Processing addenda provides a number of challenges. This processing plan template for addenda includes prompts to consider at each necessary section.
Before beginning work on the processing plan, review the different models of processing addenda.
It may be obvious to you which model most suits the collection you're working with. If not, take a look at the issues and prompts below in the processing plan, and see if those make it clearer.
Questions to ask include:
Has any of the addenda I am processing been publicly listed (on OASIS)?
Has A/V been processed separately before?
Will I add A/V to those collections or incorporate here?
Have photographs already been cataloged?
Has material in an existing finding aid been digitized and are there many digital objects linked in the finding aid?
Collection Title: Papers or Records of… or Additional Papers or Additional Records
Call Numbers: MC xxx; T-xxx; MP-xx, etc.
OVERVIEW OF CURRENT STATE
Size:
List the size of the addenda to be processed in both linear feet (should be same as the "beginning size" LF number you enter in the processing spreadsheet) and pieces – 5 cartons, 2 half file boxes, 7 folio folders, etc.
Accession information:
What are the accession numbers?
How many accessions are there?
Is there an obvious order in any/all accessions?
Are some accessions only A/V?
Provenance:
Who is the donor? Are there multiple donors? It's a good idea to add any other donor information you have learned from the correspondence file.
Did we approach the donor? Did she approach us? Is she dead?
Is there a signed deed of gift? Does the donor want material back?
Restrictions:
Are there restrictions from the deed of gift?
Have you noticed any kind of records during your survey that might be a problem outside of whatever the deed of gift says? [Attorney/client privilege issues in a lawyer's papers, etc.]
Remember that you will need to document donor-imposed restrictions in the finding aid separately from any restrictions you might want to impose yourself. Restrictions not imposed by donors must be discussed with team leads and sometimes brought to the Access review Panel for discussion.
Biographical Sketch:
If the existing finding aid has a good one, just link to it. If you will need to update the bio note as part of your processing work (the donor has now died, etc.) please note that here.
Scope and content:
Create a basic list of what is in the collection. Include all non-paper formats. Think of this as being similar to the first several sentences you will write in your general scope note in the finding aid. You can (and should!) be more detailed about what kinds of material is in the collection when you are suggesting arrangement. You can describe formats but you should also provide a basic intellectual overview.
EXAMPLE: The papers of My Best Friend include travel diaries, family scrapbooks, personal and professional correspondence, photographs, 23 audiotapes and 45 disks.
With addenda, you should also discuss whether the material you will be working with is the same or different from that in the original collection. Is it the next 10 years of board binders? Is it A/V that was not donated before? Does it come from a different office of the organization or the attic of a board member?
Appraisal and research strengths:
Why do we have this material? What does it document? How does it fit with the Library's holdings? Which parts of the collection have the most interest for researchers? Are there materials we have received that have little or no research value? Are there other archival collections of material about this person elsewhere? Your answers to these questions should inform your approach to processing: if the collection (or parts of it) will get high use, more intensive description may be warranted.
Existing folders, description, order:
FIRST describe the state of the existing collection, then the unprocessed addenda.
Example: A finding aid was created in 1995 for 10 accessions; this is online with a call number made of accession numbers. The material was arranged in 10 series. This material is in a mixture of legal and letter-size folders, and is housed in cartons. Folders are numbered sequentially (1-100) and there is a container list in the finding aid. 4 cartons of addenda include material in folders grouped by project title.
Example: A finding aid was created in 2010. It has an MC# and folders are numbered in the #1.2 fashion. There is a separate finding aid for audiovisual material. Addenda contains 2 cartons of unfoldered board minutes, and 1 carton of audiotapes.
Does any of this exist? Is the material in folders? Are most of the folders titled? Will you use the donor's titles in the inventory, or put the donor's titles in quotation marks? Has the donor grouped material in any way you can discern (binders, colored folders, etc.)?
