What is included in the definition of disposition?

The definition of disposition includes actions taken to manage records once they are no longer needed for administrative, legal, or operational purposes. This incorporates several processes, including destruction, salvage, and donation.

Destruction refers to the permanent elimination of records that are no longer necessary, ensuring sensitive information is not misused. Salvage involves recovering materials from records that may still hold value or can be repurposed. Donation allows for the transfer of records to other entities where they may be useful, fostering broader access to historical or operational data.

Other choices focus more narrowly on specific aspects of records management. Scheduling and preserving records emphasize the organization and maintenance of records until disposition is warranted, while organizational transfers and retaining records deal with the movement of records rather than their final handling. The option that suggests only destruction and transfer misses the full scope of ways records can be disposed of. Thus, the inclusion of all three actions—destruction, salvage, and donation—accurately reflects the comprehensive definition of disposition in records management.