Organizing Archival Records: A Practical Method of Arrangement and Description for Small Archives [2 ed.] 0759104395, 0759104409

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A Practical. Method of Arrangement & Description for Small Archives

Second Edition

David W. Carmicheal

Organizing Archival Records Second Edition

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR STATE AND LOCAL HISTORY BOOK SERIES

SERIES EDITOR Beth Luey Arizona State University EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD J. D. Britton, Ohio Historical Society David Donath, Woodstock Foundation, Inc. D. Stephen Elliott, Council for America's First Freedom Max J. Evans, Washington, D.C. Cynthia Koch, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library-Museum Tom Mason, Indiana Historical Society Karla Nicholson, Kentucky Historical Society Lynne Poirier-Wilson, Asheville Art Museum & Independent Consultant Karen Regina, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center John Schleicher, McGoogan Library of Medicine Marjorie Schwarzer, Museum Studies, John F. Kennedy University James Vaughan, National Trust for Historic Preservation

ABOUT THE SERIES The American Association for State and Local History Book Series publishes technical and professional information for those who practice and support history, and addresses issues critical to the field of state and local history. To submit a proposal or manuscript to the series, please request proposal guidelines from AASLH headquarters: AASLH Book Series, 1717 Church St., Nashville, Tennessee 37203. Telephone: (615) 320-3203. Fax: (615) 327-9013. Web site: www.aaslh.org. ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to advancing knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of local history in the United States and Canada. In addition to sponsorship of this book series, the Association publishes the periodical History News, a newsletter, technical leaflets and reports, and other materials; confers prizes and awards in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field; and supports a broad education program and other activities designed to help members work more effectively. To join the organization, contact: Membership Director, AASLH, 1717 Church St., Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

Organizing Archival Records A Practical Method of Arrangement and Description for Small Archives

Second Edition DAVID W. CARMICHEAL

(;~) ALT,A/v'\IRA PRESS

A Division of

ROWMAN & LITTLEF I ELD PUBLISHERS, INC . Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

AL TAMIRA PRESS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 450 l Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 www.altamirapress.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright© 2004 by AltaMira Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carmicheal, David W. Organizing archival records: a practical method of arrangement and description for small archives I David W. Carmicheal.-2nd ed. p. cm.-(American Association for State and Local History book series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7591-0439-5 (cloth: alk. paper)-ISBN 0-7591-0440-9 (paper: alk. paper) 1. Archives-Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Cataloging of archival material-Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. II. Series. CD950.C37 2004 025.17' 14-dc21

2003013033

Printed in the United States of America

(§™The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.

~Contents~

Preface

Vll

Acknowledgments

lX

Introduction

Xl

1.

Purpose of Organization

1

2.

Levels of Organization

5

3.

Steps of Organization

19

47

Conclusion Appendix A:

Examples

49

Appendix B: Exercises and Answers

63

Bibliography

81

Index

83

About the Author

85

V

~ Preface ~

A significant portion of our nation's documentary heritage resides in small historical societies, libraries, cultural organizations, houses of worship, and museums. The preservation of this heritage depends on the dedicated efforts of people who, in their workaday world, practice some profession other than archivist. In my career I have encountered many such people-librarians, schoolteachers, police officers, engineers, even a director of television soap operas-and have been impressed by their intelligence, zeal, and dedication to the cause of archives. These people, often volunteers, seldom have the in-depth training now available to professional archivists. A few of my colleagues (thankfully, very few) have argued that such individuals cannot learn techniques that traditionally are acquired through years of study. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," they say, and, rather than encourage these practitioners to do work for which they do not have extensive training, they believe we should encourage the transfer of historical documents to repositories better able to care for them. I do not agree. It is true that it often makes sense to transfer historical documents to an established repository-a university archives, for instance, is certainly preferable to a dilapidated courthouse attic-and it is true that, in their zeal, amateur practitioners sometimes make mistakes. But mistakes are not the purview of volunteers alone. I have rarely met a professional archivist who does not admit to one or two mistakes along the way. The fact remains that for the first two centuries of our nation's history, all who cared for historical documents were "amateurs" by today's definition. Yet, to these people we owe the survival of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and millions of lesser-known but equally cherished documents. To them we owe the entire memory of our nation. If we are to unlock the treasures that lie buried within the collections of local historical societies, public library history rooms, and countless other repositories, we must provide tools that can be applied by people who will never receive graduate degrees in archival education. To ignore this group is to write off as lost the majority of our country's historical records. There will always be a place for the professionally trained archivist, but that does not preclude our need to recognize the contributions of non-professionals and assist them with better tools. This book is an attempt to rectify part of that gap in the professional literature. vu