While you may create a container list or basic inventory for your own purposes while surveying, you do not need to include a container list of the collection as it currently is packed in the processing plan. This is also the place to put information about a/v formats that are often tracked separately – are there any? Are they listed in AV/DC Tracker? Does the person/org have a website? Are we already capturing it?
Are there born-digital files? Please take a preliminary look at them (if possible) while surveying the collection. Describe any order, titles, etc. and your thoughts about potential ways to describe and/or provide access. How do the born-digital files relate to the paper files? How do you imagine describing the digital files in the finding aid?
METADATA CONSIDERATIONS
Unless you're creating a brand new finding aid, you will be working with an old finding aid. In the ArchiveSpace environment, there are some issues with updating existing finding aids that may affect your decision below. Finding aids with a lot of digital object links are more difficult to update. If you are going to work with an older finding aid, take a look and see if it has any existing links in it. If the finding aid has more than 10 digital objects linked to it, it may be harder to update. In this instance, one possible approach is to create an entire series (or more than one series) of addenda, which can be uploaded as a spreadsheet without having to delete and reattach digital objects to the rest of the finding aid. EXAMPLE? Discuss this option with your team lead and Johanna before beginning work.
Photographs from some older finding aids may have been digitized.Check HOLLIS to see if this is the case for the finding aid you are working on. If photos have been digitized, changing the call number and/or the folder numbers may affect these digitized photographs. Discuss options with your team lead and Joanne if necessary.
While you are working with an older finding aid, you should expect to move description that may have been added in a folder title to a scope note at the folder level, as is our current practice. While working with an older finding aid, doing this metadata upgrade helps the data be structured correctly for ArchivesSpace functionality. If you have questions about this practice or are unsure what to move where, discuss with your team lead, Johanna, or Paula.
MODEL OF PROCESSING WORK
Which of the different models of processing addenda will you use? Why? There may be multiple ways to approach the processing. You should think about why each way would or wouldn't work for you.
In past years, collections that were reprocessed or had addenda added to them may have been kept in the chronologically numbered folders (1-2300, not 1.1, 1.2). For many recently processed collections of addenda, Ellen has asked that archivists change the entire numbering schema to our current #1.1 way. Every collection is different and may have unique challenges. Recommend what you think is the best way forward and then discuss possibilities with your team lead and with Ellen if necessary.
ARRANGEMENT
Propose arrangement for the material you are working with. Depending on the model you are following, this may be more or less important. Sometimes you might add all or most addenda into a new series. Sometimes you migth list folders intellectually where they belong and file at the end. See non-addenda processing plan for more on arrangement if you need more prompts of how to think about this section.
Propose an arrangement for the collection. Make sure to include the general sizes of each series. Ideally, you should list the series with sizes, and then underneath provide a more complete description of what kinds of materials will go in each series.
LESS IS MORE: Small collections (2 LF and below) may not need any kind of series arrangement, depending on their content.
Please also give an indication of how material will be arranged in series.
EXAMPLE: Correspondence will be arranged chronologically.
*Please Note: If you feel you cannot provide the level of depth necessary for this section without moving or sorting material, discuss with your team lead. The processing plan can be an iterative process, but this requires communication.
PROCESSING LEVEL and other DESCRIPTION and MPLP issues
The Harvard Joint Processing Guidelines lay out three levels of processing/descriptive work. Familiarize yourself with them. Much of the processing work currently done at Schlesinger is a Level III. We will work toward clearer definitions of how existing Schlesinger practices map to these levels throughout 2018 and 2019.
Generally we describe material at a folder level, and refolder material into acid-free legal-size folders. It's always good as part of the processing plan to consider whether these things need to be done. Did the collection come in all letter-size folders? Could any of the folders be retained?
Think about the kind of description you will create for the collection: if the collection contains multiple diaries and/or correspondence that you are planning to analyze and describe, you'll want to think about creating your detailed description of subject matter in a scope note added at the folder level in your XML document. If you have records of an organization that are better described in the aggregate, you don't need to do this. If you have a large collection, you can consider using different intensities of description for different series. Analyzing these issues/options before processing begins is important.
