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  • Who is the creator of the collection? 
    • Do they have an existing LCNAF heading?
    • If so, is the existing record correct? Do death dates need to be added?
    • If not, is there an existing Hollis record that you could use as the correct form of the name?
    • If you want to update an existing authority record or create a new one, email Paula for guidance.

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  • What should the title be?  

Choice of creator and title in MARC records for new accessions:

  • Generally, the creator for an archival item or collection is the person, family, or corporate body “predominantly responsible for the creation assembly, accumulation, and/or maintenance of the materials.” (DACS 2.3.4) Note that this person may not always be the donor, and in this case the creator should not be the donor but rather the person most responsible for creating the materials. For example:
  • Where the materials are collected by an individual about another individual or a topic, the collector should be the creator. If the collection is about a person, that person should be a 600. For example:
  • There may be cases at Schlesinger where we choose to bend this rule to center the person who was the focus of our acquisition decision. For example, letters to a wife from her spouse about their divorce. Because we are interested in the woman’s position in the relationship we may choose to identify her as the creator. For example:
  • The creator (as indicated in the 1XX) should almost always match the creator segment of the title. One example of when that rule has consciously been broken is in the case of the bill of sale for women and girls who were enslaved. Although the enslaver was named as the creator, he was not listed in the title. For example:

Additional preliminary work:

Take a look at the deed of gift and notice any restrictions and what the donor says about returns. If there is clearly out of scope material that comes with the collection, returning it to the donor at the point of accession saves headaches for processing archivists later on. Curators may not accurately record restrictions on the accession sheet they fill out. Look at the actual deed of gift, and if there isn't one, discuss further with curator.

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First, determine your end goal for online access. Can your collection be easily processed right away? If so, then go ahead and do so with all the trimmings (refoldering, MC#, add to processing stats spreadsheet and end processing queue when done, etc.) You'll need to think about this in a little bit of a more nimble way than we may have done in the past for processing projects. If you want to make more than 2 or 3 series for a collection you are doing accessioning-to-processing work on, you may need to reconsider what you're doing. You shouldn't really need an in-depth processing plan to move forward with this kind of project.

If your collection is a Small A or B, you will be both accessioning and processing it now.  See the special guidance provided here: Small As and Bs: Accessioning and Processing

Summer/Fall 2020 update: full-on processing is more easily done right now for small collections - one carton and under. Depending on the content and format of these smaller collections, consider whether you can do basic physical work and put into the digital processing queue.

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Take notes while reboxing on material formats, inclusive dates, and subject matter to use in the creation of the bib record and finding aid and/or container list.  Use preliminary research and notes created while reboxing to create a bibliographic record for the new collection. 

For standard language used in typical bibliographic fields, see: G:\SCHLES\COLLECTION SERVICES\MANUSCRIPTS\Standard Language for mss. bib records.doc

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Record final extent in accession book. Accession book must have total information: (total quantities, including estimates of photographs, audiovisual, and born-digital material).  If the a/v material is housed in a container, use the word “including” as in “1+1/2 file boxes (including 4 ¾” videotapes)”.  If there is only one tape or cassette say: “1+1/2 file boxes, 1 ¾” videotape”.



  If you determine the collection must be CLOSED UNTIL PROCESSED:

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The  Janice Raymond papers were made into an immediate MC# with a finding aid, but material was not rehoused (it arrived in titled folders) and Carton #s were used in the finding aid rather than folder #s. If this is your preferred way to go, discuss with Johanna what traditional end processing work is needed.

 


Practices are shifting for the use of call numbers for more basic container lists. Past practice at the Schlesinger was to not assign an MC# unless something was "really processed." Many of our current online finding aids have accession #s (or ranges of accession #s) as their call number because the collection was never considered fully processed, but these inventories were marked up as part of a retrospective finding aid project. We should use MC#s for any online list going forward to facilitate future additions of addenda as well as to better facilitate the future use of ArchivesSpace container management. We can use a processing note to say that a collection is minimally processed if we want to.

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Make a finding aid following normal practices. You don't have to print out a copy. 

For more information and on accessioning and processing Small As and Bs, see this chapter of the wiki: Small As and Bs: Accessioning and Processing