Hello Friends,
Today I am posting about four main tasks that archivists engage in regularly; acquisition, appraisal, arranging, and describing.
Archives exist because the concept of record keeping for political administration has been around since the written record. Professor Lehmann in Western Civilization I teaches his students how records were kept on clay tablets in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. We know this because of archaeologists and as we move through history, records and record keeping evolve with the times.
The concept of record keeping in Europe is vastly different than that of the United States. In England for example, documents are kept in the archival regardless of the content- a policy established in the medieval period so that everything was located in a central place. The archivist simply collected and stored the documents- even if they were still "working" documents, a concept related to the idea that a working document is still a document with a functional use.
The National Archive was not established until the 1930s, meaning that there was potential for interpretation in how archivists in the United States thought about and maintained their archive. The thought of collecting all government related documents made some American archivists come up with other ways to collect archival material. In the early American system, not all documents are created equal. There is a hierarchy which often if considered. For example, The minutes for a production meeting at Disney is considered important, the receipt for the coffee and donuts are not.
This being said, not all archivists agreed with this thought so the collection plan is different for each archive. Depending on the institution, it may be necessary for an archivist to get donations for their archive. The use of social media can be helpful in this endeavor to get donors to "buy in' to the idea of housing important papers, books, and pictures in their archive. Once a collection- whole or in part- is decided to be accepted into an archive then the task of processing the collection is the next step.
The processing of a collection is detailed work. The archivist's job is to gather and record as much information possible on the contents so that is can be used in the future. This is particularly important if a donated collection has a time/person restriction placed on it by the donor. If for example a 20 year time restriction is placed on a collection then the archivist who was in charge/contact with the donor has the responsibility of recording as much information as possible for the person who will be processing it in 20 years time.
The actual processing of a collection of papers is important, and from what I have gathered is part of a semester worth of education- considering that it involves learning how to use the various library systems (I say various because each institution uses different programs).
The point, in my opinion of collecting documents and pictures in an archive (because I am still a historian after all) is the eventual use of these documents for historical analysis. To make the collections more accessible, knowing what is in the collection and where the collection is important for helping future patrons.
The first thing is to be respectful of the documents. Keeping an acquired collection together is important for the sake of provenance. The only thing that should be removed from a collection is photographs because the preservation of documents and the preservation of photographs are very different.
The more detailed the finding aides for a collection the easier it becomes to use a collection. These finding aides will be very different based off the patron demographics.
Here at the University of South Dakota's Special Collections and University Archives the primary patrons are often students and regional historians. Many SD state senators have their papers housed here at the library and the finding aides for a collection like that are often fairly straight forward (but not always! From what I have gathered, easy is the exception, not the rule).
As an example, Senator Peter Norbeck's papers are housed here in the Richardson Collection, which is a large portion of the archival space here at the university. He was very involved in the Mount Rushmore project- appointing groups of people to the committee in the state and keeping in contact with the US appropriations commission to gain and maintain funding for the project until completion. We have four boxes of documents pertaining to Mount Rushmore in the Norbeck collection. In those boxes are folders with many documents to go through. I was able to go to our finding aides and use those to figure out which folders I wanted to look through first, otherwise I would have had to look through every folder in every box to find what I was looking for.
The path of donated collections is interesting and complicated and I do not know, my dear friends if I explained some parts of this process well. This post is a combination of about 3 weeks worth of reading and conversation with the university archivist Lisa ( Hi Lisa!) who is my boss in this endeavor.
If you have question, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer them/ probably direct you to the resources that I have been reading.
Peace.
-Kylie
This being said, not all archivists agreed with this thought so the collection plan is different for each archive. Depending on the institution, it may be necessary for an archivist to get donations for their archive. The use of social media can be helpful in this endeavor to get donors to "buy in' to the idea of housing important papers, books, and pictures in their archive. Once a collection- whole or in part- is decided to be accepted into an archive then the task of processing the collection is the next step.
The processing of a collection is detailed work. The archivist's job is to gather and record as much information possible on the contents so that is can be used in the future. This is particularly important if a donated collection has a time/person restriction placed on it by the donor. If for example a 20 year time restriction is placed on a collection then the archivist who was in charge/contact with the donor has the responsibility of recording as much information as possible for the person who will be processing it in 20 years time.
The actual processing of a collection of papers is important, and from what I have gathered is part of a semester worth of education- considering that it involves learning how to use the various library systems (I say various because each institution uses different programs).
The point, in my opinion of collecting documents and pictures in an archive (because I am still a historian after all) is the eventual use of these documents for historical analysis. To make the collections more accessible, knowing what is in the collection and where the collection is important for helping future patrons.
The first thing is to be respectful of the documents. Keeping an acquired collection together is important for the sake of provenance. The only thing that should be removed from a collection is photographs because the preservation of documents and the preservation of photographs are very different.
The more detailed the finding aides for a collection the easier it becomes to use a collection. These finding aides will be very different based off the patron demographics.
Here at the University of South Dakota's Special Collections and University Archives the primary patrons are often students and regional historians. Many SD state senators have their papers housed here at the library and the finding aides for a collection like that are often fairly straight forward (but not always! From what I have gathered, easy is the exception, not the rule).
As an example, Senator Peter Norbeck's papers are housed here in the Richardson Collection, which is a large portion of the archival space here at the university. He was very involved in the Mount Rushmore project- appointing groups of people to the committee in the state and keeping in contact with the US appropriations commission to gain and maintain funding for the project until completion. We have four boxes of documents pertaining to Mount Rushmore in the Norbeck collection. In those boxes are folders with many documents to go through. I was able to go to our finding aides and use those to figure out which folders I wanted to look through first, otherwise I would have had to look through every folder in every box to find what I was looking for.
The path of donated collections is interesting and complicated and I do not know, my dear friends if I explained some parts of this process well. This post is a combination of about 3 weeks worth of reading and conversation with the university archivist Lisa ( Hi Lisa!) who is my boss in this endeavor.
If you have question, feel free to ask. I will do my best to answer them/ probably direct you to the resources that I have been reading.
Peace.
-Kylie
