Archival collections often contain printed material, though it is usually not kept with the collection. Printed materials that fall within Schlesinger’s collecting scope are generally better served living in the Library's book and periodical collection. You should begin to consider issues related to printed material as part of your initial survey.
Most printed material falls into the categories of newsletters, serials, or books. Decisions about printed material often fall into categories by format. ALL printed material (except ephemera) that leaves your collection must be accompanied by a separation form.
Newsletters are periodic publications, often low-budget, and often created by organizations or groups. Because we collect the records of a number of organizations, we also collect those organizations' newsletters. Newsletters are sometimes a great research tool for organizations that may have been ephemeral, or produced no other printed documentation. For more information about newsletters go here.
Serials (other than newsletters) may be journals of professional organizations, women's magazines, or other journals related to women that we subscribe to or collect.
Books may fall into a number of categories, see here.
GENERAL WORKFLOW
Searching Library Holdings
If your collection has a large amount of published material, it's a good idea to sort it all out and go over what it is and what you plan to do with it.
You or a student assistant can search each title in HOLLIS for information about whether the library already has the book/series/issue or if other Harvard libraries hold them. This information is necessary for appraisal. Prior to students or new staff searching HOLLIS for titles, schedule a HOLLIS training session with Erin in the Published and Printed Materials Department.
A separation form will be filled out by the person who is searching HOLLIS. Each item (including each newsletter issue) should have a separation form. *Note: if you have a large number of issues to a newsletter title that we do not yet have in our collection talk with the serials cataloger about whether it's ok to complete only one separation form for the set.
Note that for periodicals, students should also consult the finding aids for newsletter/periodical collections when relevant (e.g. Pr-1, Pr-3, Pr-4, Pr-5, Pr-8, Pr-16, Pr-17). See about newsletters for more information on the Pr-# collections.
Appraisal Considerations and When to Talk with the Curators
Materials that you can decide to retain and transfer directly to the Head of Published Materials without consulting the curators include:
Books we don’t have at Schlesinger and that clearly fit our collecting scope or are written by the records creator.
Issues of periodicals for which we have the title but not the issue.
Periodicals we don’t have that are in our collecting area.
Anything outside of these categories or that you are unsure of for other reasons can warrant a curatorial consultation.
For titles that already exist at Schlesinger, you may either:
Mark the duplicate for discard, eventually consulting with the Head of the Published and Printed Materials Department about assessing the items for donation to Better World Books, the prison book program, or another library, if the donor doesn’t want the materials returned.
Discuss with the curators whether to keep the duplicate if it is heavily annotated, inscribed, or there is another compelling reason.
For published materials that are owned by other libraries at Harvard, consult with the curators whether we should also have a copy at the Schlesinger.
For published materials that are outside of Schlesinger’s scope but important to the archival collection itself, you may retain them within the archival collection rather than having them cataloged separately. If the items are not important to keep in the collection, box them together and create only one separation form for the box indicating in the notes field that all the materials in that box are out of scope. The Head of Published Materials will then review for possible donation.
When you are ready to have a consultation with the curators, e-mail them at curators@radcliffe.harvard.edu
Note: even when not consulting with the curators on specific titles, send the curators or an individual curator (whichever makes the most sense to you) an e-mail just to inform them of what items are going to the Published and Printed Materials Department. They may be interested in using these items for future instruction, outreach, or programming.
Post Printed Materials Review
Once all decisions are made and you are ready to transfer materials to the Published and Printed Materials Department:
All materials separated from a single collection should be transferred together at one time.
Place materials on the black cart outside the Head of Published Material’s office and notify her.
The Head of Published Materials will give items to appropriate cataloger
Finding Aid Description
All published materials that will be added to the Schlesinger's printed materials collections will be cataloged with provenance information retained in their ALMA holdings record. Because of this, we no longer need to list these titles for books or periodicals in a separation record in the finding aid. However, archivists should appraise the printed material in a collection as part of the survey and processing plan and determine if there is literary or other rationale for retaining a list of books and other printed material. Note: In most cases for newsletters/serials the serials cataloger will indicate the donor and the specific issues donated in the provenance field. But this may not always happen depending on the extent of issues. Check in with the serials cataloger about this. If this is not going to happen, you can list the titles and issues in the finding aid's separation record.
Finding aid examples:
In most cases the archivist will add a general statement in the Processing Information Note to alert researchers that published materials have been removed and cataloged separately. E.g. “Published materials that were removed from the collection have been transferred to the Schlesinger Library books and printed materials collection and have been cataloged separately." Also, if relevant, you can use the following language instead: “Books (when not heavily annotated) by and about the collection’s creator and on subjects which fall within the Library’s collecting area were removed and cataloged separately with information about their provenance; other books and serials were not retained.”
However, if you are listing out titles or periodical issues, put these details in a separation record in the finding aid.
For those newsletter issues that are being added to a constructed collection (see the Newsletters section for more information), indicate in the Separation Record that titles were transferred to whatever constructed collection. E.g.
"The following items have been transferred to the NOW Chapter Newsletter Collection (Pr-1):”
For those published materials items that are being donated to another library and where you want to document that transfer, you can indicate in the separation record that titles were transferred to another library.
E.g. "The following items have been given to Widener Library:”
E.g. “The following published materials have been removed for review by the Andover-Harvard Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School for their collection:”