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Does anyone know what to do with recommend books that have been used up? We have three of them sitting in our clerk's office. Do we keep these for our own records? Do we discard them? Do we keep them in a safe place for a certain amount of time then discard them?

Any insights would be useful.

JLar wrote:Does anyone know what to do with recommend books that have been used up? We have three of them sitting in our clerk's office. Do we keep these for our own records? Do we discard them? Do we keep them in a safe place for a certain amount of time then discard them?

Any insights would be useful.

Our own ward policy has been to keep them until the recommend copies are past their expiration date (two years), then they get shredded. I'm not aware of any specific policy, that's just what we have done.

JLar wrote:Does anyone know what to do with recommend books that have been used up? We have three of them sitting in our clerk's office. Do we keep these for our own records? Do we discard them? Do we keep them in a safe place for a certain amount of time then discard them?

JLar's reply is also official policy. Keep them until the oldest recommend issued from the book has expired (2 years for books 1&2, 1 year for book 3). However, the only time I remember hearing this policy was when we switched to the bar-coded recommends. We were specifically instructed to hold onto the old books for 2 years and then to destroy them.

That seems like a good common sense answer to me. thanks!

As a suggestion:

I fold the back cover extension (the part that normally is used to cover the unused recommends when writing them) to the front of the book.

Then, I write on that cover: "Destroy after MMM, YYYY" and put the books in a file in our filing cabinet, in order with the oldest in front.

That way it is easy to periodically check the front book in the file and know if it needs to be shredded.