Remember
we talked about weeding through your materials before you donate papers to an
archive. Not everything should be saved. [See blog post “Donating Aunt Matilda’s
Papers”] The same is true for
digitizing collections. Not everything in a collection should be scanned. Before an archive starts on a scanning
project the goals of the digitization should be clear. Is it to be simply an exhibition of the
illustrative material in the collections?
Should it be an advertisement for the archive to draw people in, a
digital billboard if you will? Or is it to be
a research destination for users?
Or lastly is it simply a preservation strategy? Or all four? What
priority should each of these goals have?
For
me a digital archive should be like a physical archive, a destination for all
types of researchers - academicians, students, or the general public. In other words, accessibility should be
the number one priority for any archive.
Focus should be on the
information in the papers in the collections, not just the pretty visual
material. When information sharing is the priority, the
most important document about a collection becomes the finding aid. This tool should be front and center
for the digital archive. For those
of you unfamiliar with the term, a finding aid provides a short description of
a collection, a short biography of the creator or compiler of the collection,
and often an explanation of the historical context for the material. As part of the development of the
finding aid, the collection is organized into series such as maps,
correspondence, photographs – categories initially established by the creator
of the collection that can help direct the researcher. Also as part of the processing of the collection,
an inventory, to either series or file level, is included in the finding
aid. [Archives used to inventory
to item level and still often do with photographs and maps, but the sheer volume
of material has made item level inventory impossible for most collections.] Sometimes in digital archives, the
information from the finding aid is divided and can be accessed through
clicking buttons labeled, for example, collections sketch, scope and content,
and inventory (See wtda.alc.org).
Even if the collection is not to be scanned for some time, the
information in the finding aid should be available on line. Once a researcher knows what is
available, they can decide whether to come to the archives or request a scan of
the material. The archive wins
because their collections are accessible even before scanning and the
researcher wins because his accessibility is multiplied.
You
archivists out there need to make sure that the librarians with whom you are working understand the value and importance of the finding aid. I suggest explaining it as a detailed
and expanded catalog record. The
catalog record helps you find a book or resource; the finding aid does the same
thing for paper material only in more detail.
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