Vlll

PREFACE

Since this book was first published in 1993, at least two books have been written for this audience by colleagues whom I admire greatly. Greg Hunter's Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives and Elizabeth Yakel's Starting an Archives are excellent books that cover the entire spectrum of archival knowledge. This book limits itself to the function that, in my experience, most confuses the non-professional: how to arrange and describe archival materials. Since the publication of the first edition, I have seen examples of work done by people who purchased the book and I believe that they compare favorably with much descriptive work done by my professional colleagues (or myself!). Some are included among the examples in this book. If you are a non-professional practitioner, this book is dedicated to you. Without your efforts, our nation's breadth and depth of memory would be significantly poorer. Thank you for your dedication to the cause of preserving our documentary heritage.

~

Acknowledgments

~

Much has changed since the first edition of this book was published. First, computers, which at the time were still found mainly in larger repositories, have become ubiquitous. This edition includes advice about how computers can be used to assist the process of arrangement and description. Second, the first edition has now been put into practice in many repositories, and I have benefited from the comments of those who have used it. In that regard, I want to thank Elaine Massena, the archivist of the city of White Plains, New York, for her comments and for the use of several examples used in this revision. I am grateful, too, to the Troup County ( GA) Archives, the Dallas Municipal Archives, and the Fort Worth (TX) Public Library for permission to include their descriptions among the examples. The revised edition has a new publisher, and I thank the original publisher, Diane Reed, of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, for believing that the book deserved a wider audience. She, and Susan Walters of AltaMira Press, worked persistently to see this new revision developed. I thank them both. In addition, Kathleen Roe, of the New York State Archives, reviewed the manuscript and offered many helpful comments. More importantly, Kathleen has been an encouragement to me-and to countless other archivists-during my years in this profession. I am happy to be able to thank her publicly in these acknowledgments. Finally, my greatest debt is, as always, to my wife. Unlike many wives one reads about in acknowledgments, Yvonne did not labor at the typewriter deciphering the barely readable handwriting of her husband's manuscript, but her imprint is here nonetheless. I thank her for being a great inspiration every day.

ix

~

Introduction

~

This manual is designed for the person who has little or no formal training in archival work but who is responsible for the care of historical records. You may work in a historical society, religious institution, school or library, or municipal government; you may be a volunteer or a paid employee to whom the care of historical records has been assigned as an adjunct duty. You may be doing this job out of zeal for the cause of history or simply because your boss has thrown it in your lap. Whatever your situation, this manual is intended to make your job a little easier. This manual will show you one way to arrange and describe the documents in your care. It begins by telling you a little of the theory behind archival arrangement and description, then it describes a simple step-by-step method to arrange and describe archival records and historical manuscripts. Readers should not think that the method shown here is the only way to arrange and describe historical records. It is one way that has proven practical. The steps described here are not suited to every imaginable situation you may encounter, but they were worked out over several years in consultation with local historians, town clerks, and librarians, and they are applicable to the majority of records encountered in their collections. The best way to use this manual is to read all the way through it and do the written exercises. It is important that you complete each exercise because the answers often contain new information that could not be conveniently included in the main text. Once you have finished your first reading, select a collection of records from your own archives and follow the step-by-step instructions found in Chapter 3 until you have arranged and described that one collection. After that, repeat the steps in Chapter 3 for each of your collections.

