New Mexico Administrative Code
Title 1 - GENERAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Chapter 13 - PUBLIC RECORDS
Part 3 - MANAGEMENT OF ELECTRONIC RECORDS
Section 1.13.3.7 - DEFINITIONS

A. "Administrator" means the state records administrator (Section 14-3-2 NMSA 1978).

B. "Agency" means any state agency, department, bureau, board, commission, institution or other organization of the state government, including district courts. 14-3-2 and 14-3-15 NMSA 1978.

C. "Application" means a software program designed for end user to do work, such as word processing, accounting, or illustrating. Software programs such as wordperfect, excel, and pagemaker are examples of end user applications.

D. "Archives" means a place where public records or other historical documents are kept.

E. "Commission of public records" means the governing body of the state records center and archives.

F. "Computer" means an electronic device designed to accept data (input), perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed (processing), and supply the results of these operations (output). This includes, but is not limited to, mainframe computers, minicomputers, and microcomputers, personal computers, portable computers, pocket computers, tablet computers, telephones capable of storing information, PDAs, smart phones and other devices.

G. "Custodial agency" means the agency responsible for the maintenance, care, or keeping of public records, regardless of whether the records are in that agency's actual physical custody and control.

H. "Custodian" means the person (guardian) responsible for the maintenance, care, or keeping of a public body's records, regardless of whether the records are in that person's actual physical custody and control. The statutory head of the agency using or maintaining the records or their designee.

I. "Custody" means the guardianship or records, archives, and manuscripts, which may include both physical possession (protective responsibility) and legal title (legal responsibility).

J. "Data" is the plural for "datum" which means a single piece of information. Data refers to a collection of information, electronic or non-electronic. Data can also refer to raw facts, figures, or symbols.

K. "Database" means a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system. A database relies upon software to organize the storage of the data and to enable a person or program to extract desired information.

L. "Destruction" means the disposal of records of no further value by shredding, burial, incineration, pulping, electronic overwrite, or some other process, resulting in the obliteration of information contained on the record.

M. "Disposition" means the final action that puts into effect the results of an appraisal decision for a series of records; i.e., transfer to archives or destruction.

N. "Draft copies" means the working copies (rough versions) of documents prior to a draft final (conclusive document) being produced.

O. "Draft final" means the conclusive document produced.

P. "Electronic records" means records whose informational content has been encoded and recorded on a medium like magnetic tape, drums, discs, or punched paper tape and can be retrieved by finding aids known as software documentation. The encoded information is retrievable only with the help of a computer.

Q. "Filing" means the process of sequencing and sorting records to make them easy to retrieve when needed.

R. "General schedule" means records retention and disposition schedule that specifies the disposition of support records common to many offices or agencies within government

S. "Human readable form" means information that can be recognized and interpreted without the use of technology.

T. "Information" means data that has been transformed and made more valuable by processing.

U. "Information system" means an electronic framework by which hardware and software resources are coordinated to manipulate and convert inputs into outputs in order to achieve the objective of an enterprise.

V. "Information system database" means a subset of logically arranged data stored on media accessible by the computer.

W. "Life cycle" means the life span of a record from its creation or receipt to its final disposition.

X. "Medium, media" means the physical material on which information can be recorded.

Y. "Microforms" means microfilm media, including reels, fiche, jackets, and computer output microfilm (COM) containing micro images.

Z. "Non-records or non-essential records" means records listed on a records retention schedule for routine destruction, the loss of which presents no obstacle to restoring daily business. The following specific types of materials are non-records: extra copies of correspondence documents preserved only for convenience of reference blank forms or books which are outdated materials neither made nor received in pursuance of statutory requirements nor in connection with the functional responsibility of the office or agency preliminary and non-final drafts of letters, reports, and memoranda which may contain or reflect the working or deliberative process by which a final decision or position of the agency, board, department, or subdivision thereof is reached shorthand notes, stenographic tapes, mechanical recordings which have been transcribed, except where noted on agency retention schedules routing and other interdepartmental forms which are not significant evidence of the activity concerned and do not otherwise have value as described above stocks of publications already sent to archives and processed documents preserved for supply purposes only form and guide letters, sample letters, form paragraphs subject files, including copies of correspondence, memoranda, publications, reports, and other information received by agency and filed by subject (also referred to as reading files or information files).

AA. "Operating system" means the master control software that runs a computer. When the computer is turned on, the operating system is the first program that gets loaded into the memory of the machine.

