364 American Archivist / Vol. 57 / Spring 1994 Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021

Automating the Archives: A Case Study

CAROLE PRIETTO

Abstract: The establishment of an archival automation program requires that the archivist address issues of both a technical and a managerial nature. These issues include needs assessment, selection of hardware and software to meet identified needs, redesigning ar- chival tasks in light of the system selected, and ongoing maintenance of the system se- lected. The present article discusses the issues Washington University Archives staff members faced in developing an automation program and the solutions they adopted. It concludes with a brief discussion of possible future directions for the automation program.

About the author: Carole Prietto holds a B.A. in history from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.A. in history from UCLA. From 1986 to 1989 she was the assistant in the UCLA University Archives; since 1990, she has been university archivist at Washington University, St. Louis. Automating the Archives: A Case Study 365

MUCH DISCUSSION IN THE LITERATURE Washington University Archives. This pro- about archival automation concerns imple- cess consisted of a number of steps over a mentation of the USMARC AMC format three-year period: evaluating the existing and development of national descriptive hardware and software, selecting a new da- 1 4

standards. This discussion is both useful tabase management package, installing Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 and necessary, but it examines only one and setting up the new software and train- side of the automation issues archivists ing staff in its use, adding OCLC and NO- face. Without physical and intellectual con- TIS access to facilitate MARC-AMC trol over collections, MARC records can- cataloging, and, finally, adding our first not be created and collections cannot be MARC AMC records to a national biblio- used. Discussions of the application of per- graphic . The discussion will con- sonal computers and commercial software clude with an outline of some possible packages to archival processing tasks are future directions for our automation pro- scarce. A search of the American Archivist gram. and Archival Issues (formerly the Mid- western Archivist) going back to 1980 re- The Beginning of Special Collections vealed only two such articles. In a 1990 Automation article in the Midwestern Archivist,2 Ri- chard J. Hite and Daniel Linke outlined the The Washington University Special Col- use of a personal computer and Word- lections Department purchased its first per- Perfect in a team approach to processing at sonal computers in 1988, two years before the Western Reserve Historical Society. In my arrival. At that time, the department's a 1991 American Archivist article,3 James hardware consisted of four IBM-compati- G. Carson outlined his repository's use of ble computers and two printers. The prin- WordPerfect and Minaret. ters were shared by way of a local area network and a network program, LANtas- Even more scarce are discussions of the tic. WordPerfect was chosen for word- decision-making process that results in the processing needs. In addition, a database implementation of an automation program. management software package was needed My purpose here is to discuss the imple- for archives and manuscripts processing. mentation of the automation program at the The program chosen was Marcon, then manufactured by AIRS, Incorporated. My predecessor did not make automa- 'For discussion of the MARC AMC format and the development of descriptive standards, see especially tion a high priority, and the personal com- the papers of the Working Group on Archival De- puter in University Archives, when it was scription, reprinted in the American Archivist 52 (Summer 1989) and 53 (Winter 1990), with extensive used at all, was used for correspondence. bibliography; and David Bearman, ed., Toward Na- Item-level finding aids, accession registers, tional Information Systems for Archives and Manu- and statistics were prepared, as they always script Repositories: The National Information Systems Task Force (NISTF) Papers, 1981-1984 (Chicago: had been, on a typewriter. The result was Society of American Archivists, 1987). Anne J. Gil- a small archives staff overburdened with liland, ed., "Automating Intellectual Access to Ar- clerical tasks while facing both a large chives," Library Trends 36 (Winter 1988) is devoted entirely to applications in an archival backlog and a heavy reader services load. setting, as is American Archivist 47 (Summer 1984). Soon after my arrival in 1990, it became 2"Teaming Up with Technology: Team Process- ing," Midwestern Archivist 15, no. 2 (1990): 91-98. 3"The American Medical Association's Historical Health Fraud and Alternative Medicine Collection: "The commercial database management packages An Integrated Approach to Automated Collection discussed here are trademarks of their respective man- Management," American Archivist 54 (Spring 1991): ufacturers. The author has no connection with any of 184-91. the manufacturers whose products are discussed here. 366 American Archivist / Spring 1994

apparent that the time had come to take a could easily be updated as more informa- critical look at archives procedures, with an tion was added to the database. eye toward streamlining them. Automation Unfortunately, Marcon had a number of offered a means to do this. We had the drawbacks. The first I noticed was that the