xi

■ ~

Purpose of Organization

~

The main purpose of arrangement and description is to get from a researcher's question to the answer that may be found in your records. The question may be as simple as "Who was the first mayor of our town?" or as complex as "How did the people of our town live in the early nineteenth century?" But in each case, how you arrange and describe your materials will determine whether, and how quickly, you will be able to assist the researcher. You have probably used a library on many occasions. Perhaps with the help of a reference librarian you found the answer to a question simply by locating an appropriate book, glancing at the index, and turning to the proper page. Researchers often expect the same ease of reference in archives-and archivists sometimes wear themselves out trying to provide it. But archival materials differ from library materials in several important ways that affect how they are arranged and described. Intent of Creation. Books are created to be read. The author of a book about town government hopes that people will read the book and learn more about that subject, so the needs of the reader are always present in the mind of the author. The people who create archival materials do not have in mind the researchers who will eventually use them. Archival records are, in fact, by-products of day-to-day human activity. The first mayor of your town, writing to commend a member of the community for initiative in starting a civic group, did not consider that researchers might one day come into your archives to use his letter for historical research-the record was created simply in connection with the mayor's daily activities and was intended only for a particular reader. The same is true of all archival records-the people who created them did not create them for the convenience of historians and researchers. Since archival records are not created with researchers in mind, they tend to differ from books in another respect. Specificity of Subject. A book usually is about a single subject. The author who wants to sell books does not set out to write a book about town government and then digress for a chapter to discuss the effect of the moon on tides. People who create archival records have no such limitations. The correspondence files of a mayor, for example, may cover a wide range of topics, from drug education to crowning the winner of the local talent contest to installing traffic

2

PURPOSE

OF ORGANIZATION

lights. So, while books in a library may be classified-that is, a book about town government may be placed with other books about town government or government in general-archival materials are not easy to classify because they usually deal with more than one subject. Accessibility. Because library materials can be classified (and because they seldom require the

level of security appropriate to one-of-a-kind archival materials), libraries are often "open stack," meaning the patrons are free to wander among the shelves and browse the book titles. Archives, in contrast, are normally "closed stack" (see Box 1). An archives patron cannot roam the aisles, glancing through collections, to determine their relevance to his or her research. This places a great burden on the archivist to describe each collection thoroughly enough to meet the needs of many different researchers whose questions are sometimes difficult to anticipate. If the records are not arranged and described properly, researchers may spend fruitless hours searching in all the wrong places.

Box 1

Controlling Access to Archival Materials

Most archives prevent patrons from entering their storage areas and insist on monitoring any use of the collections. While it is tempting to believe that only honest persons will use our collections, experience indicates otherwise. Even people who are normally honest can be tempted by the sight of an ancestor's will or a rare stamp, and those small items are easily concealed. You should remember, too, that theft is only one reason to monitor users. It is not unusual for a well-meaning researcher to rearrange records to be helpful, and even experienced researchers can inadvertently damage fragile records. Such "help" can destroy the original order you have worked so hard to recreate. The wise archivist keeps a close eye on all researchers. Ideally, the archives will have a locked storage area that is off limits to all but staff. If you do not have a separate, locked storage room, consider screening or roping off the storage spaces to separate them, psychologically at least, from public areas. Post signs that say, "Staff Only" at various places to clearly define your storage spaces. Place your most valuable items in a closet, file cabinet, or small storage cabinet that can be locked. Many archives do not include location information in their public finding aids but use a separate location guide to find specific containers. Some archives even conceal the contents of their storage boxes by placing only numbers, rather than titles, on the box labels. Such methods may slow retrieval, but any unauthorized person who gains access to the storage spaces will have difficulty identifying the more valuable records. Whatever combination of methods you use, your first priority should be to preserve your collection by controlling access to it.