BB. "Permanent records" means records considered being unique or so valuable in documenting the history or business or an organization that they are preserved in an archives.

CC. "Permanent archival records" means records identified in either general records retention and disposition schedule or a program records retention and disposition schedule possessing a retention requirement of transfer to the SRCA.

DD. "Personal digital assistant" means a handheld device that combines computing, telephone, fax, and networking features. PDAs are also called palmtops, hand-held computers and pocket computers. A PDA is a small computer that literally fits in your palm. Palmtops that use a pen rather than a keyboard for input are often called hand-held computers or PDAs. Because of their small size, most palmtop computers do not include disk drives. However, many contain slots in which you can insert disk drives, modems, memory, and other devices. Palmtops are also called PDAs, hand-held computers and pocket computers.

EE. "Program" means a coded set of instructions, written by humans, that directs a computer's functions. The program can be stored on disk (in which case the program is software) or in a chip (which is firmware).

FF. "Public records" means all books, papers, maps, photographs, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by any agency in pursuance of law or in connection with the transaction of public business, preserved or appropriate for preservation, by the agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations or other activities or the government, or because of the informational and historical value of data contained therein (14-3-2 NMSA 1978).

GG. "Records" means information preserved by any technique in any medium now known, or later developed, that can be recognized by ordinary human sensory capabilities either directly or with the aid of technology (1.13.70 NMAC).

HH. "Records center" means a facility designed and constructed to provide low-cost, efficient storage and reference service on records that have become inactive but have not reached their disposition date. The state records center, as defined by 14-3-2(E), NMSA 1978, is the "...central records depository which is the principal state facility for the storage, disposal, allocation or use of non-current records of agencies, or materials obtained from other sources."

II. "Records custodian" means the statutory head of the agency or their designee.

JJ. "Records liaison officer" means the individual in the custodial agency designated by the records custodian to cooperate with, assist, and advise the state records administrator in the performance of the administrator's duties (14-3-4, NMSA 1978). The records liaison officer in an agency is responsible for implementing the records retention and disposition schedules within their agency. The records liaison officer is also responsible for authorizing the storage and or destruction of their agency's records.

KK. "Records retention and disposition schedules" means rules adopted by the commission pursuant to Section 14-3-6 NMSA 1978 describing records of an agency, establishing a timetable for their life cycle and providing authorization for their disposition.

LL. "Records series" means file units, documents, or electronic records arranged according to a filing system or maintained as a unit because they relate to a particular subject or function, result from the same activity, have a particular form, or share some other relationship arising from their creation, receipt, or use.

MM. "Recycle bin" means an icon on a microsoft windows based operating system desktop that represents a directory where deleted files are temporarily stored. This enables and user to retrieve files that you may have accidentally deleted or delete the files permanently.

NN. "Scheduling" means the action of establishing retention periods for records and providing for their proper disposition at the end of active use.

OO. "Smart phones" means a phone that uses an identifiable operating system, often with the ability to add applications (e.g. for enhanced data processing, internet connectivity or electronic message).

PP. "Software" means the set of instructions for a computer to carry out a specified procedure.

QQ. "System" means an integrated framework that has one or more objectives and coordinates the resources needed to convert inputs to outputs. The word system often is used in a generic sense in referring to a computer setup--what type of computer and cpu operating system, how much hard disk space, how much memory, or what software package and peripherals are used.

RR. "Transfer" means moving inactive records to a records center or archives. Moving records into the SRCA also includes the transfer of custody from the custodial agency to the SRCA.

SS. "TIFF" means tagged image file format, a standardized format for storage of digitalized images, which contains a header or tag that defines the exact data structure of the associated image.

TT. "USB flash drives" means a small, portable flash memory card that plugs into a computer's USB port and functions as a portable hard drive. USB flash drives are small and can plug into any computer with a USB drive.

UU. "Vital records" means records essential to the continuing operation of an agency. They are either intrinsically irreplaceable or irreplaceable because copies do not have the same value as the originals. They are essential to the continuity of services during a disaster or to the restoration of daily business when it has been interrupted. They are the records that would be required to protect the legal and financial interests of an agency, preserve the rights of the people, and resume operations after a major disaster like fire or flood.

VV. "Voice mail" means a telecommunication message that is digitized and can be stored and subsequently retrieved in audio or visual format.

WW. "Working copies" means the rough versions of documents prior to a conclusive document produced.