computers and the software; what we now program's processing speed slowed dra- Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 needed was a plan to exploit our personal matically after we entered one collection of computer's capabilities to the fullest. approximately a thousand records. Over Needs assessment came first: what activ- time, thousands of records would be en- ities should be automated? The activities tered into the database, and I did not want best suited for automation were those fre- a program that would be bogged down by quent and repetitive in nature, heavily pa- the presence of large files. We also discov- per-based, and involving a great deal of ered other problems. Printed reports—an word processing. In examining our opera- important component because the program tions, we found the activity that best fit the would have to produce not only finding above criteria was the creation of archival aids but also the results of on-line and manuscript finding aids. Once we de- searches—were difficult to set up and dif- cided what to automate, we had both the ficult to modify. The data structure could tools (personal computers and software) not be modified except by completely eras- and a clear sense of what we wanted to ing the file and reentering the data. For no accomplish. apparent reason, indexes became corrupt, Before any further progress could be re- and on several occasions hundreds of re- alized, I had to learn to use Marcon Plus, cords were lost. the database package I had inherited, and Because of these problems, I proposed then train the archives staff in its use. My dBASE III+ for archives use. Concerns strategy for learning Marcon was to find a were raised about dBASE's lack of com- test collection, design a database structure patibility with the MARC format and the for that collection, enter data into Marcon, feasibility of having two database manage- and generate a finding aid. These steps ment systems within Special Collections. I would provide the training I needed, which was assigned to investigate database man- I could then pass on to the staff. The da- agement systems used in archival and man- tabase file and finding aid that resulted uscript repositories and make recommen- could be used to evaluate Marcon's index- dations to the library. The head of Special ing, searching, and reporting capabilities. Collections and associate dean for Collec- The test collection was a group of au- tions and Services gave me permission to diotapes documenting Washington Univ- use dBASE on a trial basis, pending the ersity's ongoing lecture program, the outcome of my investigation. Assembly Series. The Assembly Series was an ideal test collection because of its Investigating the Options size (about 1,000 tapes) and the need to The investigation of database manage- increase the number of access points to the ment programs began in February 1990. collection. The only finding aid available The first step was ascertaining what pro- for the collection was a typed list of the grams were used in archival repositories. lectures in rough chronological order; To find out, I queried archival colleagues cross-indexes by speaker's name, lecture ti- in the St. Louis area. At this beginning tle, or sponsoring organization did not stage, I was interested only in basic infor- exist. Putting this information into a data- mation: what programs were used, who the base structure would enable us to generate manufacturers were, how much the pro- these cross-indexes easily. These indexes grams cost, and strengths and weaknesses Automating the Archives: A Case Study 367

of the respective systems. Follow-up con- the program, the extent to which the tacts were made with manufacturers, who program would allow modifications in provided sales literature, user- group infor- either the data structure or the data it- mation, and demonstration disks. Several self, and the quality of the user inter-

additional programs came to my attention face. A related factor was that no one Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 through a software review column in the on the Special Collections staff, and Midwestern Archivist.5 few people within the Olin Library The search resulted in a preliminary list System, had expertise in computer of seventeen database management pro- programming. Because of this, it was grams. Based on information from soft- important that our database manage- ware reviews and comments from users, ment system not be dependent on the initial field of seventeen was narrowed such expertise. to seven: Advanced Revelation, dBASE • Adaptability. The system should be III+, Georgetown Archives Management adaptable to the needs of both the System, Marcon Plus, Workflow, University Archives and the Manu- MicroMARC:amc, and Minaret. The 1990 scripts Section. The primary concern Society of American Archivists (SAA) was whether the program could ac- meeting in Seattle played an important role commodate both folder- and item- in the database management project be- level description. cause it provided an opportunity to obtain • Quality of documentation. Is it easy to detailed information about all seven pro- understand? Does the program come grams. The Marcon, MicroMARC, and with a tutorial, either print or on line? Minaret user groups would be meeting, and If so, how useful is it in learning the information-sharing sessions (called "swap program? A related factor was avail- shops") for users of Advanced Revelation, ability of resources beyond those pro- dBASE, and Minaret were part of the pro- vided by the manufacturer: are there gram. In preparation for the Seattle meet- user groups, classes, or books availa- ing, I reviewed the literature and user ble to assist the user? comments I had received for our final • Manufacturer's support of the prod- group of seven programs and worked out, uct. Does the customer have to pay in consultation with other staff in Special for technical support? How much sup- Collections, the criteria to be used for se- port, if any, is included in the pur- lecting our database management system. chase price, and what is the cost of They were as follows: ongoing support? Do users have dif- • Reliability. Had other users experi- ficulty getting through to the manu- enced loss of data or system crashes facturer? Are they happy with the while using a program? service they get? In the case of pro- • Ease of use. Factors to be considered grams developed by an individual, included ease of installation and how much technical support could we setup, amount of time and level of expect from the developer and how technical knowledge needed to learn much would it cost? • Cost implications. Cost was inter- preted not only as the cost of the pro- gram itself but also as costs associated 'Glen McAnich, ed., "Reviews: Computer Appli- with technical support and the level of cations Programs," Midwestern Archivist 11, no. 1 hardware needed to run the program. (1986): 69-83. The programs reviewed were dBASE III, PFS File/PFS Report, DataEase, Savvy PC 4.0 and It was important to have a program 5.1, Marcon II, PC File III, and DB Master 4 Plus. that would run on our existing hard- 368 American Archivist / Spring 1994

