n.a collection of documents relating to circumstances that may include particular situations, individuals, investigations, or administrative actionsKulsrud 1947, 330This program was operated locally by the Farm Security Administration’s county officials, who dealt directly with the individual clients. The local records are therefore of particular significance. They are maintained in the client’s case file folders, and consist of all documents used in the loan transactions, from initial application to termination. They are rich in human interest material, and contain information of unique value for the study of social and economic conditions that prevailed in various parts of the country in the decade preceding the war.Bower and Brandt 1981, 135The largest proportion of the records of the Income Security office are composed of client or case files, both active and closed records. These highly sensitive and confidential records provide the necessary control mechanisms for social assistance to the needy. The active files are defined as those relating to clients still receiving help; the closed concern past, suspended, or terminated transactions. As soon as the staff of the Provincial Archives of Manitoba became involved, we were struck by the significance of the records for the litany of reasons usually invoked to justify archives and records management: legislative, legal, fiscal, operational, administrative, and operational. Historical and cultural factors also came to mind, but our efforts were quickly suffused by the obvious humanitarian reasons for salvaging the records, especially when we learned that within a week, the Income Security office would have to issue benefits to the less fortunate individuals of our society.Whalen 1984, 136At the present time, many archives have in their holdings legal records of government institutions or the private papers of lawyers and judges containing case files and other documents governed by solicitor-client privilege.Thurston 1985, 124At the centre of the former territorial governments, where incoming despatches were filed with minutes and procedural notations of the governor’s staff, the governor and his secretariat kept records in the course of decision making at the higher levels, at first in bound volumes and later in case files. These secretariat records also include administrative orders and government correspondence with private citizens, subordinate governing bodies, and other territorial governments.Bradsher 1988, 53In the Washington, D.C., headquarters there were over six million criminal, civil, security, applicant, and administrative case files dating back sixty years and nearly one hundred indexes to the files, including a general index consisting of 65 million 3" x 5" cards.Weinberg 1990, 123Social service agency case files serve as an excellent source for scholars investigating how citizens most in need survive in a changing (and usually urban) environment. These case files provide an unparalleled view and an invaluable social history of the nation’s most neglected population.Cook 1991a, 13A case file is not itself a record, but an aggregation of records and documents brought together because conceptually they share certain common interrelationships. Physically, the case file may be one or many file folders or other filing entities (box, envelope, drawer, etc.). Conceptually, the case file almost always relates to a specific event, person, place, project, contract, or transaction.Scheinberg 1994, 46We are currently living in an era of superabundance in regards to records creation. The Canadian state, for example, churns out millions of case files each year, a large percentage of which do not possess archival value. The task of establishing some control over case files through sampling and selection is in many respects the most challenging problem confronted by archivists today.Allen 1997, 228Because benefit recipient and applicant case files are an important part of Food Stamp Program records, project members surveyed state case files and charted the diverse content of these series in the different states. We produced guidelines for improving case file management in the final report, recommending written case file management procedures, segregation of long- and short-term materials, and cut-off and disposition procedures.Shenk 2010, 91Usually, the longest restrictions are placed on case files that contain personal information, sometimes including social security numbers.Holden and Roeschley 2020, 84The most important consideration for both the MSPCC and the University of Massachusetts Boston while working out the terms of the deed of gift was to protect the privacy of the individuals named in the case files. The records contain incredibly sensitive information, such as detailed narrative descriptions of child abuse and neglect.Galloway 2021, 176In 1974, Virginia R. Stewart, field archivist for acquisitions at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, called for archives to maintain personal case files from health and welfare services on the basis of a 1973 survey of sixteen archives. The survey pointed to the significant worth of such records for medical research, in spite of the existing tendency to schedule them for destruction once their active need had passed because of the cost of keeping them.Bond 2024, 55The voluminous and muddled nature of the congressional archives beast can generally be attributed to a few factors: lengthy political careers on the part of the member; multiple state offices in addition to the Washington, DC, office; large congressional staff (more people produce more records); and high staff turnover, resulting in variable organizational practices over time. Common categories of records invoked in such discussions include constituent correspondence and constituent services system data (voluminous, often unorganized, contain personally identifiable information), case files (contain particularly sensitive personally identifiable information), and academy appointments (voluminous, sometimes contain personally identifiable information, minimal research value).Duff et al. 2024, 122A similar process, involving the archivist chatting with a researcher or group of researchers in a comfortable, safe space was shared by another archivist: ¶ [quotation] It’s something that when we do family history, we now try to do one-on-one sessions with our research archivists, so it’s more of a comfortable space, it’s more private. But it’s not unusual for the person to come in and learn for the first time, and see their families listed on the internment camp list, or finding their custodian case files, which shows documentation from the government, of all the letters of correspondence, all of their assets being listed, all their assets being sold off at auction, and the pennies they got for it.an internal set of records kept by an archives that documents the acquisition and management of an archival resourceBrand 1955, 60The information is assembled from various sources, one of the most important of which is the Division’s case file, which consists, as its name implies, of case histories of manuscript holdings—that is, all the documents which have been created in the acquisition, custody, and reference use of each collection. When the register is completed, two copies go at once into the case file, one to bring the record up to date, the other to be available for interlibrary loan when donor restrictions permit.Kesner 1981, 108At the heart of this system ought to be some type of lead file mechanism. Some archives use formatted index cards for leads. Others use elaborate file structures. The Archives of Appalachia employs a three-component lead file system. A “lead file” is established showing the lead’s name followed by the word “LEAD” in capital letters (e.g., “Gordon Ebersole LEAD”). This step is taken to avoid misfiling lead files with other administrative files, such as those set up for accessioned collections which are referred to as “case files.” All information pertaining to the lead is then placed in the file, including newspaper clippings, correspondence, resumes, and photographs. These files are arranged according to the name of the person to be contacted, even though the purpose of the lead may be to track down a collection with another name. This procedure is used to minimize confusion in corresponding with donors, a practice which has proven particularly useful in situations where a donor has custody of more than one possible acquisition.Rudolph 2011, 32The Archives keeps a copy of the Separation Record in the collection’s case file, which often includes other information about the collection, including its catalog record, finding aid, Deed of Gift, obituaries, and other pertinent background information.
Notes
Case files are often found in social services agencies, health care practices, legal and police records, and in government offices. Examples include criminal investigations, legal disputes, patient records, constituent records, and tenure files.
