1 / 13

Nothing Like a Library

Nothing Like a Library. Understanding An Archival Organization System. Instructions:. Think of this less as a Power Point and more of a “Power Book”. It’s more than a visual aid, but less than a stand-alone book.

andromeda-marinos
Download Presentation

Nothing Like a Library

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Nothing Like a Library Understanding An Archival Organization System

  2. Instructions: • Think of this less as a Power Point and more of a “Power Book”. It’s more than a visual aid, but less than a stand-alone book. • If a word or phrase is a different color (usually green) than the rest of the sentence, it is hyperlinked. Click on it and it will take you to the referenced webpage. • Once you are finished, don’t forget to review your worksheet, do the quiz at the end, spend some time on the board, and post to your journal.

  3. A little archival vocabulary: • Group: n. ~ A collection of materials that share the same provenance. • Series: n. ~ 1. A group of similar records that are arranged according to a filing system and that are related as the result of being created, received, or used in the same activity; a file group; a record series. • Item: n. ~ A thing that can be distinguished from a group and that is complete in itself.

  4. Types of Repositories • Archives are repositories. Government repositories are where government agencies send their historic or “permanent” records when they no longer need them. • Libraries and museums may collect (among other things) • Books • Manuscripts • Objects • Maps • Journals • Newspapers • Photographs • Moving Images • Artwork • Electronic materials • Special collections

  5. Local and State Repositories A state, county or local government facility often house: • Birth certificates • State and local census records • Records of the local courts • Marriage certificates • Local land records • School records • State and local program records Nearly unlimited possibilities for state and local agencies and department records. Just a note that the city-sponsored museums/library/archives may or may not contain city documents. I couldn’t get a straight answer, but they are provided as examples.

  6. Federal Government Federal archives are home to: • Military records • Records of the federal courts • Federal immigration records • Federal land records • American Indian records (recorded by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs) • Federal program records (CCC, WPA, Highways, Dams, rationing, and thousands more) • Federal census records

  7. NARA organizes by Record Group first • Each federal agency is assigned a record group number. (e.g. Record Group 21: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 – 2004). They are divided into three groups: Congressional Records, Federal Court Records and Executive Agency Records. Different branches of an agency may be assigned different group numbers. • They are not organized by topic, but NARA does have a page to help people figure out what record groups to search for.

  8. Understanding Record Groups • You will likely have to search more than one Record Group to find your topic. • Not every branch has material for every record group. Anchorage has about 57 record groups. Some have hundreds of cubic feet of records, others have only a folder. • Finding aids are designed to help researchers move from the record group to the series.

  9. Series Descriptions • In the museum world, items are cataloged individually—usually because there’s only one of the item. In the archives world, the series level is rapidly becoming the norm. Remember the crayon example? • We don’t need all 64 crayons described to find the red one. We just need to know that it’s going to be in the red-orange series. Then an index or box and folder list will lead us to the correct box.

  10. Finding Aid Example

  11. Finding Aid Notes • Just a note that this is not the whole finding aid. It’s an example to show you the relationship between the series descriptions and the box and folder list. • There is no standard finding aid. Every facility, even within an agency, is different. • The finding aid will tell you if this is a series you want to pursue, or move on. It may be as complete as an item list, or as bare as a generic series description. But wait, how are you supposed to find anything with just that?

  12. Ask the Archivist We were cleaning the back room today, so this is a prettier picture. But you’ve all seen my picture on the board, and I promise you’ll get a nice professional one later in the course. --Robyn Susan Karren, Archives Director, The National Archives at Seattle

  13. The Archivist Archivists are trained to help you locate the different Federal agencies that were involved with your topic, at the right place, during the right period of time. The National Archives at Anchorage 654 West Third Avenue Anchorage, AK 99501-2145 907-261-7800 alaska.archives@nara.govHolding original records from Alaska The National Archives at Seattle 6125 Sand Point Way, NE Seattle, WA 98115-7999 206-336-5115 seattle.archives@nara.gov Holding original records from Washington, Oregon and Idaho

More Related