Sole archivists seminar April 2011

Arrangement and description

Session overview

What is arrangement and description and why do we do it?

Arrangement and description principles

Levels of control and processing

Finding aids

Schematic of archival operations

User communities Public, researchers, records creators

Records creators public agencies/private

organisations/ individuals

Organisational records and collections of personal papers

Records selection Collecting and acquisition policies

Appraisal

Accessioning

Active conservation Arrangement

Storage/ preservation Description

Use/ reference functions

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P O

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S I T

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What is arrangement and description?

‘A process of analysis, identification and organisation

Purposes of control, retrieval, and access A final product which illustrates archival

material, its provenancial and documentary context, its interrelationships and the ways it can be identified and used’ Luciana Duranti: Origin and Development of

the Concept of Archival Description, Archivaria, no. 35, Spring 1993, p. 48

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Why do we do it?

Control Context Access Retrieval

Principles of arrangement and description

Provenance Context Functions and activities of creator

Original order Original system of accumulation

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Levels of control

Accessioning Further processing

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Accessioning

What do you need to do to have basic physical and intellectual control over archives?

What information about the archives do you need for this basic control?

Managing the A&D programme

Determine policy on descriptive and processing standards and levels

Develop criteria for further processing of collections/accessions Between accessions Within accessions

Working with provenance

Researching context

Original order

Series Items

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Original order

Series: Those records or archives having the same

provenance which belong together because: They are part a discernible filing system

(alphabetical, numerical, chronological, or a combination of these)

They have been kept together because they result from the same activity

They are of similar formats and relate to a particular function

A series may consist of only one item. Keeping Archives, 2nd ed. p. 479

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Original order

Identifying series: Physical proximity Physical storage System of arrangement/classification Numbering/references Function Content Labelling/tags Successive/integrated dates Provenance Purpose of recordkeeping

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What is an item?

The smallest discrete unit of record material which accumulates to form a series (i.e. a file or part file in a series of files; a volume in a series of volumes)

Keeping Archives, 2nd ed. p.473

An individual record unit Describing Archives in Context: A Guide to Australasian

Practice, ASA Committee on Descriptive Standards, p.7

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Description – finding aids

Types of finding aids: Internal to archives institution

Mainly used for control and retrieval rather than access

Internal developed by archives institution for assistance of users

General guides to holdings At state/national/international level, contributed to

by institutions

Key points ALWAYS create an accession record Develop policies/criteria for deciding what to

process further Decide on your descriptive levels and your

primary finding aids before starting A&D processing

NEVER reorganise records