PURPOSE

OF ORGANIZATION

3

All this means that archival materials cannot be arranged and described in the same way as books. Consider, for example, two types of research questions and how each might be handled in a library and in an archives. Suppose your town is celebrating its centennial and researchers have two questions: "Who were the key founders of the town?" and "What was life like in the town one hundred years ago?" To answer the first question, a librarian might search the library catalog to find books (and other materials) that relate to the history of the town. The researcher might go to the shelf and locate such a book-or several books arranged together on the shelf-and answer the first question in just a few minutes. The second question might prove more elusive, even in a library. Once again, though, a search of the catalog would indicate books that address the history of the town, or the era in question, and the researcher might find most of them grouped together on the shelves. In an archives, though, the researcher's task would be very different. If no books have been published that describe the founding of the town, the researcher might need to pore over early deeds and wills, the early minutes of the town board, and other records to determine who had a hand in establishing the town. To answer the second question, the researcher might read diaries written during the period, look at photographs taken at the time, read newspapers, or listen to oral histories recorded by the town's oldest residents. The important point is this: The way in which records are arranged and described determines whether the researcher must search the entire collection or a small portion of it. The emphasis in archival arrangement and description is to narrow the search to a small portion of a large collection. Do not think that you must index every item in your archives-leave that to the book writers! Archives provide a research experience very different from that of libraries, and that is how it should be. In the examples above, the researcher's answers might be found in both the library and the archives; in the former, the information has been filtered, condensed, and neatly organized to make research easier, but in the latter, while the research requires greater effort, the researcher has the advantage of seeing the raw materials. Archival research allows the user to approach material at the most basic level, unencumbered by a perspective imposed by another researcher, and it often leads to unexpected discoveries that benefit the research. The researcher may not be able to lay hands on a specific piece of information in a matter of minutes, but if the archival records have been arranged and described properly, it will be obvious where the answer is most likely to be found. Keep in mind that your primary job is to narrow the search for information.

Now that you know the purpose behind organization-to narrow the search for information -it is time to look at the various levels of organization that you can use to achieve that purpose. They are covered in the next section, "Levels of Organization."

■ ~

Levels of Organization

~

In the last section, we compared archival records to library materials. We will begin this section with one more comparison. Library materials can be arranged and described on several different levels. Most often, they are cataloged and arranged at the item level; that is, each individual book (or other type of material) is described in the library catalog and arranged on the shelves in relation to other individual items. But librarians can arrange and describe at a broader level: rather than catalog each individual volume in a set of encyclopedias, for instance, the library catalog may contain one record describing the entire set. Sometimes, books are described at both levels: a library catalog might contain a record for "The Complete Works of Charles Dickens in 24 volumes" as well as 24 separate entries, one for each volume in the set. So, while we may think of libraries cataloging only at the item level, in fact, they may catalog at several levels. Archivists, too, may arrange and describe on several levels. Archivists rarely describe records at the item level for the simple reason that an "item" in an archives is normally a single piece of paper, and cataloging at that level would require huge amounts of time (imagine a librarian forced to catalog each page of every book rather than the book itself). But just as individual pieces of paper in a library are grouped together in the form of books, so the papers in an archives form natural groups, though they may not be as readily apparent. Learning to recognize those groups, and using them to arrange and describe your records, is the foundation to organizing your archives. Archivists have traditionally recognized five-and, more recently, four-levels of arrangement and description (see Box 2). In this manual, we will discuss only two levels: the collection level and the series level. These terms are described in this section, along with a third term-accessions. COLLECTIONS

Every archives is made up of collections. If your archive houses the papers of the town's founding family (named Foundling), they are the "Foundling Family Papers"-one collection in your archives. If you have the records of a local railroad company, they are another collection: the "Magnate Railroad Company Records." Each forms a collection because each is made up of documents that were created or compiled by a single source-an individual, family, organization, government, office, business, or other entity. 5

