Overview

The State Records Center (SRC) is a secure, low-cost facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Administration that offers offsite records storage for state government agencies, including UW-Madison.  

We’ll go into more depth and define what a record is later in this training. For now, you should know that a record is any material created or received by employees in connection with business conducted on behalf of the university.  A record is not defined by its format, but by its content, and can include books, papers, maps, photographs, films, recordings, optical discs, electronically formatted documents, or other documentary materials.

The SRC offers many services that can help UW-Madison units manage their records, including:

• Offsite storage
• Records management
• Records destruction

Offsite Storage

The SRC provides physical space for the storage of department or unit records that are not needed for frequent access, but still need to be saved for a certain period of time, which we call a retention period. Storing a unit’s records offsite frees up office space and the SRC’s online inventory system, Versatile, provides units a way to manage those records through their retention period.

The SRC does not provide storage for records that have reached the end of their retention period or items not covered by a current records retention schedule. 

Records Management 

Two times a year (June and November), the SRC conducts a disposition (or disposal) process for all boxes of records that have met their retention period according to the records schedules assigned to them. More about this process will be discussed later in the training. 

Records Destruction

The SRC provides confidential destruction of records on paper and electronic media (e.g., CDs, floppy discs, optical discs). Records sent to the SRC for destruction must have met their retention period according to an approved records retention schedule and cannot be part of an open public records request, audit, or litigation process. 

Role of the University Records Officer

The University Records Officer serves as the liaison between UW-Madison units and the SRC, and they lead the Records Management Program. They are responsible for submitting forms on behalf of UW-Madison units to the SRC and managing the disposition process.  

Any staff member from the Records Management Program can:

• answer questions about SRC services,
• sign up new Authorized Users,
• help units identify records schedules for their inventory,
• help units with SRC forms used to manage their inventory, and 
• correct box inventory information.