For the many departments and offices using the services of the Records Management Division to store their inactive records, the transfer of historical records to the University Archives may be accomplished through a completely different procedure. All records accepted by the Records Management Division for storage in the Records Center must be identified and given a timed disposition as per the University Records Retention Guide. When these records reach the age when they are eligible for some form of disposition action, the Records Management Division sends the originating department a Certificate of Disposition. The disposition for most inactive departmental records stored at the University of Missouri Records Center is "DESTROY," but a small proportion of records at the Records Center will have the schedule disposition "TRANSFER TO CAMPUS ARCHIVES."
When you receive the Certificate describing the records and the proposed action, you can either authorize the disposition action or authorize the return of the records to your office. If the departmental records custodian signs the Certificate of Disposition and approves of the proposed disposition, "TRANSFER TO CAMPUS ARCHIVES," you are authorizing the transfer of administrative custody from your department to the University Archives. Approval of the Certificate also means that if the materials are appraised by the University Archives staff and found to be unworthy of archival preservation, then the Archives can destroy the materials in part or whole without further notification to the originating department. The University Archives for a variety of reasons may decide at some later time to deaccession and dispose of the materials originally accepted. The University Archives can also, as part of the arrangement and description process, rearrange and reorganize the records it accepts for archival preservation.
Sending University Records to the Archives
