As I've probably mentioned before, I am aiming for working in archives and/or special collections after graduate school (fingers crossed). Since I have vocalized my interest in this at work (Brevard College), I was assigned the task of reorganizing our archives in the library. Most of the content is unique to Brevard College and its many transformations throughout the years such as the collection includes items like school beanies and pennants to the archival staple of minutes from the Board of Trustees. Here comes the fun part -- the system that was generated was one completely unique to our collection so there is no way to input it into another system. My job is to make it more compatible with the outside world so potentially in the future, we can have a finding aid online and patrons (most likely students and faculty) can request to see it and we'll be able to find it.
Here is the basic low down on archive arrangement and description -- there are many standards out there to pick from as well as twice as many archive management software systems. If I have learned anything in the past few months is that archives are a full time job. Since the collection has no formal description, we are starting from scratch with description. We have an arrangement scheme, most of the collection is divided by who donated the objects or a running series such as the registrars going back since the inception of Rutherford College (Brevard College is not the first institution on the campus, it has gone through three different names and ownership before becoming Brevard College in the 1930's). After much research from publications of the Society of American Archivists, it is the best to keep the items in their original order as well as how they were donated. I am an archive newbie so I figured I would be rearrange the documents and items themselves in accordance with the finding aid created by the last archivist but after my research immediately halted this assumption (no changes have been made to the collection). The organization made by the donor or original owner gives context that is invaluable to the description of the item. As a historian, one wants to collect as much information from one piece and then depending on how they are conducting research (from bottom-up or top-down) the context can be invaluable. If a person saves a correspondence, there has to be a reason. Think about all the documents and mail you have acquired over the years -- what do you save and what do you get rid of? You are creating a collection of your own and fifty years down the road, it may be invaluable to an archive. You may not think a little letter you received from a friend about news events or the weather or whatever may be precious to a historian somewhere down the line. How you store those letters (in an old shoe box) also is has value as somewhere in your organizational scheme, you put them together for some reason. In archives, that is VERY important to descriptions as the descriptions are the first step the user has in the finding aid. The user doesn't want to sift through millions of shoe boxes to find that one letter they need for their research and that is where the archivist is more liason between the patron and collection. Archivist, from my understanding, are more than the guardians of treasures from the past (great job description), but also the bridge between the present and the past and in some cases even the future. Arrangement and Description is step one to making an archive an integral part of a working institution (whether it be museum, library, historical society, etc) and can be very fun as you learn about each piece and helping place context for it.
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AuthorA public and academic librarian shares her views, thoughts, and tales of being a budding librarian in the 21st century Archives
November 2017
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