North Carolina Yearly Meeting Archives
Guidelines for Quarterly Meetings

Quarterly meetings are advised to carefully keep their records and deposit them on a regular basis in the Friends Historical Collection for future preservation. Meeting records establish legal and financial documentation and provide source material for meeting, personal, and social histories. The Friends Historical Collection Librarian works with North Carolina Yearly Meeting’s Committee on the Care of Yearly Meeting Records to insure continued maintenance of the yearly meeting archives and to encourage constituent meetings to deposit their minutes and records in a timely manner.

Permanent records that should be deposited in the Friends Historical Collection include:

• Quarterly Meeting Minutes
• Quarterly Meeting Ministry and Counsel Minutes

Other permanent records that a meeting should preserve and may consider depositing in the Friends Historical Collection as space allows include:

• Committee minutes
• Financial papers
• Important correspondence
• Materials documenting special projects

It is recommended that meetings keep a photocopy set or extra printout of recent records at the meeting for reference use. Friends Historical Collection staff can assist meetings with photocopy requests.

At this time, permanent records are required to be on paper prior to deposit in the Friends Historical Collection. Electronic records, including files on disks, cannot be maintained permanently. Meetings are encouraged to print copies of minutes and records of permanent value regularly since computer files are sometimes lost through technological difficulties.

Ideally, minutes should be kept on non-acidic buffered paper. The Friends Historical Collection staff can assist meetings in acquiring suitable paper. However, the Friends Historical Collection will accept printed minutes on any type of paper. Care should be taken to use permanent inks. Some inkjet printers use inks that fade rapidly and ballpoint pens are not recommended.

Meetings should take care that minutes and other permanent documents are prepared in a way that will not damage the records in the future. Therefore, scotch tape and other adhesive products are discouraged since the adhesives deteriorate the paper rapidly. Metal paper clips and staples rust over time so items should only be clipped together temporarily and staples avoided. Items such as photographs and clippings should be separated from permanent records. Newspaper clippings deteriorate very quickly so it is recommended that they be photocopied onto acid free paper and the original discarded.

Materials deposited in the Friends Historical Collection are placed in archival folders and boxes. Therefore, meetings are discouraged from purchasing new folders or notebooks prior to deposit. Records are best deposited in organized folders or neatly stacked in chronological order.

Meetings should deposit records on a regular basis but the specific schedule varies according to the type of record and the status of the meeting. More frequent deposits are encouraged to reduce risk of record misplacement or deterioration. Suggested schedules include: annually, every five years, whenever there is a change in the clerk responsible for the records, or when a meeting record book is filled. Any written meeting histories should be deposited when they are produced.

Records may be delivered in person or sent by delivery service to the Friends Historical Collection at Guilford College. It is recommended that items shipped be sent by registered mail or another system that allows for tracking. Deliveries in person should be made during regular business hours and advance contact is recommended to insure that someone will be available to receive them. The Archives Assistant will send a letter of acknowledgement to the monthly meeting clerk when the records are received.

Meeting records are periodically microfilmed by an outside vendor under the supervision of the Friends Historical Collection staff. Initial microfilming costs are covered by Committee on the Care of Yearly Meeting Records funds.

Approved 11/26/2002