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Vital Records: What Is A Vital Record?
A Vital Record is recorded information, regardless of format
(i.e., paper, photo, database, magnetic tape), that must be protected in
the event of an emergency or disaster because of severe consequences to
the office and the University as a whole if the record is lost or
destroyed.
Vital records are records that will be needed in anywhere from a few minutes
to 24 hours after a disaster to get your office up and running again.
They are records that, if lost or destroyed, would be both costly and
time consuming to recreate - if they can be recreated at all. They can be
active (currently used by the office) or inactive (in storage). Vital Records are:
Tips for identifying which records in your office may be vital are
outlined in How do you Identify a Vital
Record. Only a small
percentage of your records will be vital; most will fall into one of the
following three categories:
Essential Records - These are records that will be needed within 72 hours after an emergency and, although it may be costly and difficult, CAN be reconstructed or replaced from other sources.
Useful Records - These are records which can be easily replaced. The time and cost of reproducing or accessing these records would be minimal because of the ready availability of these records at other locations.
Non-Essential Records - These are records that are of little or no value to the office and probably should never have been retained. Examples would be stores catalogs, brochures, extra forms, etc.
Individual offices need to complete an analysis of their
records in order to identify under which
categories their records will fall.
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Modified: June 10, 2005 |
Records Management Services |