Processing Decisions for Manuscripts & Archives, SPEC Kit 314 (November 2009)

Hackbart-Dean, Pam; Slomba, Elizabeth

SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts &Archives · 73
specific items, and the presence of different types of materials, such as photographs, digital storage media, or multiple
drafts works.
Combination of past/ongoing discussions with researchers, often relating to format, subject matter keywords, and
descriptive information that would yield useful results by a search engine accrued experience of the processor in
question.
Curators determine processing level (i.e., Levels 1–3) prior to routing to processing.
Descriptions grow and develop over time and as collections are used, however, at a minimum a description must provide
a researcher with a basic understanding of the contents, context, formats, and date span of materials comprising a
collection or a portion of a collection. Enough for them to identify that it might be of interest and pertinent to their
research. What is difficult to factor in is the interpretive skills of the researcher—the more advanced researcher can
judge usefulness with less specifics than a beginner. So type of audience and availability of staff assistance have a role
in this decision as well.
Does a collection contain MIT administrative records (personal papers often have these hidden in collection) do we
have a gift agreement? Dates if possible.
Evaluate the “Scope and Content” of the source material at all levels and determine appropriate description level for
collection management (housing) and retrieval (access).
Folder level is the goal for the majority of our collections. Item level is rare and limited to valuable, small collections of
special importance. New accessions are given enough description so that collection content can be considered when
allocating resources for processing or assisting patrons with research/reference.
Folder-level or box-level inventory.
For the time being, there is no minimal level standard that I use. Either a manuscript or a manuscript collection is fully
processed or it is not. Patrons make arrangements with either the Curator of Manuscripts or the Assistant Curator of
Manuscripts to gain access to unprocessed material.
If a collection is largely homogeneous, we limit ourselves to a collection level description with folder level container lists.
More complex collections require series descriptions as well.
If the records are the administrative products of a specific program or particular office, they are left at the default level,
summary descriptions. This default level of description remains untouched unless we find other reasons to increase the
complexity or granularity of processing, heavy use, etc.
Importance of collection and anticipated use influence processing decisions.
Individual assessment by responsible archivist.
It is first based on the contents of the collection, then importance.
It is really a foolish enterprise to think we can understand researcher needs or that we can match their needs with
processing practices, other than in the broadest way, so we do not believe such “determination” is worth the time.
It’s mostly based on a guess at use and how much staff time we have available.
Minimal level of description will be able to provide a patron with an accurate account of holdings in a brief but succinct
manner.
Off site: For collections other than university records, the researcher usually needs to know to the item level in order
to request selected items. Folder or series level should provide enough information to base a decision to travel to

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SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts & Archives (November 2009) resources

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SPEC Kit 314: Processing Decisions for Manuscripts &Archives · 73
specific items, and the presence of different types of materials, such as photographs, digital storage media, or multiple
drafts works.
Combination of past/ongoing discussions with researchers, often relating to format, subject matter keywords, and
descriptive information that would yield useful results by a search engine accrued experience of the processor in
question.
Curators determine processing level (i.e., Levels 1–3) prior to routing to processing.
Descriptions grow and develop over time and as collections are used, however, at a minimum a description must provide
a researcher with a basic understanding of the contents, context, formats, and date span of materials comprising a
collection or a portion of a collection. Enough for them to identify that it might be of interest and pertinent to their
research. What is difficult to factor in is the interpretive skills of the researcher—the more advanced researcher can
judge usefulness with less specifics than a beginner. So type of audience and availability of staff assistance have a role
in this decision as well.
Does a collection contain MIT administrative records (personal papers often have these hidden in collection) do we
have a gift agreement? Dates if possible.
Evaluate the “Scope and Content” of the source material at all levels and determine appropriate description level for
collection management (housing) and retrieval (access).
Folder level is the goal for the majority of our collections. Item level is rare and limited to valuable, small collections of
special importance. New accessions are given enough description so that collection content can be considered when
allocating resources for processing or assisting patrons with research/reference.
Folder-level or box-level inventory.
For the time being, there is no minimal level standard that I use. Either a manuscript or a manuscript collection is fully
processed or it is not. Patrons make arrangements with either the Curator of Manuscripts or the Assistant Curator of
Manuscripts to gain access to unprocessed material.
If a collection is largely homogeneous, we limit ourselves to a collection level description with folder level container lists.
More complex collections require series descriptions as well.
If the records are the administrative products of a specific program or particular office, they are left at the default level,
summary descriptions. This default level of description remains untouched unless we find other reasons to increase the
complexity or granularity of processing, heavy use, etc.
Importance of collection and anticipated use influence processing decisions.
Individual assessment by responsible archivist.
It is first based on the contents of the collection, then importance.
It is really a foolish enterprise to think we can understand researcher needs or that we can match their needs with
processing practices, other than in the broadest way, so we do not believe such “determination” is worth the time.
It’s mostly based on a guess at use and how much staff time we have available.
Minimal level of description will be able to provide a patron with an accurate account of holdings in a brief but succinct
manner.
Off site: For collections other than university records, the researcher usually needs to know to the item level in order
to request selected items. Folder or series level should provide enough information to base a decision to travel to

