RECORDS MANAGEMENT SERVICES FOR MUNICIPALITIES By SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE H. RYAN

Municipal officials who need to organize their records, dispose of unnecessary records or preserve those with historical value can ask the Illinois State Archives for assistance.

As State Archivist, I am pleased to provide these services free of charge to all units of local government, including municipalities and their police departments, fire departments, zoning boards, sanitation districts and transportation systems.

In 1991, local officials disposed of 95,000 cubic feet of records using our system. Based on an average cost of $15 per cubic foot per year in storage fees in downtown Springfield, this could have saved them $1.4 million. It did save money and valuable office space for many officials who no longer need to buy file cabinets or rent warehouse space.

To date, the Archives has inventoried the records of 94 municipalities that serve as Illinois county seats as well as hundreds of other towns throughout the state. Field representatives in the Records Management Section soon will be contacting the eight remaining county seats to see if they would like to participate in the program.

Six field representatives conduct these inventories statewide at no cost to local government. The inventories provide municipalities with retention schedules that give them ongoing authority to dispose of useless records in a timely manner. However, some of the record inventories created in the 1970s may need review and revision.

The State Archives staff administers the Local Records Act, which states, in part, that no public record can be destroyed without the approval of the Local Records Commission. When conducting inventories, field representatives prepare applications to dispose of records of temporary value. They write disposal schedules for administrative records, grant records, insurance records, payroll records, personnel records and reports to state and federal governments.

The field representatives conducted 1,800 on-site visits last year, including 680 in municipal agencies, and they prepared 384 new applications for authority to dispose of local records.

IRAD

Archives staff members also identify local records having permanent historical value. In municipalities, these include city council proceedings files and meeting minutes, ordinance records and city election records, primarily from the 19th Century.

These valuable records are either microfilmed with the original records kept in the municipalities, or they are transferred to the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) System for permanent retention. The regional depositories, located at seven state universities, carefully preserve documents that might otherwise be in danger of physical deterioration or actual loss.

Relocating historical records to the seven regional depositories increases their accessibility to genealogists, historians and researchers. The system allows public access to the records without inconveniencing local officials.

In addition to municipal records, IRAD includes a variety of county, township and school district records, such as records of births, deaths and marriages, land deeds, mortgages and tax sale records, assessors' and collectors' tax books, poll books and voter registers, probate records, court case files, coroners' inquest

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records and inquest files, pupil registers and school land sale records.

A special part of IRAD'S collection is from the City of Chicago, which includes nearly 35,000 previously unknown documents that predate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In addition to these City Council proceedings files of 1833-1942, holdings include plats, atlases and Sanborn Maps. Other available Chicago records are election registers (1888-1892) and ordinance records (1837-1916).

Approximately 4,000 inquiries are received at the regional depositories each year, with half coming from out-of-state residents. Approximately 90 percent of the users are genealogists. A search service is provided at no charge by the staff. Graduate students in history and political science process the records and answer questions.

Any municipal official who needs the assistance of the Records Management Section, whether to dispose of records or to ask for a new inventory, may write to the Local Records Unit, Archives Building, Springfield, IL 62756, or call 217/782-7075. For additional information about IRAD services, write to IRAD, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL 62756, or call 217/785-1266. •

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