ware with little or no sacrifice of per- were designed to meet the needs of specific formance. Could the program run on institutions (UCLA and Georgetown Uni- our local area network? versity, respectively) by staff from those Comments from the Marcon Users institutions.

Group at the Seattle meeting confirmed The Georgetown system recognizes Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 what I had experienced. Others had expe- three levels of hierarchical description used rienced problems such as sudden and unex- in archives and manuscripts: collection, plained locking of the keyboard, corrupted box, and folder. Data for each level is indexes, data loss, and report forms that linked to the next with a machine-gener- produced garbage text. The comments re- ated ID number. Index terms, filled in by lated to performance alone were enough to the user during data entry, may be linked remove Marcon from contention, but the to each folder record and can be searched. users had other concerns: a poorly written The results of searches can be displayed on manual, lack of a tutorial, and poor tech- screen or printed, and the system can gen- nical support from the manufacturer. erate finding aids at folder level. Marcon's manufacturer, Interactive Sup- In creating the Workflow system, the de- port Services, did not send a representative velopers began with the premise that proc- to the meeting, with the result that the chair essing requires a number of products above of the user group had the unenviable task and beyond the finding aid, such as gift of addressing the concerns of a hostile acknowledgements, monthly and annual statistics, inventories of archival supplies, group of Marcon users. The manufacturer 7 was working on a new release of Marcon and, of course, the MARC record. Work- that would fix the many bugs in the pro- flow consists of a series of and gram, but the release had no definite ship- programs which are designed to track the ping date. It was also announced that all actions taken on a collection, beginning work on the development of MARC-MAR- with the initial contact with the donor and CON, a Marcon Plus utility that would continuing with accessioning, creating a have given the program the capacity to cre- rinding aid, and cataloging. Information ate MARC records, was being abandoned pertaining to a given collection exists in- because the archival market was too small dependently in the various databases until to warrant the costs involved. By the end the programs format the data into whatever of the meeting, many user-group members product is desired: accession register, gift were speaking openly about plans to aban- acknowledgement (including news re- don Marcon. Their comments made it plain leases), finding aid, or MARC record, as that we, too, would be best served by mov- appropriate. ing in a new direction. Fortunately, we were in a position to do so because our investment in Marcon had been small. quire the presence of a particular program to run and Workflow and the Georgetown Archives can be legally distributed. The presence of Clipper means that GAMS, unlike Workflow, does not require Management System (GAMS) are derived the presence of dBASE to run. In fact, GAMS makes from dBASE III+. Workflow is written in use of features found only in Clipper that prevent it the dBASE ; from running directly in dBASE III+ or dBASE IV. One such feature allows GAMS to accommodate up GAMS is written using the dBASE lan- to 64 kilobytes of free-text description per folder, by- guage and the Clipper compiler.6 Both passing dBASE's limit of 254 characters. Tor a detailed outline of the Workflow system, see Dan Luckenbill, "Using dBASE IIP- for Finding Aids and a Manuscripts Processing Workflow," Rare 6 A compiler is a program that converts a user's pro- Book and Manuscript Librarianship 15, no. 1 (1990): gram files to stand-alone applications that do not re- 23-31. Automating the Archives: A Case Study 369