6

LEVELS

Box 2

OF ORGANIZATION

Levels of Arrangement and Description

In its recent Statement of Principles, the Canadian-U.S. Task Force on Archival Description defined four levels of arrangement and description. The list here elaborates on these four, beginning with the largest level and continuing down to the smallest: Record group-All the records created by an individual, family, organization, government, office, business, or other entity. This level is discussed at length throughout this manual. Series-A group of records filed together because they all relate to the same activity or function. This level, too, is discussed at length throughout this manual. File unit-An organized group of records; at its simplest, a file folder of records that relate to the same subject, activity, or transaction. Often the description at the file-unit level takes the form of a sequential list of folder titles. Item-One unit, normally a document. Description at this level may take the form of a list of each item in a folder, for instance. While such detailed description of textual materials is rare, it is sometimes used for very important correspondence or, say, an autograph collection. Item-level description is more common for non-textual items, such as maps and photographs. More traditionally, archivists have recognized a fifth level, higher than the Record Group or Collection level-the Repository level.

A collection may (and probably will) include many types of documents. The Foundling Family Papers, for example, may include correspondence, diaries, photographs, and scrapbooks. All of these form a single collection, however, because they were created or compiled by the same family or individual. In the same way, the Magnate Railroad Company Records probably include correspondence, invoices, receipts, and even maps and photographs. Again, these various items form a single collection because they were created or compiled by the same organization or business. Archives or Manuscripts?

In this manual we are simplifying the idea of a collection, but you may want to know that archivists draw a technical distinction between two types of collections: archives (the historical records of an institution or organization) and manuscripts (the historical papers of an individual or family). This distinction leads to various practices that can be illustrated by imagining two repositories in the town of Centerville: (1) the archives of the government of Centerville, and (2) the Centerville Historical Society.

LEVELS O F O RGANIZATION

7

THE ARCHIVES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF CENTERVILLE

The archives of the government of Centerville is a true "archives" because it was established by an organization (the government of the town) to collect its own records. The Centerville Historical Society, on the other hand, is technically a "manuscript repository" because it was organized to collect personal papers (manuscripts) of the town's citizens as well as records created by organizations other than its own parent organization (e.g., businesses and other non-governmental organizations in the town) . In practice, of course, most people would refer to both of these repositories as "archives," but here we are concerned with the technical distinction between the two. Centerville's government archives is a part of the government and collect records from their parent institution-the mayor's office, the town clerk's office, and other departments of the town government. As records are received at the archives, they are grouped on the basis of who created them-in each case, a department of the Centerville government. Thus, if the town clerk's office transfers some marriage licenses to the archives, the licenses are grouped with other records already in the archives that were created or compiled by the town clerk's office. (We are going to discuss this "grouping" in greater detail later on, but for now you should understand that these records are not necessarily placed together physically; they may be "grouped" together on paper rather than on the shelves.) Archivists call all of the records created by a single unit of an organization (government, business, church) a "record group." In the case of a government, the "units" of the organization are usually the departments and offices that make up the government. This means that in the Centerville government archives, all the records created or compiled by the town clerk's office form one record group-the town clerk's record group. And all the records created or compiled by the mayor's office form another record group-the mayor's record group. The purpose of this is to keep the records created by one department or office separate from the records created by another. For an example of a record group, see Example 2 (page 55). THE CENTERVILLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Over at the Centerville Historical Society, the concept is the same: do not mix records created by one person, fam ily, or business with those created by another, but the term "manuscript group" is used to refer to all the papers created by one person or family. (For examples of manuscript groups, see Examples 1, 4, and 5 [pages 50, 5 7, and 59].) Of course, the historical society will probably collect the archives of organizations, such as businesses, churches, and social clubs, as well. The historical society will probably have many more manuscript groups than the archives has record groups. In the case of the historical society, almost every new group of records donated or purchased by the society will form a new manuscript group; but in the government archives, almost every group of records transferred will be added to an existing record group. And, while the

