Managing Conservation Easements in Perpetuity - Environmental ...

Document Management
Labeling Records
Another essential part of any records procedure is determining how your
land trust creates and labels its records. Your land trust’s naming and
numbering system should be used for all paper and electronic records,
as well as databases, so you can access all records systems consistently
and rapidly. If your land trust faithfully follows it naming and numbering
system, it can improve its stewardship efforts significantly.
Label your materials! It may seem obvious that a photograph is of
Samantha Yoder’s northwest field last summer, but it may not be obvious
to the stewardship director 100 years from now.If you find the field
paved over during a yearly monitoring visit, the best way to prove its
former condition is an authenticated photograph and written description.
From a legal defense viewpoint, accurate identification of records
and the data they contain is critical. Proper labeling will also save time
(and money). For example, labeling your backup electronic storage files
with the general contents and date will relieve you (or your successor)
of hours reading the contents of electronic storage files.
Many land trusts use databases to manage their stewardship obligations.
As the complexity of databases increases, so does the need to
clearly identify everything in the databases. A good naming convention
makes that task possible. Following the guidelines below will help
when naming documents, files and database tables:
• Keep names simple, but with enough information to distinguish
the file from others with the same or similar name.
• If you use the names of landowners, consider how you will
adapt the system when landownership changes. Is it important
that the file names and database reflect current ownership? Or
would you prefer the original landowner’s name to be the identifier
for that file forever?
• Think about how you use the files and refer to them in conversation,
and use those names.
• For databases, delete spaces in names.
• Eliminate symbols (for example, ♣ or ¥).
• Eliminate reserved keywords such as “date,”“text,”“time.”
• Use descriptive names.
• Capitalize the first letter of each word (compare the
Recordkeeping 51