n.a record no longer used in the regular course of business but which may be preserved and occasionally used for legal, historical, or operational purposesMinogue 1945, 117–118When storage conditions favorable to paper preservation (50 percent relative humidity and 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit) can be maintained, however, the flattening of large volumes of relatively inactive records may be safely postponed almost indefinitely.Case 1960, 424Also, let’s agree that it costs roughly $1.25 a year to keep a cubic foot of records in a center for inactive records. It is obvious, at such a cost, that records should be kept in inactive storage only long enough to meet the minimum requirements of the business or the statutes.Crocker 1962, 1852. Segregation of active from inactive records (those records that still have value but are seldom used) and the storage of inactive records in records centers or other storage areas until they become valueless and can be destroyed. The disposition of valueless records and the segregation and separate storage of inactive records will go far toward reducing the difficulties encountered in handling records in local offices.Reeves 1962, 260(9) Archives are “historical fact in course of development” (active records) and “the foundation of new historical nexuses” (inactive records) (Cassese).Evans 1964, 277In the process of approving the disposal of inactive records, the Division [of Public Records] segregated more than 6,000 cubic feet of archival material that agencies agreed to hold until additional archival space was made available.Miracle Box 1968, 180Miracle Box is used with or without shelving—with shelving for semi-active records; without shelving for completely inactive records.Miracle Box 1971, 181Miracle Box doesn’t need shelving! You may use shelving for semi-active records but inactive records can be stacked high without shelving.Bain 1983, 173In the Legal Custodian category, for example, the best statements today spell out the custodian for the active record (the office), the inactive record (the records center), and the archival record (the archives).Bowers 1988, 144As an inactive record, its primary value is gone, but it must be appraised for a secondary value which could be historical, and more than likely is based on the record’s evidential value.Bailey 1989, 182–183Traditionally, records management practices have designated records as being active, semi-active, or inactive. Using the life cycle model, paper records are deemed to be active from creation to classification and maintenance when they are used frequently in the carrying out of daily business. Later, when they are consulted less frequently, they become semi-active. Finally, the records are designated inactive when they are no longer used by the organization for its activity. At this stage, the records are usually transferred to an archives or destroyed. Inactive records may be “reactivated”, but this is a rare occurrence.Guercio 2001, 254The phases of organization of the records function established in the standard and in Italian archival practice include in particular: . . . the management of inactive records (historical archives), which includes activities of selection for purposes of identifying those records that will be permanently preserved, arrangement and description, preservation, and consultation.Cocciolo 2016a, 122In the predigital world, staffs were sometimes motivated to transfer inactive records to the archives—often stored in attics or basements—to free up desirable office space. However, as digital files do not take up physical space and as the capacity of digital storage has continued to grow, producers of digital information started to develop a new attitude: digital files would never become inactive. With this new attitude came the notion that all active and inactive records could be kept together and searchable from a single interface.
