Records life-cycle

While various models of the records life-cycle exist, they all feature creation or receipt, use, and disposition.

Disposition encompasses the destruction or transfer to an archive for future reference.

This is then followed by a second, archival phase consisting of: In the 1930s Emmett Leahy of the United States National Archives had a central role in developing a program to define the records life-cycle from creation and use through eventual destruction or archiving.

[3] Richard Berner of the University of Washington proposed a single records management-archives goal: "responsible records use and administration leading to either authorized destruction or archival preservation and administration".

[4] The professions of records management and archives, while distinct, surely are working towards the same objective: the effective management of recorded information through all stages of the continuum, from creation to disposal.