When it comes to storing our church records, there are typically two questions that get asked of our Diocesan Archivist. “What do we need to keep in our parish archives?” and “What should we send to the diocesan archives?”
Over the years, several documents have become available for churches to use when determining what records to store, such as “Parish Archives” or “What Do We Do With All This Stuff?”. As a reminder, here are some of the documents to be retained:
- Operational financial documents: accounts payable, check registers, etc. These documents should be retained for 7 years, then shred
- Minutes of any committee: keep permanently in church archives
- Active contracts: keep until contract is fully completed and no legal issues may arise
- Directories and Yearbooks: remain permanently in church archives
- Photos of people and events which are identifiable: identify on back of photo using a pencil and retain permanently in church archives
- Architectural drawings and blueprints: retain permanently (These can be sent to the diocesan archives for safe keeping)
- All Parish Registers and Registers of Church Services: retain permanently
- All parish histories and historical documents
- All legal documents
- Newspaper articles: photocopy and discard the original, ensuring that the title of the newspaper, date of the issue, and page number of the article are retained. (Newsprint is highly acidic and will not last. It may also damage other papers with which it might come into contact.)
Items that you don’t need to keep include Sunday bulletins and Sunday School materials that are no longer used.
If there are materials on the list to be retained that you feel the local church can no longer safely maintain due to the nature of the material, its size, or any other reason, these can be transferred to the diocesan archives. Please note that any materials you send to the archives are fully available to you by contacting the Diocesan Archivist.
On the diocesan website, under Archives, there is a more complete recommended retention schedule, along with a “Best Practices” document from The Episcopal Church Archives and “Records Management for Congregation” manual from The Episcopal Church. These documents provide more comprehensive information.
A basic rule of thumb for all archives is “when in doubt, keep it and leave it alone.” We never know what might be of interest to someone in the future.
Please feel free to contact the archivist at any time if you have questions or need on-site assistance. The Archivist can be reached through email at archivist@diowestmo.org.
This article was submitted by the Rev. Chandler Jackson, Diocesan Archivist.