8

LEVELS

OF

ORGANIZATION

historical society will usually receive whole manuscript groups at one time, the archives will frequently receive only portions of a record group at one time (most offices do not send all of their records to an archives at one time). Repositories handle their record groups and manuscript groups in various ways, but the important point is that the creator of the records is of primary importance in any archival collection. Archivists have emphasized this importance by developing the concept of record and manuscript groups. In this manual, we will simplify matters by referring to any group of records created by one person, family, business, or agency as a "collection." In those few instances where the process does not apply equally to all types of collections, the instructions will suggest different ways of handling archives and manuscripts. As you begin arranging and describing your records, you may want to treat them all as "collections" and disregard the fine distinctions between archives and manuscripts. Later, after you have become more familiar with arrangement and description theory and have read the more technical archival literature, you may decide that you would like to distinguish between record groups and manuscript groups in your repository. If you have followed the steps in this manual carefully, you will be able to go back and do so at any time. Who Created the Collection?

Identifying the creator or compiler of a collection is very important. In one sense, the creator of the collection is the "author" of that collection, and, just as librarians want to know who authored their books, archivists want to know who "authored" their collections. In fact, you will normally name the collection after its creator/compiler. Later, as you follow the steps in this manual, you will identify the creator and name the collection. We will discuss how to identify the creator now, though, to help you better understand the concept of collections. Usually the identity of the creator or compiler of a collection is obvious. By looking at the collections, you can see that they were created by John Simpson or the Beckett family or the Centreville town clerk's office. Sometimes, however, you must examine the records carefully to discover this information. To take an extreme example, an archivist looking at an autograph collection might mistake it at first glance for a collection of correspondence. The fact that these documents were purposely brought together (or "compiled") by someone who wanted to collect their signatures might become apparent only after closer examination. Such a collection would be treated as the autograph collector's collection and named for the autograph collector (a famous example is "The John Pierpont Morgan collection of the signers of the Declaration of Independence"). The collector did not create each document, but he or she compiled the collection. Fortunately, such instances are rare in small collections. A more common occurrence in small archives is for a collection to appear, at first glance, to have been created by an entire family when, in fact, it was compiled by a single member of that family. The collection may contain letters, for example, that bear the names of various family

LEVELS

OF ORGANIZATION

9

members; but they may have been received by one person (and thus "compiled" by that person). The collection, then, is the collection of the one person who compiled it, rather than of the entire family. (For a discussion of various ways collections are formed, see Box 3, How Collections Are Created.) Sometimes it is impossible to determine the creator or compiler of a collection. This is not a problem, but you will need to determine what to call the collection: you may name the collection for the person most closely associated with the records or name it for the place or activity to which the records relate. If you have a collection of photographs of Jill Simpson, for instance, and you don't know who collected them, name them the "Jill Simpson Photograph Collection" since she is the person most closely associated with the collection. Or, if you have a group of early records from the Centerville Little Theater that some unknown person donated to the archives long ago, call it the "Centerville Little Theater Collection" since it relates to that particular place. You will sometimes make mistakes in identifying a collection and determining who created or compiled it. Don't lose sleep over it. But don't take this step for granted either; it is an important first step in arrangement and description. Before you go on, look at Exercise A (page 64). It will help you learn more about the concept of collections.

Box 3

How Collections Are Created

Archival collections are created in many ways. The following examples illustrate the most common methods A person or organization creates new records in the course of business or daily activities-When a company corresponds with clients or produces invoices, or a social club produces minutes of meetings, these organizations are creating collections. An individual may create a collection by creating new records, such as a diary. A person or organization receives records in the course of business or daily activitiesSome collections grow from records received: A business receives correspondence from customers or an individual receives letters from family members. A person compiles records for a specific purpose-An autograph collector may create a collection by consciously compiling autographed letters, for example, or a university professor may compile a research file. In both cases, they are creating a collection by compiling records for a specific purpose. A person maintains records received from others-A person may passively "create" a collection simply by keeping records passed on to them by others, such as parents, grandparents, and friends.

