Records Management
Northern Michigan University’s Records Management Department oversees and manages both physical and electronic records created during University regular operations. Our services include assistance in determination of how long records must be retained to comply with law and standards, record organization, record destruction, and long-term storage at the University Records Center.
What records to retain/what can be destroyed
As a quasi-governmental agency, everything NMU creates, whether physical or electronic, is considered a record and must be retained for a length that meets NMU policy, accreditation standards, department operations, and state and federal laws and regulations.
How do you decide what to retain/destroy?
Review our What Records to Retain/What can be Destroyed guide. The guide has retention schedules, which will walk you through the process of determining how long documents must be retained and what routinely can be destroyed.
Records Management Services
Beyond maintaining retention schedules, we offer long-term storage of records at the University Records Center, destruction of confidential records, and assistance managing your records.
- Record Storage Request—Send boxes to the University Records Center for storage.
- Record Retrieval—Retrieve a record we are storing for your department.
- Record Return—Notify us for pickup after you finished reviewing records we retrieved for you.
- Confidential Record Destruction—Inform us when you want to have records confidentially destroyed.
- Staff Assistance—Have record organization, storage, or destruction questions/concerns? Contact us, and we will be happy to work with you!
Records Management Dept. has four main functions:
Records Retention Schedules
A Records Retention Schedule identifies records created or received by the University and specifies how long the records must be retained. To create our Records Retention Schedules, we meet with departments to inventory what records they produce, and then determine how long the record should be retained based on NMU policies, accreditation standards, department operations, and state and federal law.
The retention schedule and a guide to their use can be found on the What Records to Retain/What can be Destroyed page.
Confidential Destruction
When records reach the end of their retention period and can be destroyed, Records Management and Central Services can assist in their destruction. If the records are non-confidential, departments can destroy documents in their own preferred manner. If the records are confidential, contact Records Management and we will coordinate with Central Services to assure proper confidential destruction.
To arrange records destruction, review the Confidential Record Destruction page.
Storage
The Records Management Department stores and manages department records at the University Records Center (URC) in the Services building. Department records that are permanent or seldom used, but according to the retention schedule are required to be retained, should be transferred to the URC for storage. We will pick up records, store them securely, retrieve them for your use when needed, and destroy them when their retention period ends.
Training and Assistance
Proper records management is a complicated process, but we are happy to work with you in formulating management plans and answering questions!