Happy Belated Electronic Records Day! 

Electronic Records Day was October 10, 2021 and is sponsored by the Council of State Archivists and is a day to remind everyone of the importance of managing their electronic records, such as email, social media, text messages, and other electronic files.

Do you have electronic records in your department that you are required to keep longer than 10 years? If so, what precautions have you taken to ensure that they will be accessible 10, 20, or even 100 years from now? If you think that just scanning and storing records on CDs will solve all of your preservation issues… think again! The lifespan of data on a CD is usually only 5-10 years so you need to make sure that you have another plan for long-term preservation. Just as you do with your paper records, you should have a plan for ensuring  that your electronic records with long-term retention, will be accessible as required by the Ohio Revised Code.

Please see the attached document, created by the Council of State Archivists, regarding the importance of having an electronic preservation system in place for records with a long-term retention period.

Last year was weird. I think we all can speak of events or plans that were cancelled due to COVID, and we were not immune to it here at the Archives. Pretty much every event or program was cancelled, or moved to virtual. As such, we were unable to hold our annual Records Management Training Fair (RMTF) in 2020. This Fair provides an opportunity for Greene County employees to learn some fundamentals of records management and why it is important to the work they do, as well as a chance to learn about Ohio Public Records laws, all in a fun, yet competitive, environment. So, this year, we were happy to be able to bring back our RMTF to an in-person event!

The Greene County Archives hosted the 4^th Annual Records Management Training Fair on Wednesday, October 6, 2021. The Archives’ staff, along with our wonderful volunteers, put together several games and informational exhibits/displays that Greene County employees could play and review, all focused on various aspects of records management. We added a few new stations this year, and changed some others to just informational. This year, we brought back some old favorites, such as Records Land, Build-A-Box, Records Management Wheel, Cyber Security, Microfilm, and the Scavenger Hunt. We also added a few new ones! This year, we added a station for the Prosecutor’s Office to talk about Public Records Requests and a station for Environmental Services to discuss the new shredding services for Greene County. We also added some new games, such as online puzzles and mini-escape rooms! This year was a little smaller, but we still had a nice turnout. The Fair was well-received, and we got some great reviews and feedback from attendees.

A special thank you to the Prosecutor’s Office, Microfilm Department, Data Processing, and Environmental Services for all taking part in our training fair! We look forward to continuing this partnership, and appreciate their willingness to take some time out of their busy schedules to make this a great event!

Be sure to check out our Facebook page for all the pictures from the event. There were just too many to add to the post.

Until Next Time!

As we kick off Archives Month, we'd like to share our next Greene County VIP - Colonel Charles Young. We have graced our entryway, exhibit board with images from Colonel Young's estate and various photos that chronicle his life (See Fig. 1) Back in 2018, Melissa wrote a great blog post about Colonel Charles Young. We would like to re-share the post in honor of our bi-monthly VIP. 

Until Next Time!