Virtually every employee within an organization performs records management. The management of records has been described as the most fundamental and necessary activity of any organization.
Information has a life span.
Records should be disposed of when the information is no longer needed or current. Retention refers to a minimum time that records must be kept. Once the retention period for records has expired, they are ready for disposition. The term disposition refers to any action taken regarding a record, examples are transfer to inactive storage, microfilming, and transfer to magnetic media. The term final disposition is used to describe the final treatment of the record, examples are destruction or archival preservation.