WORK SUMMARY
Create a work plan: what steps must be taken during processing, and in what order will you do them? Be specific, and especially make sure you think about all the various formats of material in the collection and other library staff you may need to discuss things with.
You should be able to use this work summary as a checklist while processing. For larger collections, it can also be a helpful way to identify tasks that can be done by students. When you're writing this, also think about sequencing. Are there a lot of letters that need to be unfolded or removed from envelopes? If so, you could set this project up first, and then have students do it while you are working on other parts of the collection. If you have a large number of buttons, you could ask a student to search them in the memorabilia database to see which ones are duplicates at the beginning of your workflow. Etc.
Do your best in this section to account for all the steps you will need to take with this specific collection. Some questions to ask while writing this are:
*What kinds of conservation work does the collection need? Will Amanda need to make special housing for anything?
*Does A/V material have item records in the database or will I need to make them?
*Is there a lot of memorabilia that I will need to enter into that database?
*What tasks can I give to a student?
EXAMPLE
- Sort collection into series
- Separate printed material and have it searched in Hollis and OCLC by student
- Refolder and describe Correspondence series (which has most fragile material)
- Have student start photocopying fragile material while refoldering/describing other 3 series.
- Schedule meeting with Joanne and Diana about Photo series
- Post-meeting, complete photo foldering and description
- Complete description of the 20 audiotapes in AV/DC tracker; transform data into EAD and create series in finding aid
- Assess printed material – what will go directly to Summer, what needs a consult with Marylene, etc.
- Prepare finding aid
DURATION
Estimate how much time the collection will take to process. An archivist doing high-level descriptive processing (which is usually happening at Schlesinger) must be able to refolder and describe 3 cartons of material a week during periods of active processing in order to reach 80 to 100 linear feet over the course of the year. However, you may feel the collection will take more or less time than this. Explain why in your processing plan. Also take into account any vacations or other activities (exhibits, etc.) you may have that may affect this.
Mainly this section is meant to give the processor and their team lead an idea of when the work may be complete, as well as help plan for any future meetings or check-ins. It is meant to be an estimate, but can also be a way to determine which parts of processing go more or less quickly for each archivist.
It can be a good idea to build timeframes into the above workplan to help you plan your time. For example "Refolder and describe Series I (4 days)." Plotting this out can help you plan your work, as well as assist you in noting what particular tasks take the longest in general for you, or for each specific collection. Being able to plan and then reassess and adjust work timetables is an important project management skill for archivists.
SUPPLIES
Do you need letter size boxes or folders? Acid-free paper for interleaving? Anything out of the ordinary should be noted. If the collection is large and you need a stamp, make sure to note that.
PRESERVATION
What kinds of things did you notice in your survey? Is there mold? Does anything need special housing? Are there flaking scrapbooks? Is there a lot of fragile material? Feel free to talk with Amanda Hegarty as part of the survey process if you're trying to assess what to do with material, or determine whether you need to preservation photocopy all the fragile paper, etc.
STORAGE
Anything out of the ordinary?
EXAMPLE: Ann Meredith Papers have a large number of crated framed photographs.
PRINTED MATERIAL
Is there any? Is any of it notable for any reason? Is any of it worth keeping and/or tracing ownership because of its importance as being part of the person's library? What kind of holdings does the Library already have of this person/organization? Are there related newsletters? If there is a lot, particularly of an ephemeral form like pamphlets, you could consider asking if it is worth keeping in the collection but cataloging separately (like pamphlets etc.). As of October 2017, we are not going to list books removed from archival collections in a separation form UNLESS there is a reason (outside of tracking each volume in its individual record) to create a list of them to keep with the collection. Is the creator a noted author or collector? IS there a possibility there will be significant research interest in the volumes owned by/sent with the creator? If so, record that here and discuss with your team lead.