Records Management Liaison (RML) Description

Records Management Liaisons (Active List as of Sept. 2025)

Duties:

• Under the direction of the Unit’s Financial Officer or Director of Business Services and with support from Unit leadership (Budget Executive, Department Head(s), and unit heads/directors/other administrators), serve as the steward for the management of Unit’s records.
  • The goal is that the RML is the conduit between the Unit and the University’s Office of Records Management. The RML is to share and communicate information about Records Management (RM) services, resources, issues, compliance with their team.

• In consultation with Unit leadership and depending on the size and scope of the Unit, divide Unit into sub-units (i.e.; departments, institutes, programs, offices, etc.). As needed, select an employee to serve as the Records Management Assistant (RMA) for each sub-unit.
  • This group of RMAs, led by the RML will be the Unit’s RM Team. Duties related to leading the Unit’s RM Team include coordinating regular meetings to discuss records management, providing guidance to Unit staff as needed, and identifying records compliance issues.

• With support from other RMAs, oversee the periodic review of University Records to ensure that the unit is following Records Retention Schedules and is in compliance with Policy AD35 to the best of their knowledge. Ensure that University Records are…
  • …organized to be easily searched in order to find specific documents.
  • …stored securely (only those that need to can access certain records).
  • ...not retained longer than they should be.
  • …disposed of appropriately (destroyed beyond recovery or transferred to University Archives).

• If located at University Park:
  • Maintain current knowledge of services and resources provided by the Inactive Records Center, such as secure records storage, transfer and retrieval of stored records, and secure destruction services.
  • Maintain familiarity with the services and resources provided by the Blue/White Shredding Program and LionSurplus for secure destruction of University Records stored in offices and on computers or external hard drives.

• If located at Commonwealth Campus:
  • Use secure records storage and destruction services approved by your Financial Officer/Director of Business Services.
  • Maintain familiarity with approved methods of secure destruction of University Records stored in offices, on computer systems, external hard drives, and in the cloud.

• As it relates to your Unit, maintain an understanding of the Penn State University Archives and its services, resources, and procedures. Be able to distinguish between University Records, which have a fixed retention period and Archival Records that have enduring historical value.

• In order to receive credit for taking on these additional tasks, RMA duties and responsibilities can be added to the employee’s Job Responsibilities Work (JRW).

• Additionally, training provided by the Office of Records Management can be found on the Learning Resource Network (LRN): https://lrn.psu.edu/ and Penn State Human Resources Talent Management Upcoming Programs. Completed trainings can be viewed as credit on the employee’s LRN transcript. 

Revision information:

August 7, 2025 - Updated RML page to show current list of assigned RML's throughout Penn State University and the Commonwealth campuses. Corrected grammatical errors.

August 29, 2024 - Updated RML page to show current list of assigned RML's throughout Penn State University and the Commonwealth campuses. Fixed broken links.

September 7, 2023 - Updated RML page to show current list of assigned RML's throughout Penn State University and the Commonwealth campuses.

December 10, 2019 – Updated RML appointment process which is now handled by the Financial Officer or Director of Business Services.

Replaced information about earning credit via You@PSU system with adding RML duties to JRW.  

November 11, 2015 – RML Description first created and published.