LEVELS

10

OF

ORGANIZATION

SERIES

A series is part of a collection. You might say that series are the building blocks of collections. If you examined the records of the "Magnate Railroad Company" closely, you might discover that the records fall naturally into distinct groups. Some of the records might be "accounts payable"ledgers indicating money owed by the company to others. Other records might be "property records"-records of buildings and land owned by the company. Still other records might be "personnel files;' documenting each employee in the company. Each of these sets of records forms one series. A series is a group of records kept together because they all relate to the same activity. A more formal way to state this is to say that a series is a body of documents or file units that was consciously created or filed in a certain way to enable people to carry out a particular function. In simpler terms, all of the records in a single series have the same function. Notice that the accounts payable ledgers form one series because they all have a single function: to indicate how much money the company owes and to whom. Likewise, the property records form one series because they, too, have a single function: to document the land owned by the company along its railroad routes. The personnel files also form one series because these records all serve the function of documenting the employees who work for the company To take another example, the "Foundling Family Papers" may consist of three series as well. Certain records, for instance, may pertain to the family business; others may relate to Mrs. Foundling's term as mayor of the town; a third series of records may document Mr. Foundling's activities as founder of the local symphony. Each series of records relates to a single activity. A distinction between "archives" and "manuscripts": The historical records of an organization almost always contain one or more series. An agency, after all, exists to perform specific functions, so its records are usually organized to reflect those functions ( although series may be difficult to identify if the records were poorly organized by their creators). Private individuals, on the other hand, may blur the lines between the various functions they perform, and their records often reflect that fact. The papers of a local high school teacher who is also a summer camp counselor may exhibit very little distinction between the two functions. Compare, for instance, the description of the McParlan collection (Example 7, page 62) to the city court records (Example 2, p~ge 55). The latter is clearly composed of two series (court dockets and civil dockets), while the former has no clear series grouping at all. This lack of organization is common among collections of personal papers. For an example of manuscript collections that have distinctive series, see Example 1 (page 50) and Example 5 (page 59).

Notice that nothing has been said here about the form of the records. For instance, the accounts payable records mentioned above may have come to your archives as loose files, bound volumes, index cards, or a combination of all three. In fact, the records in one series may be totally dissimilar in format; but if they all have the same function, they belong to the same series.

LEVELS

OF ORGANIZATION

II

A series is not normally something you create in a collection, rather it is something you discover in a collection-it is already there. In fact, what you are really trying to discover is how the documents were grouped when they were being used by the people who created or compiled them. Since people tend to group their documents by function, the best way to discover how the records were originally maintained by their creators is to determine which records serve the same function. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether records serve the same function, but there are several clues to look for: Clue 1: Filing Systems. Records that function together are usually filed together in some systematic way. Personnel files might include a variety of documents that appear, at first glance, to have nothing in common: employment applications, medical release forms, and various test results, to name a few. But these records would probably come to your archives together in a recognizable filing arrangement, perhaps chronological (by date of employment) or alphabetical (by name of employee). Because these various records serve a single function-to document the employees of the company-they relate to one another and form a series. Clue 2: Content. If you have a group of records that all record the same content-in other words, have the same (or very similar) information-they probably serve the same function. Each accounts payable record probably documents the same kind of information: the name of the vendor, the amount owed, the date paid, and other information. Clue 3: Format. This can be a deceptive clue; as we have seen, the records in a single series may come in many formats. But format is sometimes a clue to function nonetheless. For example, someone may donate to your archives a collection of aerial photographs that constitute one series.

All of these are clues, but you can be certain that documents belong together in a series only if they meet the following criteria: ■ ■

They all relate to the same activity or function; There is some possibility that they were maintained together by the person (or organization or office, etc.) who created or compiled them.

