DRAFT April 2021
Small As and Bs are collections that are too small to be housed in a half file box. They can range in size from one item to multiple folders. They are housed in legal-sized folders and filed in file cabinets in Vault 1.
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Diary of Anonymous, 1894. A/A6151g
[TBD: Collection example with no 100; use Ruchell Magee?]
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Ruchell Magee collection, 1971, undated. A/M191
Small Bs are records in which the collection’s creator is an organization
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Records of the Women's Service Club, 1958-1963. B/W8728se
Accessioning and processing of Small As and Bs are done at the same time. Use the Small A checklist when processing a collection. It is the easiest way to make sure all the accessioning and processing steps are completed:
Determining the creator of the collection and forming a name:
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- Check the Library of Congress Name Authority File. Does your creator have an existing heading? If so, use it. If you think the LC name is incorrect, or needs a death date, contact Paula.
- If your creator is not listed in NAF, check HOLLIS. Use the name you find in HOLLIS.
- If you can’t find the creator in LC NAF or HOLLIS, you will need to form the name yourself. The name must be unique so that it does not conflict (match) with a name already in LC NAF or HOLLIS. There are multiple ways to qualify a name to make it unique, but the preferred way is by life dates. Please see the following guidelines on Harvard’s Metadata Best Practices wiki (see below). Feel free to ask Paula for advice. If you need to form a new Corporate corporate name and have questions, discuss with Summer Unsinn (who is qualified to establish corporate headings in LC NAF).
Metadata Standards wiki: https://wikiharvardwiki.harvardatlassian.edunet/confluencewiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=22852846158594640
Biographical research:
Many Small As are so small in size that information about the creator is extremely limited. Sometimes you will receive some information from the donor or a dealer, but often you will need to do the more extensive biographical research you might do with a larger collection just to determine some basic information for you your biographical note. You should log in to Ancestry.com (use the Harvard link: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:ancestry) and also search the wider internet to find information to place your material into context. This research will also help with establishing a proper name and life dates.
Establishing a Call Number:
We use a Cutter Table to create call numbers for Small As and Bs. A “Cutter number” is based on the name of the creator and allows for an alphabetical arrangement of collections. Please see the separate instructions to create a cutter Cutter number.
See Cutter Numbers: Establishing a Call Number
MARC records: special considerations [DO WE NEED THIS SECTION? Other special considerations?]
Since you are accessioning the collection at the same time as processing it, you will be creating a MARC record from scratch. Use the instructions in the MARC manual on creating a record from scratch: Creating a new bibliographic record in Connexion. Also see the best practices documentation for additional information: Schlesinger best practices for cataloging - by MARC field.
Some special considerations:
Extent: Because the item is not large enough for a box, there is no linear footage to cite. Simply list the number of folders, i.e. 1 folder.
More to come?
Purchased items that have Alma stub records and item records
Small As and Bs purchased by the printed material division by the books curator will have a stub record in Alma with an attached item record. Please see the separate instructions on how to handle these records.
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See
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Small As and Bs with Item Records
Shelf list card:
Small As need a shelf list card. Use the template in Sharepoint to draft your card.
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template
Updating the Accession logs
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MARC record is live in OCLC and HOLLIS
Shelflist Shelf list card created and filed
Paper log updated
Updating Outlook email donor file
If a collection’s creator’s name has changed in a significant way, update the name of the email box so that donor correspondence. (If your small A was a purchase from a dealer, there won’t be a an email correspondence file box or deed of gift).
If for some reason you need to change a name in DOG Tracker database, contact Susan Earle.
Photographs:
If your Small A or B contains photographs, give the collection to Joanne to review before you shelve it. Photographs are kept with the collection and not removed as they are with larger collections.
Finding aids:
As of 2020, we are now making finding aids for all new Small As and Bs. We have a special template that has been adjusted for Small As and Bs:. This template has speical instructions embedded into it.
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