n.the usefulness or significance of records sufficient to require their retention for extended periods of time, but not necessarily permanentlyBourne 1957, 223There are two stages in a post’s record retirement program: the removal of inactive records from filing equipment and space in the operating offices to a storage area within the post to make room for current files, and the transfer to the Department’s Records Service Center of those series that are considered of long-term value.Weinberg 1960, 168The long-term value of a bill of indictment, after it performs its immediate constitutional function of informing the accused of the nature and scope of the charges against him, derives from the fact that it can be required if a case should be reopened or if there should be a pardon application for a conviction many years before.Pinkett 1967, 39The character of the activities conducted by an office also tends to affect the long-term value of its general correspondence.Ziegler 1975, 196Noncurrent records, if of permanent or long-term value, are normally retired when requests for consultation diminish to less than six requests per annum.Brichford 1977, 5Broadly stated, the public goals of the archivist are the identification and preservation of records having long-term value and the protection and transmission of our documentary heritage for the future.Janzen 1981, 37On the other hand, he regarded files of observational scientists such as geologists, meteorologists, explorers, and astronomers as having potential long-term value, since the events they record are nonrepeatable. Long, unbroken runs of such data are of great interest to scientists, provided that the recording instruments used were sufficiently precise to enable them to be compared to more recent observations.Sanders 1986, 180Even after a sound appraisal of the long-term value of the publications has been made, however, the archivist faces another important decision. He must determine how best to obtain and accession those publications chosen for archival retention.Maher 1992, 6“Archives” also refers to the agency responsible for selecting, preserving, and making available noncurrent records with long-term value and to the building or part of the building housing them.Ham 1993, 33Appropriate file structure can segregate records of long-term value from those of transitory use and thus facilitate appraisal and other archival processes.Baker 1997, 243Government archives may certify private or corporate archives to manage such government records of long-term value.Craig 2000a, 36For organizations material of long-term value includes: ¶ all records which pre-date 1940; ¶ minutes of boards and their committees, of meetings of staff and departments; ¶ annual reports, staff reports and special reports; . . .Millar 2006b, 72It is presumed they will then be retained if they have long-term value or disposed of if they do not.Bailey 2013, 25, fn. 53To be considered of long-term value during appraisal, machine-readable records had to be used or usable in policy formation; or created for “seminal” study; or created for a study conducted by (a) renowned individual(s); or be of a “nonhousekeeping” nature and could be used for reanalysis.Noonan and Chute 2014, 214By considering the value of the information—including its circumstances of creation, uniqueness, and potential re-use—the cost of retention, and the political implications of the appraisal decision, researchers should be able to come to a more informed decision regarding the data’s long-term value and whether they need to preserve and provide long-term access to it.Williams and Berilla 2015, 90As the archivists began to process and digitize all these various documents, we came to the conclusion that it was impossible and unsustainable to keep up with the workload. We found it especially dispiriting to spend so much time working with these spurious documents of limited long-term value.
