Guidelines for Managing Records of the Annual Conference and the Local Church
The General Commission on Archives and History has provided guidelines to facilitate the planning and creation of retention schedules for your annual conference and local church. They are available in two versions: pdf for formatted viewing and printing on line and as an MS Word document. Both versions can be downloaded and printed out. To read the pdf version you will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader version 5 or later. If you don't have it you can download it for free at www.adobe.com.
There is also a small set of Guidelines suggesting the type of records which should be kept from closed local churches.
In addition they are now offering basic guidelines for managing and preserving electronic records. This still is a developing area. The guidelines are meant to offer some information on basic management of your electronic records while offering some thoughts for the long-term preservation of the same. And remember recommendations in the Records Guidelines apply to all records irregardless of format.