n.a transitory record that facilitates the operations and management of an organization but does not relate directly to the organization’s missionBrooks 1940, 229Especially in an organization as large as a state government or the federal government, there are many functions that are common to all agencies and are represented in each by similar types of records. Some of us refer colloquially to these as “housekeeping” records, to distinguish them from those representing the technical and professional aspects of an agency’s work. The “housekeeping” functions are chiefly concerned with personnel, supplies, budget estimates and accounting, the collection and disbursement of funds, and printing and processing.Perlman 1952, 36The greatest quantity of an agency’s records are likely to be “housekeeping” records. This term, through custom and usage, has come to describe those records documenting such functions as procurement, accounting, supply, and personnel.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, . . . .Schmidt and Wilson 1968, 250Administrative policy records can be classified as permanent, but housekeeping records—requisitions, invoices, class lists, and minor fiscal records—should be destroyed when they are no longer administratively referred to.Scott 1970, 5Except for perhaps purely “housekeeping” records, outgoing Governors had simply taken their gubernatorial records with them.Cunliffe and Miller 1989, 355The revised GRS is intentionally a very conservative document. The reliance on dispositions for paper records, the exclusion of test and development data previously authorized for disposal, and the very restricted definition of housekeeping records all reflect the committee’s recognition that they had a limited grasp of the full extent of automation applications in the federal government.Henry 1998, 315–316Defining a record exclusively as a business transaction eliminates documentary materials that may have permanent value, such as databases and personal papers. The definition could cause archivists to spend their time on the bulk of records of most agencies and large organizations: operating records, often known as “housekeeping” records. Such records provide definite evidence of business transactions, but archivists usually appraise them as nonpermanent.