For both programs, my primary concern All the A-Rev. users I met commented was adaptability: neither program was able that the user pays a price for A-Rev.'s to accommodate the item-level description power in the form of a steep learning needed by our manuscripts curator. An- curve—the program is difficult to learn. other concern was the availability of tech- Having read the program's sales literature, nical support. Ashton-Tate, then the I had to agree with their assessment. Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 manufacturer of dBASE, had a policy of Clearly, the program's power was going to not providing assistance to users of cus- present a significant obstacle for us. There tomized dBASE applications. The devel- were no A-Rev. user groups in the St. opers of Workflow and GAMS were Louis area. No one in Olin Library had full-time archivists in Los Angeles and heard of the program, much less knew how Washington, D.., respectively. The dis- to use it. Thus, we would be faced with tance to St. Louis from either location mastering a difficult program with few lo- would make site visits prohibitively expen- cal resources to draw on. Although the sive and difficult to arrange. Telephone training issues were significant, even more service would have to be scheduled to ac- significant was the discovery, gained from commodate the developers' work schedule. conversations with other A-Rev. users, of Advanced Revelation (A-Rev.), manu- two significant hardware limitations. The factured by Revelation Technologies, was first was that A- Rev.'s file management the most powerful program I saw. A- Rev. system could not handle volumes of data consists of an array of programming tools larger than 32 megabytes, thereby putting that allow the user to custom design a com- an upper limit on the amount of informa- plete database management system without tion we could store in our computers. The having to write programming code. These second was that A-Rev. would not run on tools allow the developer to paint data en- our local network without significant re- try screens (fields can be placed anywhere configuration of all our existing hardware. on screen, and the developer can determine For those two reasons, A-Rev. was not how much or how little data shows on considered the best option. screen), develop multiple levels of menus, The database management program that develop pop-up windows that provide the emerged as the best option for Special Col- user with lists of options at any point, and lections use was dBASE III+. Its cost was employ multiple levels of data verification. the lowest,8 and its performance was the Data fields are stored in a central data least affected by having to run on older, dictionary, allowing changes to be made in slower computers. Unlike A-Rev., dBASE the database structure without requiring III+ could easily run within our network that the developer restructure the entire and it set no limits on how much data data file or modify an entire application. A- Rev. allows variable- length description and can accommodate records up to 64 kil- 8The low cost was due in part to the fact that d- obytes in size. Boolean and proximity BASEIII+ was beginning to give way to dBASE IV. searches are both possible; report forms Although dBASE IV was the newer product, I never considered it for our use because the early versions used for finding aids can be developed and of dBASE IV received poor reviews in the popular stored in a centralized reports library. If the personal computer journals. dBASE III+, on the other tools provided are not adequate, the devel- hand, was a product with a proven track record, and Ashton-Tate had no plans to stop supporting it. Since oper can create others, thanks to the pres- that time, Ashton-Tate has been taken over by Bor- ence of a programming language, land International, and dBASE III+ is no longer man- R-BASIC, and an internal compiler and de- ufactured or supported. has made a number of improvements to dBASE IV, and we will be up- bugger. grading our database manager in the near future. 370 American Archivist / Spring 1994

could be stored—dBASE III+ can handle end, Minaret and MicroMARC were ex- as much as the computer's hard disk can plored. We were evaluating not only the hold.9 Unlike GAMS and Workflow, d- usefulness of these programs for creating BASE III+ could accommodate the differ- and exporting MARC records, but also ing descriptive needs of the University whether one of these programs would sub- Archives and the Manuscripts Division. stitute for, or serve as an adjunct to, dBASE Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 Because dBASE III+ was a commercial III+. I preferred Minaret to MicroMARC product, rather than the product of an in- because it had a more user-friendly inter- dividual developer, customer service was a face, could work with word-processing pro- phone call away at any time. The software grams such as WordPerfect to create finding was widely used within the archival com- aids and catalog cards, could read dBASE munity, and the many tutorial books, ref- files, and was more widely used by archival erence guides, and third-party utilities colleagues in the St. Louis area. designed for it constituted a virtual dBASE While in Seattle, I spoke with represen- industry.10 It had the additional advantage tatives from the manufacturer and attended of strong institutional support. During the the Minaret users group meeting. On re- course of the database management study, turning to St. Louis, I obtained demonstra- the library administration had selected tion disks, tried out the program, and dBASE as the officially supported database consulted with Minaret users in the St. manager. This meant that on- site service Louis area. In the end, we decided against (if needed) and upgrades could be easily a PC-based MARC AMC utility and in fa- obtained. It also meant that, in terms of in- vor of a modem with OCLC's Passport formation sharing with other units, dBASE software.12 Besides being a more cost-ef- would not isolate us from the rest of the fective solution, Passport would allow us library system.11 to enter MARC AMC records directly into One thing dBASE III+ could not give us OCLC without having to convert data into was the ability to create MARC records a format OCLC could read, as would be 13 that could be loaded into the OCLC data- necessary with Minaret or MicroMARC. base and our local NOTIS catalog. To that Another benefit would be access to the OCLC authority file and other utilities we would need for our cataloging.

