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Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual

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Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual by Ann E. Hodges and Brenda S. McClurkin 2011 Sixth Edition Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1: Basic Principles of Processing ......................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Accessioning ............................................................................................................ 4 Chapter 3: Arrangement ......................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 4: Preservation .......................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 5: Description ............................................................................................................. 35 Chapter 6: Cataloging Form ................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 7: Publicity .................................................................................................................. 62 Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 67 Forms ........................................................................................................................................................ 68 Supplemental Material ....................................................................................................................... 94 Sample Finding Aid ........................................................................................................................... 107 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 116 Webography ............................................................................................................................... 119 Index .............................................................................................................................................. 120 Introduction to the 6th Edition Page | iii Its 6th edition brings the Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual online. The changes in the new edition primarily comprise the addition to Chapter 4 of instructions for encapsulating using the polywelder (no other substantive revisions were made to the chapters) and the inclusion of several new forms. The Agreement to Donate Student Work form was designed to provide documentation of donations of student research papers to Special Collections. The Conservation Request form was created to guide staff through the process of routing materials for repair. The Finding Aid Template was designed to guide and speed students in Dean Saxon's archives class in the preparation of their finding aids, but benefits our staff as well. It gives finding aid authors more structure when compiling information for a finding aid and eliminates the need to format finding aids in a word-processing program. These improvements have the further advantage of enabling Special Collections staff to publish finding aids with less effort and in less time because, thanks to having the finding aid drafts formatted as tables, we are able to easily use "search and replace" to apply EAD markup. Oral History Agreements have been used in Special Collections for some years, for both the subjects of interviews and those conducting the interviews, but were not included in the Processing Manual until this edition. The creation of the Restriction Release Request was prompted by the need of one of our researchers to obtain access to a restricted collection for his dissertation research. Happily, permission was obtained and he successfully defended his dissertation, and we will be able to apply for the next release more efficiently now that we have the form. The Donor Information form that appears in this edition has been heavily revised since the publication of the 5th edition. Links have been updated in the lists of perpetual calendars and of sources of equipment and supplies, as well as in the Bibliography and Webography. Finally, Special Collections' Archives and Manuscripts Deaccessioning Policy has been added to this manual. Thanks are owed once again to Claire Galloway, CA, for helping to identify the updates needed since the publication of the 5th edition of the Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual and for suggesting the creation of the Agreement to Donate Student Work and the Restriction Release Request. If it were not for Gerald Saxon and his Principles of Archives and Museums course at the University of Texas at Arlington this edition would no doubt still be pending. Ann E. Hodges, MLS, MS, CA Brenda S. McClurkin, MLS, CA Introduction to the 5th Edition Page | iv We would like to acknowledge and thank Gerald D. Saxon, Jane Boley, Marcelle Hull, Shirley Rodnitzky, and Cynthia E. Stevenson, all formerly on staff in Special Collections, who authored the earlier editions of the Archives and Manuscripts Processing Manual. Their work is described in the introduction to the 4th edition, which is incorporated in the present edition. It explains how and why the first manual came to be written and also relates the philosophy underlying the manual as well as a bit of the history of Special Collections. We also extend our appreciation to the newest archivist in Special Collections, Claire Galloway, and to Gerald Saxon, both of whom read and commented upon our draft. The work our predecessors invested in earlier editions of the Processing Manual has been of enormous benefit to numbers of students in the archival education program at The University of Texas at Arlington, as well as to Special Collections staff through the years. Special Collections' Processing Manual has even been in demand by archivists at other institutions and in other states. The years between the publication of the 4th edition and that of the 5th saw changes of monumental impact in the archives profession, encompassing the advent of Encoded Archival Description, the replacement of Archives, Personal Papers and Manuscripts with Describing Archives: A Content Standard, and the increasing adoption of minimal-level processing. In 2002, Special Collections became a member of Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO), a consortial repository of finding aids. Our implementation of the new standards and practices naturally resulted in substantial alterations to Special Collections' policies and procedures relating to the processing of archives and manuscript collections. Consequently, the revisions we made to the Processing Manual were exhaustive, amounting in essence to a rewriting of the manual, especially the sections concerning description. Contributing to the changes made to the manual was our desire for it to become primarily an online resource. However, a print version was also needed for use by archives students during their practical sessions. With both aims in mind, we endeavored to simplify the presentation of forms and other supplemental material by placing as much of it as possible at the end of the manual, rather than embedding it within chapters, envisioning its becoming accessible via links in the online version. We hope that our efforts on the new manual honor the work that was done before us. It was our aim to uphold the purposes set out for the original and to be of as much aid to students and colleagues as were the authors of the previous editions. Ann E. Hodges, MLS, MS, CA Brenda S. McClurkin, MLS, CA Introduction to the 4th Edition Page | v The Special Collections Division of The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries has been collecting archival and manuscript materials since the 1960s. In this twenty-five-plus year period, the division has grown from a two-person operation collecting and processing the records of Texas labor unions and officials to a highly visible division of the library with ten full-time staff, seven student employees, and a much broadened collecting focus. Also during this period, the division has grown, extending its administrative umbrella over several once-separate and autonomous units, each processing archival and manuscript collections in its own way. The need to bring consistency to the division's archival arranging, describing, and cataloging practices has, in part, prompted the writing of this processing manual. In 1994, Special Collections staff members, Jane Boley, Marcelle Hull, Shirley Rodnitzky, and Gerald Saxon, met to discuss the drafting of this manual. All agreed that a processing manual would benefit the division in many ways: The manual, as mentioned above, would bring consistent processing practices to the division for the first time. Special Collections staff has always adhered to high standards of modern archivy, but each archivist in the division described collections in a different way. In today's automated environment, descriptive practices in particular should be consistent so that online cataloging records and finding aids are helpful to users. The manual would serve as a training tool and reference source for the division's student employees, volunteers, and new hires assigned archival responsibilities. The manual would be used as a textbook in the History Department's graduate classes on archival science. The holdings of Special Collections are often used for processing projects by graduate
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