The Preservation of Business Records: Why Business Records Should Be Preserved

Every business concern has to use records of many types. They are expensive to prepare, they soon lose their current value, and they tend to accumulate in large masses. Modern business destroys great quantities of records and correspondence every day because storage often seems expensive and unnecessary and because the future reference value of such material is not appreciated. It is neither possible nor desirable to keep all business records indefinitely. A business concern has more important things to do, and must avoid unnecessary expense. But selected material should be permanently preserved by individual firms because the historical information which it contains is of definite educational value (1) to the firms themselves, (2) to historians who are trying to study important aspects of human experience, and (3) to the general public which is served by business and which ultimately governs the conduct of business.