General information

The Center utilizes Trello to manage and document intake, accessioning, and description activities related to a variety of collections material. A suite of 5 boards have been designed to track progress on tasks related to manuscript and print materials; a workflow for archival collections is currently in development. The boards are:

• Acquisitions Intake
• Accession-Level Description
• Level 1 Processing
• Print Materials for Cataloging
• Processing Projects

Acquisitions Intake Board

All new materials received by acquisitions staff are represented by a card on the Intake board; cards have a 1:1 relationship with accessions - material to be accessioned separately should be represented by two different cards even if the materials have the same creator. Depending on the material type and/or the type of description warranted, the card will eventually be pushed to one of the other workflow tracking boards, or, in the case of some joint accessions, pushed/copied to multiple boards.

General information about this board:

Template cards

Template cards exist for all conceivable combinations of transfer and material types (example: "Donation - Manuscript - New Collection") and contain customized series of checklists meant to cover the scope of administrative and descriptive activities needed to properly document and accession that transfer/material type. Template cards should not be altered except by the Acquisitions Archivist or the Harvard Chan Archivist.

Custom Fields

Custom fields are uniformly present on all templates or newly-created cards, but not every field is required for all transfer/material types. Data stored in custom fields will display on the front of a card and can act as a quick reference during accessioning, so it is beneficial to fill in these fields as relevant information becomes available. Custom fields and their data will be carried over when a card is pushed to another board, so field names should not be altered as they map to relevant fields in subsequent workflows.

Labels

Labels are useful visual signifiers and can also be used with Trello's Filter function. A number of labels have been created on this board to indicate what type of work is needed next, whether next steps are pending action by another individual, or other relevant information about the accession. Labels may be used at the discretion of the accessioning archivist. Labels should generally be removed before pushing a card to a subsequent board (exception: labels indicating joint accession should remain to indicate joint status to future processors).

Instructions for tracking new materials on this board:

1. Create a card from a template

2. Customize card

3. Complete checklists

4. Update card description

5. Print card

6. Push to next board(s)

Accession-Level Description Board

Level 1 Processing Board

Instructions for tracking new materials on this board:

• Create a card from a template (CSA or Acquisitions/HSPH Archivist)
• Fill in card description and appropriate custom fields (including FY processed)
• Complete checklist 
• Use comments to record decisions
• Print card and file in description folder with FA/MARC (CSA)