The office that collects, retains and makes available to users, records of permanent value to the institution. Documents a major event in the life of the organization and are transferred to the archives.
Examples are original minutes of meetings, reports, policy statements,procedures, publications.
Records which have been transferred to a secondary medium for storage purposes may be deemed to be original. The physical condition of the records. The type of media that the information is physically stored on. The length of time records must be kept before they may be disposed of. May be governed by legislation.