Guidelines for effective storage and maintenance of active records at the Uganda Law Society (ULS) Records Center Kampala (main branch)

Abstract

This research project aimed at examining guidelines for creating effective storage and maintenance of active records at the ULS records/resource center. The purpose of the study was to come up with guidelines for the storage and maintenance of active record materials at the ULS records/resource center. The objectives of the study were to: Find out the nature of records in the ULS Records/resource center, Find out the existing storage and maintenance system, Find out the activities involved in the storage and maintenance of records/information materials, Find out the existing storage and maintenance equipments, Find out challenges being faced by the ULS during the process of storage and maintenance of records, Make guidelines for effective storage and maintenance of active records in the ULS records center. The qualitative research design was adopted to gather and analyze the relevant data. The methods used were interviews and observation guide. The researcher based on research questions to collect data from respondents where the records manager who was purposively sampled was interviewed and law students who were conveniently sampled were given questionnaires to fill. The major findings indicated that there were measures being put in place to store and maintain active records materials at the ULS resource center through the use of records maintenance methods like Binding, shelving, lamination, Digitization and photocopying. There were also a number of challenges faced during the storage and maintenance of active records materials at the ULS records/resource center like inadequate funding and so on. The study clearly showed the need for a well-designed storage and maintenance program that should be embedded in the curriculum, evaluated and accessed to check its progress. The records manager should play a leading role in the design and operation of the program but with collaboration of administrators, faculty, legal professionals and law students. This research project provided a point of view on storage and maintenance of active records reflecting the opinions of the researcher, respondents and reviewed literature of insights on related to the storage and maintenance of active records basing on the objectives of the study.