INFO560INTRO TO ARCHIVES I – Fall 2012Final Exam

Sarah KazmierczakThis is a take-home examination. Your answers are due by 10 p.m. Tuesday, December 11(EasternTime). Grades will be noted in Blackboard, but you will not receive comments from me. If you want to learn more about your exam grade, contact me.

You are expected to answer the following questions using materials covered in class, including lectures, assigned readings, assignment-related work, and Blackboard discussions. Please do not do extra research. Cite assigned readings as appropriate, but full citations are not necessary. You are on your honor not to collaborate with classmates on these questions. DO NOT FORGET TO SUBMIT THE ACADEMIC HONESTY STATEMENT WITH YOUR EXAM!I certify that my work in this course will be entirely my own work. I will not quote the words of any other person from a printed source or a website without indicating what has been quoted and providing an appropriate citation. I will not submit my work in this course to satisfy the requirements of any other course.

Name: Sarah KazmierczakDate: 12/10/2012

I. Define and discuss the significance, use, and historical development of each of the following for archival administration. Each answer should be no more than 250 words, double-spaced. (10% each x 4 = 40%)

A. Provenance

Provenance is the principle that defines organizing their collections, and is

based on the insight that the person or organization producing the records

determines their content (O’Toole, Cox, 102). If the archivist follows this

and lets the person/organization that created the records serve as the

organizational standard, then it’s easier to let the records fall into a more

natural grouping than imposing a standard on them (O’Toole, Cox, 103).

Basically, what it means is that an archivist should look at who created the

records and why, and group them based on that knowledge instead of

organizing them in a way that doesn’t fit their original creation. Connected

to this is the idea of original order, which is that records should be kept in

the order that they were created (O’Toole, Cox, 103). These ideas are

significant because as Cox and O’Toole state on page 104, they form the

basis of how an archivist looks at records and establishes the context that

an archivist works from. Provenance is also important because it helps

keep the records authentic (Pugh, 78). If the records stay in the order that

they were written, than it can be reasonably assumed that nothing has

been done to alter them or destroy their value. But if they’ve been mixed

up to fit someone’s idea of order, than it’s harder to trust them. Every

archivist and administration needs to know this. This probably developed

when an early record keeper noticed the records made more sense this

way.

B. Intrinsic value

Intrinsic value is the value that records have as artifacts, symbols, and

links to the past (Pugh, 35). They don’t have to be nationally important

items either, but anything that has value to the people who created them,

such as wedding photographs to a married couple. I would hazard a guess

to say that records and items having intrinsic value is the entire basis for

the archival profession, since if we don’t perceive things as having value,

why would we try to preserve and store them? Provenance may guide how

we process these records, but intrinsic value determines what the records

are in the first place. The first archives likely began when someone

decided that something had intrinsic value, and put it in a safe place to be

preserved. Archives aren’t just about records either, they can also be

storehouses for artifacts, and a good archivist and their administration

needs to know and understand why and how each record and artifact,

down to the smallest earring or sale bill has intrinsic value. It reminds me

of my trip to the McHenry County Historical Society and I saw their

museum and object room. All of those items had value to their creators,

and as archivists we acknowledge that value every day we work to

preserve and share them.

C. Descriptive standards

Descriptive Standards was described as being part of Descriptive Systems

in Pugh, and it refers to the formats for exchanging information, describing

archives and manuscripts and authority control over indexing terms (Pugh,

90). Not every standard is widespread however, and many repositories

have standards that only apply to them (Pugh, 90). Admittedly, the idea of

imposed descriptive standards can conflict with Provenance, in that

Provenance keep records in the original order, but some standards can

make organizing and locating records easier. Archivists and their

administrations need at least some standards in place in order to function

cooperatively. It’s interesting that the first national standard wasn’t

developed until the 1980’s, and that was the MARC record (Pugh, 91). I

became thoroughly familiar with the MARC record over the summer for

another class, which required us to create full MARC records both for

books provided through the course and books in our own possession.

This gave me a great appreciation for the MARC system, and I think that it’s

an excellent way of classifying and cataloging documents, but I don’t think

that it works for objects. As such other kinds of finding aids are

necessary. In any case, they are significant because they can provide

order out of chaos, and useful not only to archivists, but to patrons looking

for information.

D. Record

A record is any item or document that can be preserved and archived.

Pugh on page 11 describes records as documents created or kept during

the course of practical activity. Records form the basis for everything that

we do. A record is a window into the past, into the life of someone else and

a completely different time and place. Without records of any kind there is

no reason for archivists to exist and therefore their significance is

incredible. How they are used depends entirely on their content and

purpose, every record is unique. Their historical development can be

traced back to the first document ever created. When I think of records I

generally think of something that is printed, but I’ve learned that archivists

keep track of more than just documents, and now records are no longer

exclusively written. Today we have electronic records, which require

different standards and different ideas on how to manage and preserve

them, and the definition of record is changing to accommodate these new

kinds of records. Electronic records have the benefit of being easier to

access, but it’s also much harder to keep them in one location, since unlike

written records electronic records can be accessed anywhere, which

makes it harder for archivists and their administrations to continue to

justify their existence.

Write a essay, doubled-spaced, maximum 750 words, on each of the following questions (30% each x 2 = 60%).

