Assess your current situation

To successfully move records, you need to know:

• what records are affected by the move
• the formats of records and the equipment needed to access them, for example, paper, microfilm, magnetic tape, and stored on servers.
• how the affected records are controlled and whether they are covered by a current disposal authority
• where the records are physically located, for example, in offices, on servers, in onsite or offsite storage facilities or with a commercial storage provider.

You should maintain this information as part of your ongoing records management program. If you don't have this information:

• Interview staff of business units to find out what records they have, where they are kept, and what tools they use to keep track of them, e.g. registers, index cards, spreadsheets.
• Do a records inventory. If time permits, do this across the public office. If you have limited time or resources, as a minimum, do an inventory for the affected business functions or sites. Remember also that some records may be stored with commercial storage providers - these must be included on the inventory.
• Refer to the Directory of retention and disposal authorities to find out whether your public office has current disposal coverage.
• Contact State Records NSW for more advice on any aspects of moving records. 

Carrying out records inventory

Establish the purpose

There has been lots written about carrying out records surveys and designing records inventory forms and questionnaires. 

The starting point is to know for what purpose you are gathering information about the records. 

In this case it is for moving premises - as a result, the information you require is not as complex as if you were, for example, developing a disposal authority.

Determine the methodology

It is generally accepted that best results are gained by records management staff carrying out the survey. However this is resource-intensive and is often not practical. The alternative method is to send out questionnaires and ask business managers to complete these and return them. For best results, make sure you:

• explain clearly the purpose of the exercise
• design forms for easy use by non-records people
• if possible, give some training or provide guidance, for example, a completed pro-forma.

You may adopt a combination of the two methods for different parts of your public office, e.g. administrative functions do self-assessment, core business functions are surveyed by the records management team.