Recently Asked Questions (RAQs)

The public libraries in our region have been requiring staff to complete a health self-assessment every day that they report to the building to work. Some of these libraries now have a collection of paper or electronic responses that date back to June.

How long should these records be kept? Two weeks? Two months? Forever?

And, not to complicate matters, but for municipal or school district public libraries, are these records, or portions thereof, subject to FOIL?

The library is using NYS Archives and Civil Service references to set personnel and payroll files records retention and disposition.

A question arose regarding employee rights to request removal of materials from personnel records.

The committee’s question was specifically about removal of a negative matter after the minimum required retention time had elapsed.

In this instance there was no question about the accuracy of the record nor was there litigation involved or anticipated.

Our library has a number of older Environmental Impact Studies (both draft and finals) which are taking up space, and we were wondering if we could discard them. Can a library make its own retention schedule for these or do libraries need to keep these for a certain amount of time so the public can access them?
If we can make our own retention schedule, do you have a recommendation as to how long they should be kept?

We are looking to determine if there is a specific time frame for which email must be held. Can we designate in a policy that email will not be considered original documents - that all original documents must be in print format?  AND if this is possible, how long then are we required to hold onto archived e-mail? 

Please also comment on how, for state institutions, this issue is impacted by the NYS Archives Schedule MI-1 Schedule, which states:

“Generally, records transmitted through e-mail systems have the same retention periods as records in other formats that are related to the same program function or activity. E-mail records should be scheduled for disposition in conjunction with any other records related to the program function. Local governments may delete, purge, or destroy e-mail records provided that the records have been retained for the minimum retention established in this Schedule and are not being used for a legal action or audit.”