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74 · Survey Results: Survey Questions And Responses
collection. On site: While item level might be preferred, folder level provides enough information to base request for
relevant boxes.
Organization of the collection as it comes in the door, and whether item level would enhance access and be worth it.
One archivist imagines how he would locate materials in a collection, creating a pathway to the resources that is clear
to him. The nature of congressional papers suggests folder-level processing while congressional memorabilia require
item-level. In general, staff use their experience assisting researchers using particular collections to make such decisions,
keeping in mind that some researchers prefer to explore entire boxes.
Our goal is to provide a folder level description for completely processed collections however, if a collection contains
a large volume of similar materials (i.e., correspondence) a box level may be used if special objects, ledgers, or rare
materials, etc., are part of the collection or a donor has requested it, an item level may be used.
Our minimal level of description includes a collection description and container list at the folder level.
Processing level is guided by the organization of the material, format and size of the collections.
Processing policy.
Provide basic information such as bio note, scope and content note, and date range.
Researcher needs to be able to identify material of interest, at least to the box level, so that irrelevant material is not
retrieved.
Series and/or collection level, complete with a container list and perhaps an AMC record.
Series level seems to meet the needs of most researchers, particularly the experienced.
Size and diversity of material, or the lack of it, dictate the applicability of minimal description.
The basic level would be the accessioning of the collection that included an inventory at the box level.
The experience of the processor in the subject area will determine the extent of the description.
The functional ideal is to get researchers within 5–10 boxes of material they are seeking, though on a case-by-case
basis and depending on the type of material. Aim for achieving a kind of “sympathetic imagination” which will help
guide user to material.
The majority of time we process to the folder level. Only in cases where a collection is small or very valuable would we
process to the item level.
The minimal level of description is based on privacy, security, and preservation risk factors library policy and formats
found in collection.
The minimum level for moving image and audio collections is a title or a created title, year of creation, and subject
headings or a sentence describing the content.
The primary factor is size and uniformity—what is the lowest level at which we can convey the contents and the size
allows a reasonable expectation that the researcher will be able to locate a specific item or group of materials without
further guidance or description. Feedback from patrons or reference staff that existing description for a processed
collection is insufficient.
The researcher needs to know about the existence of the materials.
The size and content of the collection as well as its current/future anticipated use drives the minimal level.

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72 · Survey Results: Survey Questions And Responses
Box level, initial physical and intellectual control, also materials may be weeded or discarded in future.
Box listing: for when we want to establish some intellectual control over a collection.
Box-level — size of collection staffing arrangement homogeneity.
National descriptive standard RAD.
Need for instruction, outreach, collecting profile.
Some complex collections or agencies with complex structures require sub-series level processing.
Staffing, access needs, size, homogeneity.
Sub-collection: Rare, but available when needed.
Web site lists.
Please describe how you determine the minimal level of description a researcher needs in order to
use manuscript and archival collections. N=62
A MARC record and box list is required to send our collections to the University of California Northern Regional Library
Facility (off-site storage) so this is a required minimal record to be able to store the majority of our MSS/archives
collections.
Ability to group similar items intellectually within collections.
Again, there are a host of other factors that influence the level of description from demands of donors and
administrators to interest in appealing to a particular community (of users, donors, associates, etc.), to desire to
facilitate research, to the likelihood of current or future digital projects.
All acquisitions of university and private records described first at accession level.
All fonds and collections receive a fonds or collection level description. We determine the level of description on each
case taking into account many factors.
Anticipated user demands/usage of content based on what types of things are typically sought by our researchers.
Based on past use of similar collections coupled with the realities of lack of staff and time, we try to describe our
collections well enough so that they are “found” and accessible to researchers.
By policy we demand that every accession gets at least an accession record, listed on new accession Web page each
year, briefly cataloged (mostly for delineating collections stored offsite), and box listed after rehousing. We believe
rehousing at the folder level is the most important access and preservation activity we can supply outside of good
environmental controls.
Can the researcher use our description to get to within 1 to 2 linear feet of the desired material? If a researcher flies
across the country to use our materials based on our description, will he or she be upset that we have mislead him or
her about the scope and content of our collection? We try to provide the minimum amount of description necessary
to help a user reasonably identify whether a box, series, or collection is likely to contain the information he or she is
seeking. The minimum amount fluctuates based on the expected type of demand for the collection and the nature of
the materials.
Collections with anticipated high-use and/or complex arrangement receive more detailed description Low-use and
easily accessible original order allow for less detailed description. Other factors include security and preservation for

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Page 7Survey Results click to expand contents

Page 123Representative Documents click to expand contents

Page 125Job Description of Processing Decision Maker click to expand contents

Page 129Job Descriptions of Processing Staff click to expand contents

Page 133Processing Policy click to expand contents

Page 137Processing Procedures Manuals click to expand contents

Page 143Processing Worksheets click to expand contents

Page 151Procedures for Prioritizing Processing click to expand contents

Page 155Collecting Processing Statistics click to expand contents

Page 159Sample Statistics Reports click to expand contents

Page 163Selected Resources click to expand contents

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