Precursor Records are best described as?

• A. Not Public Records and can be thought of as drafts or notes preceding the final record.
• B. Public Records created as the final product.
• C. Machine-readable files that are not records.
• D. Working papers that are always public.

Answer: (A)

Precursor records are the drafts and notes created during the development of a final record. They exist to capture the thinking, data, and deliberations that lead to the finished document, but they are not the completed record itself and are typically not public records in their own right. That’s why describing precursor records as drafts or notes preceding the final record and not public is the best fit. The final product is the official public record, so calling precursor records the final product would be inaccurate. Descriptions like machine-readable files that are not records don’t convey the draft, process-oriented nature of precursors, and working papers aren’t guaranteed to be public—access depends on policy, not a rule that they are always public.