'dBASE III+ has a limit of one million records per file but no limit on the number of files that can be created. In effect, dBASE can handle as much data as can fit on the hard disk. With Advanced Revelation, 32 megabytes is all the program can handle, even if 12Passport is the terminal emulation software for the hard disk has 200 megabytes of free space. This OCLC's PRISM system. In layman's terms, Passport problem can be solved using multiple DOS partitions, enables a personal computer to function as an OCLC but such partitioning is not possible with later ver- terminal. sions of DOS. 13Minaret could send records to OCLC over tele- 10A related consideration at the time was that both phone lines using the ProComm telecommunications Ashton-Tate and dBASE had remained stable for package and a third-party utility; however, this re- many years; thus we could be reasonably confident quired a number of data conversions. For a discussion that Ashton-Tate and dBASE would be stable entities of Minaret's uploading procedure, see Carson, over the long term. Within six months after the con- "American Medical Association." MicroMARC had, clusion of the database management study, Ashton- at the time, no way to send AMC records to OCLC Tate became a subsidiary of Borland International, via telephone lines. MicroMARC users had to copy one of dBASE's former competitors. completed records to a floppy disk and send them to "It should be noted that the Special Collections De- Michigan State University. At Michigan State, re- partment was not at any time forced to use dBASE. cords were tape-loaded into OCLC via the universi- The library administration encouraged us to look at a ty's mainframe. Both MicroMARC and Minaret have number of options and propose the solution we felt since added modules for importing and exporting was best. MARC records. Automating the Archives: A Case Study 371

The study of database management scription are complete, the processor, needs in Special Collections ended in Oc- working from the folders themselves, en- tober 1990, with a two-part recommenda- ters the finished folder-level data into the tion to the library administration: Full computer database. When all folders have access to OCLC and NOTIS for cataloging been entered, the processor generates the needs, and dBASE III+ for in-house data- finding aid using the dBASE report form. Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 base management functions, including the Audiovisual materials and printed items are preparation of the finding aids that make a described at item level, but they are MARC record possible. This recommen- checked in using the computer rather than dation was accepted, and work with d- manually. The computer greatly simplifies BASE began in November 1990. the process of shelving an item, updating box and folder numbering, and producing Implementing the System a corrected finding aid. Once dBASE was installed, the next Of course, dBASE could accomplish tasks were staff training and putting d- nothing unless the staff and student assis- BASE to use in the archives. The Assem- tants were trained to use it. Like all uni- bly Series database, created during the versity archivists, I am faced with a initial trials with dBASE and originally de- constant turnover of student assistants, so signed with that specific collection in mind, dBASE training is ongoing. It is also in- was modified so that it could accommodate cremental. In teaching a student the basics audiovisual materials from all collections. of dBASE, I begin with an introduction to Databases for folder-level description of our databases and the types of materials paper records and item-level description of they describe. This introduction serves a printed items were added. Because our da- dual purpose: in explaining what the vari- tabases are grouped along lines of format ous database fields mean, I am also giving (paper, audiovisual, or print), it is possible a primer on the principles of archival ar- for items from the same collection to ap- rangement. Because the manuscripts, pear in three different databases. To keep publications, and audiovisual databases track of where information was stored, and have similar data structures, learning to to assign classification numbers, two more navigate one file means that the others can databases were created for collection-level be quickly mastered. The students are first data—one for university records and one taught the four most basic commands used for our St. Louis—area manuscripts. in data entry: USE, EDIT, APPEND, and The implementation of dBASE was ac- QUIT. Once those commands are mas- companied by changes in our processing tered, I move on to searching commands, procedures for paper records. Emphasis such as LOCATE, LIST, and DISPLAY, was placed on folder-level, rather than and global-replace commands such as RE- item- level, processing of paper records. PLACE WITH that expedite data entry by This change in emphasis maintains intel- reducing the amount of repetitive typing. lectual control over collections while re- With few exceptions, students are com- ducing the amount of staff and student time fortable with the computer and have little needed to process them. Another change is trouble with dBASE commands. that we no longer create draft finding aids Once the students are familiar with both at various stages of processing. As part of dBASE and basic archival hierarchy, they the arrangement and description process, are introduced to actual processing of col- we review old folder headings and assign lections. For them, processing is a wel- new ones when appropriate, as we did in come addition to the more routine tasks of the past. Once the arrangement and de- refoldering, paging and retrieval, and pho- 372 American Archivist / Spring 1994

