INFO 6800 - Archives

• Announcements• Acquisitions• Accessioning• Tour of Dalhousie University Archives

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2002-05-16/ 1

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

What are acquisitions?

Acquisitions

Resource Allocation

• Acquisition (verb) – The process of acquiring records from any source by transfer, donation, or purchase, or the body of records so acquired

• Acquisition (noun) - Materials received by a repository as a unit; an accession

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March 11, 2013 Week Ten

What does an acquisitions

(collections) policy do?

Outline materials of interest

Set limits

Stipulate what the archives will

acquireShould help minimize subjective decisions

Acquisitions

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Faculty Papers

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• Appraisal policy draws from various acquisitions and appraisal methods (e.g., Minnesota Method, Documentation Strategy, Macro-appraisal, etc.)

• Policy assists with collections development• Enables coordination between donors,

departments, and archives• Assists with processing backlog Resource

Allocation

Faculty Papers

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Hyry, Kaplan,

Weideman (2002)

“Our policy acknowledges that a vita and photograph should be acquired for all faculty members, but especially for those who are tenured. We knew from experience that researchers frequently ask for these items and that requesting a vita and photograph often helps allay the disappointment of potential donors whose papers we decline.”

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March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Will Purchase agreement

Deposit agreement

Letter Oral agreement Deed of gift

How do archives gain legal control?

Gaining Legal Control

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March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Elements of a Deed of Gift

• Name of donor and recipient archive• Description of materials• Conditions of donation (e.g., access

restrictions) • Statement indicating transfer of ownership• Date of acquisition • Signatures of both the archivist and donor

(should be witnessed)

What are the elements of a deed of gift?

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March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining Legal Control

• University of Victoria http://library.uvic.ca/policies/col/howdoi/Arc_SC_Gift.pdf

• AABC Sample Deed of Gift http://aabc.ca/media/6069/manualforsmallarchives.pdf

• Dalhousie University Archives

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• Accession – To take legal and physical custody of a group of records or other materials and to formally document their receipt

• To document the transfer of records or materials in a register, database, or other log of the repository’s holdings

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining physical control

How do archives gain physical

control?9

• Make shipping arrangements• What about electronic records?

• Acknowledge receipt of materials• Gather information from creator• Assign accession number• Create accession record• Update location register

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining physical control

Resource Allocation

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• Accrual – Materials added to an existing collection

• Each accrual should be treated as a separate accession

• A fonds might have several accessions and an accession might be distributed amongst several fonds

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining physical control

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March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining physical control

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Accession 1

Fonds 1

Fonds 4

Fonds 53

Fonds 1

Accession 1

Accession 5

Accession 12

• Deaccessioning – Permanently removing accessioned materials from a repository

• There are many different reasons to deaccession materials

• Materials may be offered back to donor, offered to another archives, or destroyed

• Deaccessioning is related to reappraisal

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Gaining physical control

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• Mandate to acquire records of local community organizations

• Limited preservation budget• Organization wants to donate records of high

research value• Some are heavily water damaged• Wants 50 year restrictions on some records

• What would you do?

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Acquisitions Scenario

Sources (in order of appearance)

March 11, 2013 Week Ten

Adams, Scott (1995). Dilbert comic. http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2002-05-16/.

Hyry, Tom, Diane Kaplan, and Christine Weideman, “”Though there be madness, yet there is Method in ‘t”: Assessing the Value of Faculty Papers and Defining a Collecting Policy,” American Archivist, Vol. 65 (Spring-Summer, 2002), p. 56-69. http://archivists.metapress.com/content/c01107u676225hq3/fulltext.pdf

Deaccession flow chart. http://www.studiolo.org/MusComp/3DEACCN.gif.

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