Processing plan
Consult the box list for the collection. If no box list exists, then produce a simple content list. Determine whether or not the collection is in any order that could be/should be preserved, or if it is in no discernible order and requires a large amount of physical sorting.
There are four levels of description:
- Collection level
- Series/box level
- Folder level
- Item level
A collection may employ more than one level of arrangement, for example, the correspondence in a collection may be described at the folder level while clippings in the collection may be described at the series/box level. In consultation with the Associate Librarian for Technical Services, decide on the level of description needed for the collection, considering the status of the collection, needs of the Reading Room, and desires of the curator.
Draw up a rough draft of the series outline such as this standard Houghton literary personal papers arrangement:
- I. Correspondence (of main person) "Arranged A-Z by last name of OTHER person"
- II. Correspondence of others "Other letters that end up in the files, but are not to or from the main person. Arrange by last name of AUTHOR of letter."
- III. Compositions (of main person) "Autograph manuscripts, typescripts, print with annotations, etc., by main person. Arranged by title on piece."
- IV. Compositions of others "Autograph manuscripts, typescripts, print with annotations, etc., by other people (not main person)"
- V. Other materials "Can be all sorts of additional series depending on how each person arranged his/her files; most often these odd series in literary papers tend to be biographical materials, research files (arranged by subject), etc."
If arrangement of the collection appears to be non-standard, consult with Senior Manuscript Cataloger and/or the Associate Librarian for Technical Services. Although the curator can often be helpful with ideas, the arrangement and description standards for every collection are determined within the Dept. of Technical Services, Manuscript Section, not by the curator.
In some cases the cataloger should create a rough timeline for processing the collection and give the timeline to the Associate Librarian for Technical Services.