tocopying. For me there is the challenge of tie, physical description, organization and assigning appropriate work. As a recent arrangement, restrictions, scope and con- American Archivist article rightly points tent, biographical/historical note) is in final out,14 student assistants cannot substitute form, the WordPerfect file containing the for staff and their work assignments must filled-in workform is printed out. Data reflect that fact. When I assign processing from the printout is keyed into OCLC and Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021 projects, the students are given collections added to the OCLC save file. Potential sub- that need little rearrangement but do need ject and added entries are searched in the review of folder headings and input into OCLC authority file and appropriate entries the computer. Collections that require com- are added to the saved record. Technical plex rearrangement, require access deci- services staff review the completed record sions, or have significant preservation for conformity with both OCLC conven- problems are processed by my assistant. tions and AACR2, then the record is added The staff consists of one half-time parapro- to the OCLC database. OCLC records are fessional and two undergraduate student loaded into the library's NOTIS system via assistants, and it is not unusual to have the library's weekly tape load, without the three or four projects in progress simulta- need for further intervention on our part. neously. The volume of materials proc- As of February 1994, our databases con- essed with the same number of staff has tain approximately 25,000 collection-level, increased dramatically. folder-level, and item-level records span- MARC records, however, are not a stu- ning over 70 record groups. As the data- dent task. Because I was to be responsible bases grow in size and scope we gain an for creating catalog records for archival increasingly useful on-line searching tool. collections, I, too, needed training, some of Already we have gained greater productivity which was provided by technical services from the same number of staff. Now that staff in Olin Library. Like many archivists, the various components of our automation I have taken the SAA workshop on Ar- program are up and running, keeping it run- chives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts; ning smoothly is an important activity. To I have also taken a course on OCLC that end, we perform regular backups of our authority files sponsored by our regional data and regular checks of our hardware for OCLC office. Additional workshops will viruses and signs of impending hard-disk be necessary in order to keep up with cur- failure. Planning for the future is already rent cataloging practice. taking place in a number of areas. A number The procedures used for creating MARC of special collections departments are now records take full advantage of OCLC's using the Internet communications protocol ability to copy screens to a personal com- known as Gopher to make finding aids puter's hard disk. First the OCLC work- available over the Internet. We are explor- form for AMC records is copied to the ing ways to do the same.15 computer's hard disk and saved as a Planning and developing an automation WordPerfect file. This procedure allows program taught me two important lessons. extensive editing of the record without in- The first was that developing an automa- curring large amounts of connect time. Once the basic information (main entry, ti-

"Seventeen special collections departments have set up Gopher servers as of February 1994, and the '"Barbara L. Floyd and Richard W. Oram, "Learn- number continues to increase. An important part of ing by Doing: Undergraduates as Employees in Ar- making our finding aids accessible over Gopher will chives,' ' American Archivist 55 (Summer 1992): 440- be retrospective conversion of older finding aids that 52. exist only in typed form. Automating the Archives: A Case Study 373

tion program has both technical and man- continually developing process. In the be- agerial components, and neither is more ginning I assumed that selecting a system important than the other. In fact, the two would mean the end of my work. I now are constantly overlapping. The second les- know it was only the beginning of an on- son was that an automation program is a going, long-term process. Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/57/2/364/2748641/aarc_57_2_9p4t712558174274.pdf by guest on 25 September 2021