Overview of Archival Processing

What it means to process:

A collection is “processed” when any amount of physical and intellectual control is imposed upon the collection by an archivist. A processed collection has been at least minimally described through basic inventories and narrative description that includes administrative information as well as contextual information about the collection.

Archivists process collections by applying their knowledge of professional best practices in collections management, arrangement, description, and preservation to the documents in the collection to make it accessible to researchers. Processing also includes research about the collection creator and other topics that shed light on the context in which the collection was created and used before acquisition. Archivists provide this information to patrons in the form descriptive documents such as finding aids and bibliographic catalog records.

What we do and do not do when we process:

We do:

  • Try to provide enough description of a collection’s structure and content that a user can navigate the collection and locate research material.
  • Reflect the meaningful relationships that we identify between records, and between records and their creators.
  • Provide scope and content notes that indicate what a user might find in a collection, series, or file-and what might be missing or unascertainable.
  • Focus on groupings and aggregations of materials and the relationships between them.
  • Focus on context rather than content.
  • Seek to be as transparent as possible about the actions that we take on records and the changes that we make to collections (aspirations, but hey).
  • Use professional training and judgment to determine appropriate levels of arrangement and description for collections.

We do not:

  • Read every file or document in the collection.
  • Interpret the meaning or possible use of a collection or document.
  • Arrange items within files or folders.
  • Promise to identify every occurrence of personal information.

How we manage restrictions:

In the course of processing a collection, archivists make every reasonable attempt to locate and redact or restrict confidential records. Confidential records are any records that must be restricted from public access for a period of time to ensure compliance with legal or statutory regulations. Examples include third party student records (FERPA), personnel records, some medical records, and privileged attorney-client or doctor-patient communications. In addition, as a matter of course, we make a reasonable attempt to identify social security numbers, tax returns, bank account information and medical records and remove or redact this information as well.

In addition to confidential records, which are restricted as a matter of course, we also make every reasonable attempt to locate and redact or restrict any material stipulated in the donor agreement. This may include categories of information that a donor wishes to restrict for a period of time and falls into the category of private information, or what we often call donor-imposed restrictions. This allows the donor more control over how the Library manages access to the collection.

Because of the size and scope of manuscript collections the archivists are not able to examine every sheet of paper in a collection, but instead are trained to identify document types and formats most likely to contain confidential and private information.

Archivists do not apply their personal opinions about what might constitute sensitive information and will not restrict documents or information that may be controversial or embarrassing unless instructed to by the donor.