Summer has arrived to campus, no matter what the seasonal calendar says! It has been, as it always is, a busy year of processing manuscript collections, staffing our Reading Room, teaching with primary sources and rare books, creating catalog records, growing the Center’s digital collections, navigating technology upgrades, and countless other tasks.

The Center aims to connect the people and communities and Southeast North Carolina to the sources of their history and culture by collecting materials, providing access to those materials, sharing collections with the campus and broader region, encouraging and engaging scholarship on the region, and supporting and partnering with regional cultural heritage groups. You can see some of this history and culture, as well as the work we do to make it accessible, in blog posts completed by the Center across the year, discussing a variety of topics including:  

• Government Information librarian Elisabeth Garner wrote a series of posts about the North Carolina Manual’s history and content, starting here.
• University Archivist Adina Riggins wrote about records management at the University: how employees can tackle their records and the assistance that the University Archivist can provide. Also, if you’re reading this in May, check out June’s State Archives workshop specifically for higher education records management.
• Center specialist Isabella Walker used those University records to write about vocational education and the unexpected history of football on campus.
• Special Collections Specialist Nicole Yatsonsky complied clips from WHQR’s Sounds Local episodes that highlighted interviews with Black artists in honor of February’s Black History Month.
• Special Collections Librarian Rebecca Baugnon highlighted the materials available in Special Collections overall, and graduating student worker Sarah Creel shared holiday cards preserved in scrapbooks from the Reverend Edwin E. Kirton Family Private Papers collection.
• Public Services Archivist Samantha Crisp highlighted all kinds of materials, including two posts of fashion images in honor of Fashion Week on campus and (underrated?) film Muppets from Space, shot in town.

While the blog goes on hiatus for the summer, we will be continuing our work behind the scenes, providing access to collections through the Reading Room - by appointment - and preparing for August. I know it doesn’t seem like it but any academic librarian knows, the first day of classes is right around the corner! 

The State Archives has opened registration for a June workshop that many employees on campus may find valuable: Managing Public Records for Higher Education Employees. 

This free, virtual workshop provides an overview of the maintenance, retention, and disposition of public records for employees in the UNC System and the NC Community College System. It’s the perfect class for higher education employees who want an introduction or a refresher on how to take care of public records. 

When:  Tuesday, June 9, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. 

Register:  online via the State Archives.  

The workshop will be recorded so if you register, following the workshop you will receive a link to the recording.

University Archives holds historic records from all divisions of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. These unique primary source materials document the history of North Carolina’s coastal public university since its founding as Wilmington College. People looking for pertinent information on higher education, Southern U.S. history, student life, athletics, civil rights, the arts, and other areas will find answers in University Archives. Find more information on coming to visit the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History at UNCW Library, or check out our online resources in UNCW Digital Collections.

At University Archives, we collect official university records with historic and long-term value and provide public access to this information. To build the collection, we rely on the Records Retention and Disposition Schedule for Institutions of the University of North Carolina System. The Records Schedule helps us in University Archives, but it is a tool for everyone. Here are a few records management principles to make 2026 a great year.

Offices with custody of certain records are responsible for managing them. 

According to UNCW’s Public Records Policy, custodians of public records must make records available as soon as possible after receiving a public records request. 

Have you heard that you cannot destroy anything created by UNCW? While that’s true if your office is handling a public records request or is engaged in a litigation hold, it is not the case most of the time. In fact, permanent retention is a rare requirement. (If you are handling a public records request or litigation hold, contact the Office of General Counsel for assistance.)

For everyday management of the information in your office--especially non-current information that your office no longer uses--see the Records Retention and Disposition Schedule linked above. 

The Records Retention and Disposition Schedule for Institutions of the University of North Carolina System (also known as the Records Schedule or the General Schedule) is your go-to resource.

The General Schedule designates the types of records to retain permanently and the types of information to retain for shorter periods of time and then dispose. By NC general statute, this is the document to use to inform records management at UNCW and throughout the UNC system. 

For help interpreting and using the Records Schedule, see the UNCW Records Management Guide. 

If it’s been a while since you’ve had records management training and you know you have files in your office that you no longer need, the Center's UNCW Records Management Guide is a good place to start.  

The UNCW Records Management Guide, maintained by the University Archivist, is an overview to the General Schedule. It includes more details on getting started with records management; reviewing strategies for records management and disposal; and information on managing digital records, records containing sensitive information, and permanent, archival records.

Contact the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History for help with the records schedule. 

Are you not sure if your information should be retained, destroyed, or archived? Have you found some old media that is perplexing? Contact us! University Archives will help you plan a review strategy and will collect records that should be transferred to the archives.

Reflections

• Records Management (RM) had a presence at UNCW's celebration of Love Data Week in February. Seventeen people attended the online session “Let’s Talk about Administrative Data: A Conversation about Archiving the Data in Your Office.” Slides are available here. What RM topics do you want to see addressed during next year's Love Data Week? The theme will be “My kind of data.”
   
• Records and Information Management Month, April 2023 - University Archives held a total of 4 workshops–one on Zoom and 3 others around campus. There were 48 attendees altogether. Check out this handy Records Management Guide customized for UNCW.

News & Updates

• Please continue to refer to the UNC System Records Schedule (2021). The Record Analysis Unit at the State Archives is currently short-staffed with only two analysts in Raleigh and two regional analysts.  Please send suggestions for schedule updates and revisions to University Archives for consideration by the State Archives.
   
• Following the RM workshops this past spring, we in University Archives have had the opportunity to consult with several staff members at UNC Wilmington on records management questions. A valuable reminder: Adhering to the records schedule is a process! Making a plan, testing, and communicating with stakeholders and the public are components of a records management project. It is fine to build time into your projects to complete these steps as you move toward compliance.
   
• Do you produce state publications? Examples are university and departmental magazines, books published by the university, the Atlantis and other creative magazines, strategic plans, exhibition catalogues, and more. NC General Statute 125-1A established a process for schools in the UNC system – as state agencies – to send 10 printed copies and/or a digital version to the State Publications Clearinghouse at the State Library of NC. Copies are then distributed to designated libraries throughout the state in addition to the Library of Congress. See guidelines on donating to the State Publications Clearinghouse. We continue to acquire these publications for University Archives as well.
   
• I hear from you that video recordings of Zoom presentations on Records Management are appreciated. We will try to accommodate this request going forward.

RM Phrase of the Day

Capstone Approach to Email Archiving: The Capstone Approach is a method of email management that bases appraisal for long-term retention in the Archives on the account owner’s role or position rather than individual email content. This approach has benefits for a successful email archiving program.

Electronic Records Day and Archives Month

Electronic Records Day is observed in the United States every year on October 10, which can be expressed as 1010 in honor of binary code. October is National Archives Month. UNCW will help raise public awareness about archives throughout October.

Good luck on your Records Management projects and all your other endeavors this summer!

--University Archives