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Church issues 'book of records' as guidance for diocesan officers

7 November 2008

 

New guidance has been published by the Archbishops’ Council’s Libraries and Archives staff to support diocesan offices in managing the huge volume of files, paperwork and other correspondence they deal with across their range of responsibilities and activities.

Save or Delete - the Care of Diocesan Records is a free resource designed to help diocesan officers distinguish between the different kinds of records within their care and decide how long and where they need to be kept. The guidance itemises many of the types of records likely to be generated and held by different departments, divisions or boards of the diocese, and how these documents should be stored. It also recommends retention periods – based on either on legislation or on recommended good practice – whether the records are in a traditional paper form, or in an electronic format.

Copies have been sent to every Diocesan Secretary, and the document is freely available for download from the Church of England website at: www.cofe.anglican.org/about/librariesandarchives.

“While the primary purpose of managing such records is to meet the operational needs of the Church in an efficient way, keeping records professionally can also act as a testimony to the Church of England’s diverse range of activities serving the region,” comments Declan Kelly, Director of Libraries and Archives for the Church of England. “I strongly commend this guidance to dioceses, and hope that it creates a benchmark of good practice for the storage of the rich range of records that our offices hold.”

The guidance was produced in conjunction with the diocesan secretaries liaison group and the Archbishop’s Advisory Panel for Libraries and Archives, who provided a broad range of external expertise (from organisations including The National Archives and the British Library).

Philip Arundel, Chair of the Administrative Costs Working Group, comments: “This is a very good example of national and diocesan collaboration to avoid duplication of effort.”

Parallel guidance for the care of parish records – originally published in 2006 – is also freely available on the Church of England website, also at: www.cofe.anglican.org/about/librariesandarchives.