Harvard Chan Guidance

Deceased Faculty Records

In the unusual, unfortunate event of a faculty member’s passing, the following guidance can be used to facilitate the transfer of electronic and physical records to the archives. 

1. Contact an administrator within the department or office, and ask them to:
   1. Establish a Person of Interest (POI) with IT. Similar to when a staff/faculty member leaves the university for other reasons; if a POI isn’t submitted, data is deleted and unrecoverable after 30 days from the "termination" date. Share the following email template with the administrator: APPENDIX A: ESTABLISHING A POI. 
      1. Electronic records for preservation include: email (inbox, sent, deleted, archived), P:/ (personal network) drive, OneNote, DropBox. 
      2. Not included are electronic records stored on the shared (S:/) drive and/or SharePoint, as they are still accessible to collaborators.
      3. In the case of a dual appointment, the archivist will need to request multiple POIs (for example, HMS IT and Harvard Chan IT). 
   2. Identify any physical office space. Are there deadlines? Has the family expressed interest in retrieving materials? 
2. After the POI is established: ask this same administrator to request executive approval for the archives to access electronic records. Requests relating to faculty should be directed to the Office of Faculty Affairs (deceased staff requests should be directed to Human Resources). Share the following email template with the administrator: APPENDIX B: PERMISSION FOR ACCESS
3. IT will send a secure file transfer of relevant files, likely as large files and in multiple batches. Save the files in the appropriate N:\E_Accn folder. 

4. Accession as an institutional collection. 

   1. If the records do not obviously correspond to a department or office, acquire them for the last department/office the deceased was affiliated with. 
   2. If a more thorough appraisal isn't possible, the records can be assigned as Faculty Interests and Plans Records (3325). 
   3. If the faculty member was emeritus, the decision to acquire their email as institutional should be evaluated more carefully. 
   4. If connecting with the family, notify them that professional electronic records and email were retained by Harvard, and that any personal files would be exported as PDFs and sent to them (and not retained).
   5. If a manuscript collection is someday acquired, make sure to alert a processor that the finding aid should say “correspondence from this faculty member can be found in (institutional collection).” 

5. Use FTK to image the files (see Electronic records and/or Email).

NOTE: Harvard Chan IT (not the archivist!) is responsible for managing the following:

1. Obtaining additional permission from HUIT to access DropBox files
2. Tracking down Harvard property, such as physical computers 
3. Sharing personal photos or files from Harvard systems with the family or department, such as for a memorial event.
   
   

APPENDIX A:  ESTABLISHING A POI

TO: helpdesk@hsph.harvard.edu; 

CC: [Harvard Chan Archivist] [Harvard Chan Records Manager]

FROM: [Departmental Administrator]

SUBJECT: Archiving [DONOR] Electronic Records

Dear Harvard Chan IT Department,

Our department is working with the Center for the History of Medicine for the purpose of reviewing the electronic records of [Deceased Faculty Member], who recently passed away on [Date], for both compliance and historical purposes. For this reason, I would like to request that a hold be placed on [Deceased Faculty Member]’s network account, including their email, P:/ drive, OneNote, DropBox, & etc., until further notice. I am in the process of obtaining permission from the Dean’s office to grant Harvard Chan Archivist, Heather Mumford, access to these electronic files, and will CC you in these emails. 

Thank you for your assistance with this, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

NAME

DEPARTMENT

CONTACT INFO

APPENDIX B: PERMISSION FOR ACCESS

TO: facultyaffairs@hsph.harvard.edu

CC: [Harvard Chan Archivist]; [Harvard Chan Records Manager]; helpdesk@hsph.harvard.edu; [Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs - Jennifer Ivers, ivers@hsph.harvard.edu]; 

FROM: [Departmental Administrator]

SUBJECT: Archiving [DONOR] Electronic Records

Dear Office of Faculty Affairs,

Our department is working with the Center for the History of Medicine for the purpose of reviewing the electronic records of [Deceased Faculty Member], who recently passed away on [Date], for both compliance and historical purposes. This includes granting access to their Harvard email (including inbox, sent, deleted, & archive folders), P:/ drive, OneNote, and DropBox accounts, as well as any files stored on their physical computers.  These records will be used to establish a permanent archival collection for [Deceased Faculty Member] at the Center for the History of Medicine.

As this is a time sensitive request, we would be grateful for your prompt reply. Harvard Chan IT have been included in this thread, and they will facilitate this process upon your approval. If you have any questions about the Archives, kindly contact Heather Mumford, Harvard Chan Archivist, at heather_mumford@hms.harvard.edu, or (617) 432-6206.

Sincerely,

NAME

DEPARTMENT

CONTACT INFO

Course Catalogs

Between 1913 and 2011, the Harvard Chan Course Catalog (or course register, & etc.) was available in hard copy. In 2012, the catalog's information shifted to an entirely digital format hosted on my.harvard (online, under login). In 2021, we began receiving exported PDFs of course catalog content (which includes, due to issues with omittance, several hundred independent study and research sections listed for each term). Course catalogs now exist for 2015-current, however there is a gap (due to export issues) affecting catalogs representing 2012-2014 (unresolved as of 9/26/2022).

It is the responsibility of the Harvard Chan archivist to solicit each year's catalog from the Registrar's office. 

Process for soliciting and receiving digital (PDF) Harvard Chan course catalogs: 

1. Harvard Chan archivist:
   1. Emails registrar@hsph.harvard.edu in mid-April to request the next course catalog.
   2. Saves the PDF here:   N:\E_Accn\Archives\P-AA03_01 Registrar's Office
   3. Images PDF using FTK software
   4. Updates the serials database with current holdings (N:\Collections\06_Publications\Serials_Database.accdb)
   5. Notifies the Metadata Archivist that the course catalog is now ready for cataloging.
2. Metadata archivist:
   1. Catalogs the PDF(s) as a serials publication (HOLLIS record)
   2. Notifies both the Harvard Chan archivist and MHL project coordinator that the files are ready for uploading to the MHL.
3. Harvard Chan archivist either adds the files to the MHL google drive folder, or emails them to the MHL project coordinator. 
4. Metadata archivist updates HOLLIS to link record to MHL
5. Harvard Chan archivist updates the LibGuide to reflect current catalog holdings

Current as of September 26, 2022