Archives & History

Managing records of the annual conference and local church

Annual minutes from the Methodist Episcopal Church from the collection of Archives and History. Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist Communication.
Annual minutes from the Methodist Episcopal Church from the collection of Archives and History. Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist Communication.

The General Commission on Archives and History makes guidelines for records management available 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 Microsoft 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.

Record management guidelines

Records for closed local churches

There is also a small set of guidelines suggesting the type of records which should be kept from closed local churches. These Guidelines are also available in Word version. 

Electronic records

In addition we are now offering basic guidelines for managing and preserving electronic records. This is still 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. 

If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us at: [email protected]

View additional guidelines

 

Originally published by Archives & History

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