Sec. Kluttz with Deputy Sec. Kevin Cherry, State Archivist Sarah Koonts and Manager of the Government Records Section Becky McGee-Lankford
What happens to all those old records that government agencies produce and save? Cultural Resources Sec. Susan Kluttz found out today on her visit to the State Records Center. Part of the State Archives, the center is one of three Raleigh facilities that house records from local and state agencies across North Carolina.
Sec. Kluttz and Becky McGee-Lankford explore the stacks at the State Records Center
While on her tour of the center, the Secretary learned some pretty interesting facts, including:
- The Government Records Section of the Archives, which manages the three records centers in Raleigh, currently holds just under 200,000 cubic feet of records. If you filled that space up with water, you’d need almost 1.5 million gallons! Whoa!
- During 2012, the section destroyed nearly 6,500 cubic feet of records that are no longer needed and deemed unimportant by their agency of origin.
- The section has worked with staff from across the Archives and the Department of Cultural Resources to make many records available online (the Governor's Papers collection is a great example) and created a blog highlighting best practices in the field of records management.
The work of the Government Records Section is what makes open and transparent government possible, and it's only a small part of the work that the State Archives and other Cultural Resources agencies do to preserve our state’s treasures. Sec. Kluttz looks forward to discovering more of this work this summer. (And we’ll tell you what she discovers. Stay tuned!) See more pictures of the visit here.