Retention schedules provide guidance on what records an
archive/repository needs to keep and for how long as part of its records
management responsibilities.
By nature and necessity, not ALL
records are retained in perpetuity. Some
records have content duplicated elsewhere, some records only have relevance for
a short period of time, etc.
In a way, the same can hold true for
the genealogy databases that we love to access.
Sometimes a “newer” database comes along that encompasses the content of
an older database – for example, a database with a full index and digital
originals supersedes what used to be a partial index with no images. We like that.
An index + images can be a superior experience for researchers.
Sometimes, material becomes
available in other easily accessible places (Internet Archive, HathiTrust,
Google Books, etc) and so a decision is made to remove that material from a
database where it might have previously been included to make room for other
newer “stuff.”
The nature of any archive or
database is that they are not infinite.
They cannot keep everything.
Decisions have to be made about what to keep and what to retire.
We are reminded of this via a couple
of posts by Randy Seaver, “Where Did 567 Databases on
Ancestry.com Go?” and his follow up, “Where Did 567 Databases on
Ancestry.com Go? An Answer. UPDATED!” and another by The Ancestry Insider, Ancestry
Deletes Hundreds of Databases that discuss some recently
deleted Ancestry.com databases and some of the motivation for the culling. From
the latter post ...
While I’m not willing to
spend enough time to look for all five hundred deleted data bases, it certainly
looks like many are Mormon-related, and many are old, tiny, text-only, poorly
formatted, and pretty-much invisible databases.
So, it is
helpful to read these posts for some perspective on the nature of the resources
we use and how they are ever evolving and that doesn’t refer to just “adding”
new material; sometimes it does mean the removing of content.
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