Guidelines for Weeding Administrative Records

All duplicate copies, masters, and supplies should be eliminated from the files after first making sure a good copy of records remain. The following items are usually without value and can be discarded once their useful life is past:

Announcements (keep announcements in form of a program if generated by your entity)
Applications (except admissions and employees)
Appointments, letters and memos setting up appointments
Ballots (be sure to keep record of final vote)
Budget draft papers (keep the final copy)
Checks, canceled
Class materials: textbooks, workbooks, handouts, etc., but keep syllabi and course outlines
Copies of widely circulated documents, including e-mail: agendas, lists, minutes, manuals, reports, and memoranda, unless
    your office is the office of origin
Copy or final draft for publication (programs, calendars, reports, etc.—after publication)
Covering letters and memos
Directives and instructions received
Drafts—once the final paper, report, program, budget, publication, etc. has been issued or published.
     Note exceptions: Those drafts which could add significant insight into the creators thought processes as he/she
    worked on the material, especially speeches, addresses. Major planning documents, save preliminary discussion
    documents, background reports, and drafts which contain substantive differences from the final version.
Financial records, routine and interim—a year old: cash receipt, delivery slips, purchase orders, requisitions, invoices,
    statements of telephone calls, etc.
Forms, blank (send 2 copies to the archives)
Invitations and notices
Invoices after payment
Letters and memos setting up appointments
Memoranda asking for comments (after comments have been received)
Multiple copies of a single original document—keep only two for the archives
Off-campus periodicals and publications, e.g. catalogs, newsletters, bulletins, reports, manuals, magazines, books, etc.
     Note: unless there is a clear connection of them with the officer of the entity.
Orders, financial: textbooks, teaching materials, office supplies, etc.
Payroll deductions, authorizations and notices, time cards
Proofs for publication (after publication—see also Draft)
Property/equipment inventories and related forms (including releases)
Routine acknowledgments, circulars, notifications, requests, reminders
Receipts
Releases
Reservations and Confirmations for meetings, travel, etc.
Sales literature (received)
Travel requests, arrangements, tickets, reimbursements
Work orders, papers (from plant service and outside vendors)
Worksheets