The purpose of accessioning is to gain physical and intellectual control over the collection and to make it available for research wherever possible; additionally, specific statistics gathered during the accessioning process allow us to report annually on the growth of our holdings.
Current practice at the Schlesinger is for the curators (Kathy, Kenvi, and Susan) to do all communicating with donors before material arrives at the Library. They should have an idea of what is coming when, and hopefully they may have sent a copy of our container list spreadsheet for the donor to fill out. Curators are asked to fill out an accessioning worksheet that asks for some information about restrictions, whether they expect more accruals, etc. (Eventual goal: move this information-sharing process away from paper forms). Curators don't always pass on all the information archivists may need to make accessioning decisions; thus archivists should be in the habit of reading through any available paperwork or correspondence and/or having a conversation with the curator about the material if they need more information. Current record keeping practice is for deeds of gift to be scanned and added to DOG tracker. For new collections this happens about once a quarter; so probably will not have occurred at the time of accessioning - so archivists should ask curators for a copy of the deed if they need it.
The point of reviewing any available documentation prior to accessioning is to understand what the collection’s likely research value is, to familiarize oneself with the creator and her career and life, and to be alert to the kinds of materials to expect. This will all add in creating the bibliographic record, thinking about closures, and prioritizing processing work on the collection.
The Harvard Joint Processing Guidelines contain suggested accessioning practices, at Schlesinger we will do our best to accession material to an optimal level. One of the key points of the Joint Processing Guidelines is that "good accessioning can result in collections processed to a Level 1."
We strive to open as many collections as possible to research upon accessioning.
Level 1 processed collections are:
- all small As and Bs
- smaller collections (1 to 2 file boxes) with no restrictions that are well described in a bibliographic record
- collections of any size with no restrictions, and materials in folders that have a (however basic) online container list
We should attempt to make an online container list/finding aid for any new accession that is open to research and larger than a small A or B. This will help us going forward as our systems shift and change and collections that are open to research become requestable to researchers through Aeon (using an ASpace resource record and inventory). See the separate page on accessioning work with new collections for further specific guidance.
Recent examples of collections with online container lists made upon accessioning include Dorothy Frauenhofer papers, Jennifer Finney Boylan papers, Ana Maria Simo papers.
Reasons to close collections to research on accession:
- Deed of gift restricts use
- Material is too fragile, dirty, etc. and needs conservation before use (requires processing for use)
- Material is too messy - could not be adequately served to researcher in reading room (requires processing for use
- Collection is too large to adequately create a container list at point of accession (consider this as future student project if possible)
- Material appears to have potentially restricted material (student records, lawyer/client privilege, third party privacy) and time cannot be taken at accessioning to determine more carefully what might have issues
Collections that are closed to research until processed may still benefit from the creation of a container list - in this case, it's the future archivist we are helping. As larger collections come in, and the space we have in which to process is shrinking, we should record as much information as possible at the point of accession.
Recent example of this are the two Cyril Means container lists on G.
Anne's other comments on random occurrences:
- Sometimes material will arrive from the Print division. Typically it is stuff that came in with other stuff bought by the curator, and with any luck it can be added to a constructed collection. See G:\SCHLES\COLLECTION SERVICES\CONSTRUCTED COLLECTIONS.doc for list of constructed collections. Be sure to check Alma and OCLC as to which record is more up-to-date (likely to be the one in Alma). Sometimes this material requires a small A. The books department uses a stub record in order to pay for things. One could create the new record in Connexion and then overlay the stub record in Alma, but it’s more work for little result. (You can decide differently after I leave!)
- Sometimes individual letters or items are donated piecemeal (or purchased) and in cases where keeping the provenances separate really isn’t critical, we’ve started creating a few collections to house these, i.e.: Julia Child and Angela Y. Davis (see constructed collections document, above).
- PC collections (e.g. collections that consist entirely or almost entirely of photographs) get logged in the accession log, but then are given directly to Joanne, who makes a bibliographic record and then typically has them digitized and cataloged in HOLLIS Images. There is no blue card for these.
- Individual items (not associated with collections) that need to be added to the posters and memorabilia collections can be given to Johanna after inputting in the accession log. She adds them to the finding aid (posters) or the memorabilia database (objects).
- Small As with born digital content get logged as usual, and a bibliographic record created as part of accessioning, then they get assigned to Pablo to process the born digital.
- Sometimes born-digital content comes in via emails as attachments. Typically these are photographs. Give them an accession number as usual, notify Joanne who will store them on R: (I think).
- Sometimes Marylene will pass on to us menus. These get cataloged/listed in the menu database: G:\SCHLES\COLLECTION SERVICES\Culinary Access databases\sl menu collection 2005.mdb There are essentially two collections itemized there (Pr-7 and Pr-10). Pr-7 is the general Menu collection; Pr-10 is the Judith Lee Orloff Menu collection. Be sure to familiarize yourself with how menus are already described and be consistent! This database was devised by Barbara Wheaton and isn’t perfect. There is a document that gives a list of some of the standard language here: G:\SCHLES\COLLECTION SERVICES\MANUSCRIPTS\Accessioning\Accessioning procedures, forms, etc\SL menu.docx
There is a collection known as the Inserted material collection for items found inserted in books at SL. See
http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990137131460203941/catalog This comes from a fussy old rare books practice and is not something to be encouraged (or even continued!)