§402. Definitions

           For the purpose of this Chapter:

           (1) "Agency" means any state, parish, and municipal office, department, division, board, bureau, commission, authority, or other separate unit of state, parish, or municipal government created or established by the constitution, law, resolution, proclamation, or ordinance.

           (2) "Disposal" means destruction in any manner approved by the environmental authority and state archivist or transferral into the custody of the repository designated by the state archivist as most appropriate for continued maintenance.

           (3) "Division" means the division of archives, records management, and history.

           (4) "Louisiana State Archives" means an establishment maintained by the secretary to administer a program to provide for the preservation of records, papers, and artifacts that have been determined by the state archivist to have sufficient historical, fiscal, or legal value to warrant their continued preservation by the state.

           (5) "Records" means all documents, papers, letters, books, drawings, maps, plats, photographs, magnetic or optical media, microfilm, microphotograph, motion picture film, or other document or any other material, regardless of physical form or characteristic, generated or received under law or in connection with the transaction of official business, or preserved by an agency or political subdivision because of other informational or legal value. This term shall not be construed to include library and museum material developed or acquired and preserved solely for reference or exhibition purposes, extra copies maintained for convenience in reference or stocks of standard publications, or processed documents.

           (6) "Records center" means an establishment maintained by the secretary primarily for the economical storage, processing, servicing, and security of inactive records that must be retained for varying periods of time but which need not be held in agency offices for the entire periods.

           (7) "Records management" means the systematic application of management techniques to the creation, utilization, maintenance, retention, preservation, and disposal of records for the purpose of reducing costs and improving efficiency of records keeping. This term includes the conversion of records from one format to another, filing and information retrieval systems, and vital records protection.

           (8) "Retention schedule" means a set of disposition instructions prescribing how long, in what location, under what conditions, and in what form records series shall be kept.

           (9) "Secretary" means the secretary of state who oversees the Department of State.

           (10) "State archivist" means the state archivist and director of the division of archives, records management, and history appointed by the secretary to serve as director of that division and as state archivist.

           (11) "Vital records" means any record essential to either or both the resumption or continuation of operations, to verification or re-creation of the legal and financial status of government in the state, or to the protection and fulfillment of obligations to citizens of the state.

           Acts 1985, No. 238, §1, eff. July 6, 1985; Acts 2024, No. 508, §1.