Archival collections often contain printed material, though it is usually not kept with the collection. Printed materials that fall within Schlesinger’s collecting scope are generally better served living in the Library's book and periodical collection. You should begin to consider issues related to printed material as part of your initial survey.
Most printed material falls into the categories of newsletters, serials, or books. Decisions about printed material often fall into categories by format. ALL printed material (except ephemera) that leaves your collection must be accompanied by a separation form.
Newsletters are periodic publications, often low-budget, and often created by organizations or groups. Because we collect the records of a number of organizations, we also collect those organizations' newsletters. Newsletters are sometimes a great research tool for organizations that may have been ephemeral, or produced no other printed documentation. For more information about newsletters go here.
Serials (other than newsletters) may be journals of professional organizations, women's magazines, or other journals related to women that we subscribe to or collect.
Books may fall into a number of categories, see here.
GENERAL WORKFLOW
Searching library holdingsLibrary Holdings
- If your collection has a large amount of published material, it's a good idea to sort it all out and go over what it is and what you plan to do with it.
- You or a student assistant can search each title in HOLLIS for information about whether the library already has the book/series/issue or if other Harvard libraries hold them. This information is necessary for appraisal. Prior to students or new staff searching HOLLIS for titles, schedule a HOLLIS training session with Erin in the Published and Printed Materials Department.
- A separation form will be filled out by the person who is searching HOLLIS. Each item (including each newsletter issue) should have a separation form. *Note: if you have a large number of issues to a newsletter title that we do not yet have in our collection talk with the serials cataloger about whether it's ok to complete only one separation form for the set.
- Note that for periodicals, students should also consult the finding aids for newsletter/periodical collections when relevant (e.g. Pr-1, Pr-3, Pr-4, Pr-5, Pr-8, Pr-16, Pr-17). See about newsletters for more information on the Pr-# collections.
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All published materials that will be added to the Schlesinger's printed materials collections will be cataloged with provenance information retained in their ALMA holdings record. Because of this, we no longer need to list these titles for books or periodicals in a separation record in the finding aid. However, archivists should appraise the printed material in a collection as part of the survey and processing plan and determine if there is literary or other rationale for retaining a list of books and other printed material. Note: In most cases for newsletters/serials the serials cataloger will indicate the donor and the specific issues donated in the provenance field. But this may not always happen depending on the extent of issues. Check in with the serials cataloger about this. If this is not going to happen, you can list the titles and issues in the finding aid's separation record.
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For those newsletter issues that are being added to a constructed collection (see the Newsletters section for more information), indicate in the separation record that titles were transferred to whatever constructed collection. E.g.
"The following items have been transferred to the NOW Chapter Newsletter Collection (Pr-1)."
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