Appendix A: General Records Schedule 21

GENERAL RECORDS SCHEDULE 21

Audiovisual Records

SCOPE

This schedule covers audiovisual and related records created by or for agencies of the federal government as well as those acquired in the course of business. Audiovisual records more than 30 years old must be offered to the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) before applying disposition instructions set forth in this schedule.

Audiovisual records include still and motion picture photography, graphic materials, and sound and video recordings. Related documentation includes:

(1) Production files or other files documenting the creation, justification, ownership, and rights to the records and (2) finding aids used to identify or access the records.

This schedule does not cover: (1) cartographic records; (2) remote sensing imagery recorded on film or magnetic tape; (3) microform copies of textual records; or (4) research and development data. Cartographic records and remote sensing imagery recorded on film are covered by GRS 17; digitised or computerized data are covered by GRS 20; microform copies of textual records may be covered by other general records schedules, depending on the informational content of the textual records; and research and development source data are covered by GRS 19.

RECORD ELEMENTS

For each type of audiovisual record, the specific record elements (originals, negatives, prints, dubbings, etc.) required by 41 CFR 101-11.411-4 for preservation, reproduction, and reference are listed. Since audiovisual records covered by this schedule include those produced under contract, by grant, and acquired from outside sources as well as those produced internally, maintenance and control of these record elements for records subject to the disposition “Submit SF 115” are essential, whether the record elements are stored in agency or contractor facilities.

DISPOSITION INSTRUCTIONS

The word “destroy” is used to authorize destruction of data or information. Erasable media such as magnetic tape should be reused whenever practical. Silver-bearing photographic film must be destroyed in accordance with 41 CFR 101-42.3, “Recovery of Precious Metals and Strategic and Critical Materials”.

The instruction “Submit SF 115” requires that the records be included in either an agency’s comprehensive records schedule or a specific request for disposition authority, unless they have been described on an agency records schedule approved by NARS after May 14, 1973. The introduction to the General Records Schedules provides additional information on scheduling records, which have no authorized disposition in this general records schedule. When describing these records in a comprehensive records schedule or a specific request for disposition authority, agencies may be guided by the categorical descriptions in this general records schedule, but these descriptions are not a substitute for specific agency prepared descriptions that are required to schedule the records.

This general records schedule authorizes the disposal of certain records without further concurrence from NARS. Agencies are encouraged to include specific series descriptions for such records in their comprehensive schedules while citing the governing disposition instruction from this general records schedule as the authority for destroying the records.

SOUND RECORDINGS

RECORD ELEMENTS

(a) Conventional mass-produced, multiple copy disc recordings: the master tape, matrix or stamper, and one disc pressing.

(b) Magnetic audio tape recordings (reel-to-reel, cassette or cartridge): the original or earliest generation of each recording, and a dubbing, if one exists.

RELATED DOCUMENTATION