few principles that I believe all journalists should take into consideration before examining stories involving government records.
The National Archives defines a public records as:
Records. According to 44 U.S.C. 3301, the term "includes all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of data in them. Library and museum material made or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes, extra copies of documents preserved only for convenience of reference, and stocks of publications and of processed documents are not included." A more simple, working definition: Official Federal Government records include documentary material that you create, or that you receive from outside of AMS.
However, not all government communications are "records."
Perhaps more importantly, the vast majority of government "records" have very short official retention periods.
A general rule of thumb is that of all records created, about 10 percent of these should be retained permanently. (Think about the records your own file cabinets or email accounts contain and you will get why this makes sense.)
As a rule, retention is based on the legal, fiscal, administrative and historical value of a record. Its retention period should reflect how long a record retains value, based on one of the above "values" or functions.
To narrow it further, as the National Archives states in it's guidelines for emails, the only email records that should be retained permanently are those that create or revise policies or programs. Examples of these records are Annual Meeting Minutes, Budgets, Plans, official publications, property deeds and mortgages, etc.
Emails with shorter retention periods (usually 6 to 10 years) are those with administrative value or fiscal value. Think monthly fiscal reports, invoices, etc.
Some emails retain no value after they are transmitted, and do not need to be retained at all. The National Archives describes these:
E-mails generally not considered records include: Announcements of social events, e.g. retirement parties; Drafts of documents without substantive changes; Duplicate copies of messages; Inter or intra-organization memoranda, bulletins, etc. for general information; Personal messages not related to conduct of business (however, these could have historical value depending on the correspondent and subject); Portions of documents sent as reference or information-only copies; Published reference materials; Requests for information
As the above paragraph states, only one copy of a record must be retained as the official copy of record. While the creator is usually the holder of the official copy of record, it isn't a hard and fast rule or law that this is the case. If Hillary Clinton's departmental records management policies and procedures designate someone other than her as official keeper of the record (i.e., an administrator who receives copies of all of her relevant emails), then nothing she has in her email account is an "official record" as such.
Electronic records created by government officials have presented problems for records managers and archivists since they began to be created. They will continue to do so.
Could Hillary be creating the only copy of policy statements in her emails? Possible but unlikely. Could her emails document how such policy is arrived at? Again, possible but unlikely.
Think of your own email. Think of how much of it truly contains any "value" as set forth above. Seriously, people.
It would behoove journalists and pundits to at least know what a record is and how long it should be retained before they start looking for needles in haystacks.
It would behoove journalists to step back and ask themselves--what exactly are they hoping to find in these emails?
P.S. I'll let you in on a dirty little secret. If you think that all government employees scrupulously follow records management and retention guidelines--from the basketball coach in your local Parks and Rec department to the President of the United States--I've got a bridge to sell you.
For a look at National Archives Guidelines on email policy, follow the link below:
http://www.archives.gov/...