MCC Daily Tribune
For The Record: Rubber Bands are Bad for Records (Long Term)
In case you haven’t heard, the Record Management Office has now been officially moved under the Internal Audit Office. This article, the first of a monthly series called For The Record, will provide helpful tips, tricks, and information regarding records management. Please reach out to the Records Management department with your records related questions. We are here and happy to help.
It's a tale as old as time: you're a records manager or records owner searching for some old records. You pop off the worn lid of an ancient box and begin thumbing through the contents. Like an archeologist, you dig up the records you are looking for, but, to your horror, discover they are damaged. The culprit: a rubber band. You attempt to remove the decaying rubber band, but in doing so, you also remove part of the record itself. The record you thought was safe and perfectly preserved is now missing a chunk, destroying important information. This all could have been avoided if a rubber band hadn't been used to hold the records together.
The National Archives states on their website:
“Rubber bands deteriorate over time, becoming so hard and brittle that they break apart and no longer serve their function. Pieces of brittle rubber can become adhered to a record, and loose pieces can abrade surfaces.”
In lieu of Rubber bands, place records that belong together in folders. If there is more than one folder, group them together and create a record series. Note the record series in an inventory list, and keep a hard copy of the inventory list in the box of records. Also, keep a digital copy of the inventory list.
When a record series needs to be retrieved, you can reference your digital inventory list to determine which box it is in and then use the inventory list inside the box to quickly locate it. Once you've found the record series, double check you've pulled all of it, sometimes a folder can get overlooked or filed incorrectly. When you're finished with the record series, refill it according to the inventory list.
Rubber bands can be useful and harmless when used for short periods of time. However, when records go into inactive or archival storage, rubber bands can wreak havoc. Over time, the rubber band will decay, and with decay comes damage.
This has been, For The Record.
Glenn Tolle
Record Management
05/28/2026