Student Clubs and Organizations Records (SCOR)

Once you have identified the records your organization wants to keep, the next step is determining how to maintain them. To best preserve your records, be sure to keep them in a dry, cool place. Moisture, excessive heat, light, and humidity (including significant variations of these) can damage paper and audiovisual records. 

When possible avoid using rubber bands, staples, paperclips, tape, etc., which can damage paper when not stored in an ideal environment. If possible, store the records on steel shelving or cabinets rather than wood, which emits a gas that, over time, can be harmful to your documents.

On this page, you can see the glue                   This discoloration is caused by                        Damage caused by staples. Staples and 

bleeding through the newspaper.                      "acid-transfer."                                              paper clips can also cause rusting.

Few organizations have access to 'ideal' storage conditions but there are things your organization can do to minimize environmental damage, like storing paper materials in acid-free file folders before placing them in file cabinets or storage boxes and handling traditional photographic prints only along their edges.

If your organization lacks a suitable space to store your archives please consider donating the records to the University Archives as an alternative.

Access requires that we can locate any given materials easily. To facilitate this:

• Store your archives together in one place whenever possible. 
• Arrange them in a way that works best for your group.
• Label all files with the full name and date of the topic documented (more on naming digital files in the next section.) Examples:
  • Budget, 1989-1990
  • Minutes, 1993-1994
  • Constitution and By-Laws, 1961-1969
  • Officer Responsibilities, 1961-1969
  • Fashion Show Photograph Album, 1976
• For photographs and scrapbooks, identify as many of the people, places, and dates as possible.
• Create an inventory of your organization's records.
  • This will allow you to quickly identify and locate records of interest. 

Electronic records, like email, photographs, etc., often make up the bulk of an organizations’ contemporary files. Like their paper counterparts, there are steps you can take to preserve these records and make them accessible to future members.

• Consider an email account specific to your organization (or a position within the organization) and archive emails and documents there. This email address can then be passed down to new officers. Gmail, for instance, also provides cloud storage (Google Drive.) 
• Store your electronic files in multiple places. For example, in addition to cloud storage, you should also store the same records on an external hard drive, CD, DVD, or other portable media. 
  • Portable media becomes obsolete rather quickly. An external hard drive, which is relatively inexpensive, is a more stable storage solution. 
  • Further resources: LOCKSS, Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe
• Decide what formats you would like to store your records in and be consistent.
  • For text files .txt is ideal, but if you need to maintain formatting then save files as PDF.
  • For digital photos, .tiff is archival standard; however, .tiffs are quite large and require a lot of storage space, .jpeg is an appropriate alternative format.
• Organize your electronic files just as you would your paper records.
  • Create a standardized way of naming your organization's files so that all members can quickly locate and identify the records they are looking for.
  • For example: like items, such as meeting minutes, should be kept in their own folder and clearly labeled.

Consider capturing your organization's Social Media posts on a regular schedule. Account managers should have the ability to download your organization's content

Twitter

Log in to your account.

More → Settings & Privacy → Your Account → Download an archive of your data

The first time you do this you should download all of your available content but subsequent downloads can be limited to new content only and therefore will take much less time to complete.

Facebook

Log in to your account and find the small downward-facing triangle labeled 'Account' when you hover your cursor over it. Click to expand.  

Settings and Privacy → Settings → Your Facebook Information → Download Your Information → View

Make sure that "Format" is set to HTML and "Media Quality" is set to High and → Create File

Once rendered you will need to download that file and save it to your primary and secondary storage locations. 

How to Archive Your Facebook Photos, Posts and Other Data

Instagram

After logging in, click your profile picture. 

Settings → Privacy and Security → Data Download → Request Download

Then verify (or input) the email address where you'd like to send the file and click 'Next.'

That's all there is to it. Instructions for other social media platforms are just a web search away. Good luck!