The Kentucky State University Model Records Retention Schedule is a legally mandated appraisal tool created and maintained by the State Archives and Records Commission for university records that are acquired by or transferred to the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at the University of Kentucky (UK). This is because UK (in Lexington, KY) is considered a public institution, a body created and funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In Kentucky law, a public record is any item prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained by a public agency; thus, any record created, used, and/or in UK’s possession is a public record. Based on the KRS definition of a public record, those documents created, acquired, and accumulated by UK faculty in the course of their professional and scholarly life would be considered public records, subject to appraisal for destruction or permanent retention according to the state-wide model university records schedule. However, faculty may be creating and using both similar and different types of records and for different periods of time than the records series and retention periods outlined in the model records schedule. As a method for deciding what documents to retain in a particular faculty person’s papers and for deciding which collections to accept, there are ways in which the model schedule as the only appraisal tool may be limiting.