What to keep
... And What Can You Throw Away?
Staff who create, keep, or are in any way responsible for records should familiarize themselves with records management requirements, whether for scientific research or business. Please refer to Records Management Training. For any questions, please contact the Archives for help appraising the historical value of the materials under your care or Records Management to coordinate records disposition.
SLAC scientists, whether students, post-docs, staff, or faculty, are encouraged to create and maintain adequate documentation of their professional lives. A good source for information on this topic is the American Institute of Physics (AIP) webpage about scientific source materials.
See also our Don't Save It All brochure (print and fold into thirds)
Staff who undertake digitization of paper records need to be aware that their project(s) must meet U.S. federal government digitization requirements as specified in 36 CFR Chapter XII, Subchapter B, Part 1236, Subpart D.
Note: Some links on this page open pdf files, which require the free Acrobat Reader.
Archival Material
The following materials and formats are of interest to the SLAC Archives.
- Correspondence and memoranda (including substantive email) generated in the course of conducting research and business
- Correspondence (including substantive email) relating to facets of a career in photon science, particle and astroparticle science, and high-energy physics research (e.g. with colleagues, professional societies)
- Research files, notebooks
- Reports (Formal reports, technical reports)
- Group and Department communications
- Committee minutes and supporting documents
- Teaching materials, lecture notes, Institute, colloquium materials, presentations
- Biographical materials
- Journals, serials runs, monographs, and monographic series published by SLAC
- Ephemeral descriptive materials, such as brochures, pamphlets, maps, and directories
- Architectural drawings and plans
- Audio-visual materials, including photographs (prints, negatives), slides, video, film, DVDs, recordings
- Scrapbooks, news clippings
- Oral history tapes and transcripts
- Posters and other promotional items
- Microforms
- Artifacts
Non-Archival Material
The following materials are not required for SLAC Archives documentation and may be discarded at your discretion.
- Publications:
- Copies of SLAC Scientific & Technical Publications (numbered)
- Copies of DOE Publications and reports
- Scientific Periodicals or Journals
- Preprints or Reprints (unless extensively annotated)
- Financial Records (originals in Business Division): Group copies of Purchase Requisitions and Work Orders are disposable when no longer needed EXCEPT that PeopleSoft operator copies of both Reqs and WOs are record copies and as such are required to be retained for periods specified in the DOE Administrative Records Schedules.
- Personnel Records (originals in Business Division): Group copies that are duplicates of materials maintained by the Personnel Office are disposable when no longer needed. However, personnel files that contain non-duplicate material should not be discarded.