You may wonder how many documents are necessary to form one collection or one series? The answer to both questions is one. A series might be composed of a single document, and a collection might be composed of just one series. In particular, collections of individuals and families often consist of a single series because individuals do not always file their records as carefully as do organizations. Normally, though, there are many records in each series and several series in

12

LEVELS

OF

ORGANIZATION

each collection. Exercise B (page 66) will help you learn to identify series in a collection. After you have finished the exercise, you will study the term "accessions." ACCESSIONS

An accession is a group of records donated or otherwise transferred to your archives together. Simply put, any records that come in the door together form a single accession. If Mrs. Jones walks in and donates three boxes of records, these constitute one accession. (Of course, the archives should take legal, as well as physical, custody. See Box 4.) In most small archives, each accession is also one collection. That is, Mrs. Jones's three boxes probably contain records created by a single individual or group. (It could be that the archives already has records created by this same individual or group, although this is more likely to occur if you collect the records of active businesses or organizations. You will learn later what to do in such cases.) You may want to stop here and make certain that you are familiar with the terms "collection," "series," and "accession." Exercise C (page 69) will help you. REGISTERING EACH ACCESSION

It is vitally important that you keep track of each new accession as it arrives in the archives. Follow the steps below to register each one. This section will also tell you what to do with records that were already in the archives before you read this manual.

Box 4

Legal Custody of Archival Records

Having physical custody of records is not the same thing as having legal custody of the records. It is vital for the archives to document the transfer of legal rights along with the records themselves. In order to protect your legal rights: • Create a Donor Agreement that transfers all rights in the records to the archives. There are samples of donor agreements in the Sample Forms for Archival and Records Management Programs listed in the bibliography. You can also find examples on the Internet. • Ask an attorney to review the Donor Agreement for legal form. If your archives are part of a larger organization, your parent agency may be able to provide legal services. If not, you might be able to find a lawyer who will donate the time required to review and edit your Donor Agreement. • Insist that all donors sign a Donor Agreement. Most donors will understand how important it is for the archives to establish clear legal title to their records. If someone refuses to sign such an agreement, it is better to refuse the collection than to wrestle with legal problems later on.

LEVELS

O F OR GANIZATION

13

Records before being processed. (Photographs by Frank Phipps.)

1. Complete an Accession Sheet

The form shown in Figure 1 is an accession sheet. A completed example is shown in Figure 2. You should complete one of these, or a similar form, for each new accession the same day the records arrive in your archives. ,!;!, OAR Database: Select "Accession" and then "Add" to create a new accession sheet.

An accession sheet includes the following information:

Accession Number. This is a temporary number used to identify the records while they sit on the shelf waiting to be arranged and described. One way to create an accession number is to use the year in which the records came into the archives, followed by a sequential number (e.g., 2003/1 is the first accession to arrive in 2003. The next accession gets the number 2003/2, the third gets 2003/3, and so on until 2004, when you begin again with 2004/1). However you decide to number incoming accessions, be sure to keep track of which accession numbers you have used so you do not assign the same number twice. Date Accessioned. Record the day, month, and year the records came in the door of the archives. Number of Containers. Write down the number of boxes, volumes, or other containers you received. Location(s). Describe the location of each container. Ideally, you will store all the collections you have not arranged in one area on shelves or in spaces that have been numbered. If you are unable to do this, be sure to describe the location of each container in a way that anyone will be able to find them later. Became Collection Number(s). Omit this for now. You will complete this line during Step 1 (page 19).

Accession Sheet

Date Accessioned:

Number of Containers:

Location(s):

Became Collection Number(s):

Title:

Donor/Office of Origin: Name Address Phone Notes:

FIGURE 1

Accession Sheet

Accession Number: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __

Accession Sheet

Date Accessioned:

Accession Number: -----------""2=0=03=/_,_l-=O

2/14/2003

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7k~~fl«bf lO, l 9 3 3 ~

Z , ~ l2~~~aJie~ad. ~ .

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