n.a transitory record that facilitates the operations and management of an organization but does not relate directly to the organization’s missionChatfield 1940, 95Just as these functions are typical and fall into certain classes, so does the record material they engender fall into typical series. These series, as I have identified and named them, include: ¶ 1. General and miscellaneous records, contained in general series, mixed series, and nonrecord series; ¶ 2. Policy records, contained in main series and auxiliary series; ¶ 3. Administrative records, contained in main series and auxiliary series; and ¶ 4. Operating records, contained in operating series.Horn 1954, 221–222The same is true for the various regional and local church or church-related offices throughout the world except for administrative records, which cannot be destroyed without approval from the administrative department under the secretary of the General Conference.Ballentine 1966, 189–190Insofar as relatively precise data were given, certain kinds of records were found to recur with some frequency. Briefly defined, these are: (1) board of directors’ records, . . . ; (2) annual meeting records, . . . ; (3) issuances, . . . ; (4) committee records, . . . ; (6) housekeeping or administrative records, i.e., materials relating to the internal operations or general management of the association (as opposed to its substantive functions), and including financial and accounting records, membership and subscribers’ payments, production of the society’s journal or other issuances, and employment and payment records of the staff at the central office; (7) employment records, . . . ; and finally (8) historical records, . . . .Boles and Young 1985, 136In addition to the dean’s correspondence series, the administrative records of the school included minutes of the faculty and numerous advisory committees, which contained candid discussions of faculty and other medical educators.Samuels 1991, 132Though the care of administrative records may remain the archivist’s primary responsibility, there is a danger of equating official administrative records with a full and adequate record of the institution. By looking along rather than across administrative lines, archivists are impeded from achieving a holistic understanding of their institution.Linard and Sverdloff 1997, 90With the case methodology, there is a need to truly understand and penetrate the actual workings of an organization and management—administrative records often offer that unique insight.Zach and Peri 2010, 119Whatever the system in use, nearly all the digital repositories documented in this study were being used to manage discrete objects only, not record series such as administrative records.Williams and Berilla 2015, 93In the case of administrative records, we were given a large set of documents with the proviso that the records be set in a dark archives for twenty years.Holden and Roeschley 2020, 86Administrative records from the MSPCC, such as annual reports, Board of Directors meeting minutes, and publicity materials, are all open for research regardless of creation or publication date.