II. You have been hired by Buckingham College as their first archivist.  The College has never had a formal archives program, although materials have been amassed by various departments over the institution’s 150-year history.  Furthermore, Buckingham College is located in Buckingham, New Hampshire. The college is seen as a major focal point of this small community of small business owners, farmers, and members of the College.  A successful fundraising campaign has resulted in a state-of-the-art climate-controlled vault large enough to encompass what will likely become the Buckingham College Archives’ first collections, while still allowing for growth.  Therefore, your first order of business is to draft a collection development policy.  What would you consider collecting?  What might be outside the scope of the Archives?  Please elaborate on the rationale for your decisions and the steps you would take to arrive at these decisions.

The first order of business that I would attend to as archivist would be to

gather all of the materials that the college had collected over the years into

one place and analyze their contents. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have a better

understanding of what the college and the community considers important,

and I’ll be able to base future decisions on that knowledge. Based on the

community, I would seek to gather materials that would be of interest to

them, so I would gather materials related to the history of the community,

farming and small business needs. Some history from the state itself

would help put things into perspective. From our lecture notes for week 3,

I know that any collection policy should be based on the needs of the

institution, the types of programs sponsored and whatever the priorities

are (Slide 6, 2012). Therefore my policy would be based around the

college’s needs, and I would collect materials to enhance the college’s

focus and mission. I don’t need to plan for the space for my holdings,

since it has already been provided, but I do need to factor in that I will likely

only have that one space to work from (O’Toole, Cox, 116). Slide 6 also

mentions that a policy can’t be set in stone, so any policy that I make will

have to allow for change as needed. Now, since I only have to one location

to work from, I need to institute some kind of deaccesioning policy in order

to handle this. I already have an example in the current situation of the

McHenry County Historical Society, and how they are currently

deaccesioning some of their collections in order to make room, so like

them I would search through what I already have and eliminate duplicates

of items unless I had a reason to have more than one copy of something.

So as far as the scope of the collections, I would exclude everything that

didn’t involve the college and the community it serves unless it was

something general that could enhance the collections (again, taking my

lead from the McHenry County Historical Society). I might even exclude

farm and small business related materials that I felt didn’t match the needs

of the community or college. Even though this is a college archive,

because it is such a focal point for the community I would include materials

from the community, which would make them feel more involved with both

the archives and the college itself. To aid with this process, I think that I

might hire volunteers from within the college to help me sort through all of

the materials gathered by the departments to see what stays and what

goes, because not everything that the college gathered over the years

might be worth keeping. Once I’ve finished with the housecleaning, I would

put out an announcement to the community to donate their materials to the

new archive, and I would sort everything depending on what it was and

when it was from. If voluntarily donating to the archives doesn’t get any

response, I would offer some kind of compensation to encourage

donations. I want this archives to serve everyone in the community,

especially after they worked so hard to raise the money to buy a climate

controlled vault, that’s why I want to collect from the whole community, not

just the college. I mean, the college is so important to the community, but

the college is also part of the community, so it wouldn’t be fair to exclude

their history from the archives. The collections relating to the college will

be the central focus, but the community will have the secondary place.

III. Discuss how the concept of access has changed within the archival profession in the last 30 years.  While your response is likely to focus on the effect of technology, consider also other societal and research factors in your answer. 

The first thing that springs to mind when I think about the societal changes

within the archival profession is one that took place within the library

profession as a whole. I remember reading (but I don’t quite remember

where) how during the cold war and even earlier collections and libraries

were strictly controlled to keep any content that the regime didn’t agree

with or thought was unpatriotic out of the hands of the public. If we are

talking about the last 30 years however, I think of one of the articles that I

did for my literature review, “Automated Information Management: Is There

a Role for the Archivist in the Office of the Future?” It isn’t so much the

technological factors in the article that get to me, but the attitude towards

the public that the author displays that shows how much has changed.

From the article: In my view it does not matter if the general public

"understands" what an archivist does and the importance of this mission

to society as a whole. Our work is too inti-mately concerned with matters of

research to be appreciated by the "man on the street." Quite frankly, I

doubt that we will ever achieve a sufficient level of comprehension about

archives and the responsibilities of archivists among the general public to

do the profession much good. Indeed, consider, if you will, the ignorance

of archival practices demonstrated by even those scholars who frequent

our repositories on a regular basis. Furthermore, the public's perceptions,

no matter how sympathetic, will not influence our prosperity or even our

survival.” (Kesner, 1984, 164). If this is the attitude that archivists had

towards the general public 30 years ago, it’s no wonder that we have to

justify ourselves today, people think we’re elitist! We’ve changed since

then; access is not limited to scholars only anymore. During the last 30

years, the internet has radically changed how information is accessed as

well as who access it. One of the articles we read for week 8, New Skills for

a Digital Era had a quote that made a particularly nice point about access.

The quote was “Working with patrons may be radically different in the

digital era. No doubt many patrons will continue to visit libraries and

archives to conduct research in person. Others will contact a librarian or

archivist for assistance, either through e-mail or an interactive chat service.

But many patrons will find and retrieve materials on their own without ever

communicating with an information professional”. Archivists no longer

have sole control over access to records and other kinds of information

that previously could only be found in a repository. Slide 8 from the lecture

notes for week 8 enhance this point with the statement about how

researchers now expect instant or near instant results and how archivists

are no longer required to obtain information in many cases (Slide 8, 2012).

It leaves us with the question, how do we compete with the easy access of

the internet for information? How do we justify our jobs now?

I referenced my visit to the repository, an article from my Lit review which I

will list below, and Lecture Notes, book pages and readings when

appropriate. All are cited in text.

Kesner, Richard M. (1984). Automated Information Management: Is There

a Role for the Archivist in the Office of the Future? Archivaria Vol 19, 162-

172.

Davis, Susan E. and Pearce-Moses, Richard. (2006). New Skills for a Digital

Era.