need_everything

## Someone will Need Everything This is an interactive case study that will ask you to make decisions related to priortizing processing, namely arrangement and descriptive activities, of archival records that have been aquired by an archive that collects organizational records for a university. This includes dealing with electronic records. Throughout the case study, you will be asked questions that relate to archival processing theory and practice. These will be labeled under the heading **Questions: Archival Issues**. Use these questions to help you think about your decisions and to prepare a discussion post. You should be able to justify your decisions based on theory and best practices. Make note of your decisions, and the outcomes to those decisions. You should include the outcomes in your discussion post. There are no *wrong* outcomes, but choices have consquences. ### Learning Objectives * Explain how provenance and original order are useful for organizing records. * Understand how to utlize the principles of hierarchical levels of arrangement. * Understand the impact of choices made when utlizing a descriptive system. * Think about how to utlize common descriptive tools (catalog, finding aid, full-text searches) and describe how they are used together to support discovery. ### Questions: Archival Issues * How would you set priorities for describing collections under your care? * How would you prepare your available staff and volunteers to proceed in the description process, and what would your role as archivist be? [[About the Institution| About Zeta University]]

This institution has a small, compared to it's size archive. You happen to be the new archivist for this pretigious instituion. You feel honored to be working at Zeta University. Well some days at least. You are a staff of one, which probably explains why it's only some days that you really enjoy your work. You do have a Graduate Assistant who works around 20 hrs per week, and 2 student workers who each work around 10 hrs per week. There are also several volunteers who wander in and out of your archive to "help". These volunteers are mostly alumni. [[Maybe you should review the collections|Collection Overview]]

Zeta University is a moderately sized university that started out as a smaller college in the late 19th century. The university has grown to include graduate programs, including a few ph.d programs. Next year is the university's 150th anniversary, and the planning phase for the various celebrations has just begun. Archival records will play a key role in this celebration, and will be needed for a variety of purposes. You could expect materials to be used for exhibitions, promotional materials, and research purposes. [[What's in the Archives|About the Archive]]

There are many collections in the Zeta University Archives. There are local history collections, university related record groups and the notorious *emphemera*. You've been told by the previous archivist that there are two extreme popular and important record groups that the university community request materials from frequently. These are the records of the Office of the President and the Office of Student Affairs. The previous archivist mentioned that they would regularlly field reference questions that required these materials. They hinted that you should really become familar with these records. On your first day, you do just that and realized that the collections have barely been processed. [[Examine the President's Files |Presidents Files]] [[Examine the Studnet Affairs Materials |Student Affairs]]

The President's Files record group is primarily paper materials. It is approxiatemately 100 linear feet, and seems to be well arranged. This material dates back to the origin of the university. A quick survey of the collection you can see a rough break down into three series, correspondence, reports, development activities. There does appear to be some issues within the correspondence series, but you won't know until you dig into the record group a bit more. You did not discover any photographs among the material. [[Let's Start Processing |Prioritize Collections]] [[Maybe I should take a look at those Student Affairs Records first |Student Affairs]]

An intial survery of the records from the Office of Student Affairs let's you know that they are kind of a mess. This record group contains materials in many different formats including audio, video, photographs, and a lot of paper. There maybe actual series break downs, but you're not sure in the few minutes that you've spent reviewing this collection. You do know this collection includes a large amount of digital files from the mostly photos from student events over the last 20 years. These images are arranged by date, but no other information is provided. You also know that the bulk dates of most of the analog materials range from 1950 - 1980. [[Let's Start Processing |Prioritize Collections]] [[Maybe I should look at the President's Files |Presidents Files]]

After your intial review, you need to make some decision about how to split your time and your staff time up to process these collections better than they currently are. How will you proceed? [[I'll focus on Student Affairs|Focus on Student Affairs]] [[I'll focus on the President's Files|Focus on President Files]] [[Both deserve some attention|Split Between Both]]

(set: $prioritize to 'sa') You think that the Student Affairs record group has the potential to need the most work, and you've determined to place all or your resources into arranging and describing these materials. [[Arrangement Decisions]] ### Questions: Archival Issue * What impact will deciding to focus on muliple processing projects have for an archivits? * What might the impact be at a large institution, a small one or one with a lone arranger? * What factors should an archivist think about when assigning resources?

(set: $prioritize to 'pf') ## You Start at the Top You think that the President's Files record group has the potential to need the most work, and you've determined to place all or your resources into arranging and describing these materials. [[Arrangement Decisions]] ### Questions: Archival Issue * What impact will deciding to focus on muliple processing projects have for an archivits? * What might the impact be at a large institution, a small one or one with a lone arranger? * What factors should an archivist think about when assigning resources?

(set: $prioritize to 'sr') ### A Split Decision You've decided that's best to pay some attention to both collections considering that they are both well used collections. This will mean that your resources will be split among the two collections. [[Arrangement Decisions]] ### Questions: Archival Issue * What impact will deciding to focus on muliple processing projects have for an archivits? * What might the impact be at a large institution, a small one or one with a lone arranger? * What factors should an archivist think about when assigning resources?

{ (if: $prioritize is 'sa')[Since you've decided to focus on student affairs files and leave the president files as is, you must make some decisions about arrangement. [[Examine Student Affairs]] ] (elseif: $prioritize is 'pf')[You feel that the Office of the President materials needs the most help. You begin by working on making arrangement decisions for these materials. [[Examine President Files]] ] (elseif: $prioritize is 'sr')[You feel both collections deserve some attention. You need to think about how to allocate your resources for these to sets of materials. [[Examine Both]] ] }

Now that arrangement is done, you should probably stick to your decesions on prioritizing work done on these collections. Now you'll need to do the description work on the collections. { (if: $prioritize is 'sr')[ Since you've decided to focus on student affairs files and leave the president files as is, you must make some decisions about descriptions. [[Describe Both]]] (elseif: $prioritize is 'sa')[ Since you've decided to focus on student affairs files and leave the president files as is, you must make some decisions about descriptions.[[Describe Student Affairs]]] (elseif: $prioritize is 'pf')[ Since you've decided to focus on student affairs files and leave the president files as is, you must make some decisions about descriptions. [[Work on the President's Files description|Describe President Files]]] } ### Questions * What factors should you consider when making you decisions about description? * How might your description practices impact your ablity to help with the annivesary celebrations? (elseif: $prioritize is 'pf')

(set: $ga to '1') (set: $sw to '2') (set: $vol to '3') (set: $pf_arrange to 'none') You think that there will be more request from the student records that the president records. There's probably going to be a lot of requests for things students did during the institutions history. Now you need to make a decision on what part of this record group to focus on. [[Arrange the paper records|Focus on Paper Records]] [[Arrange the digital records|Focus on Digital Records]] [[Arrange both parts of the record group|Focus on Both Series]]

(set: $sa_arrange to 'none') You know that the president's files seem to be fairly well arranged, so you probably shouldn't fuss with these materials much. Yet there's a small voice in the back of you head pushing you to spend some time looking over these materials. You decid to... [[Arrange President Files]] [[Leave Alone]]

(set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') (set: $vol to '2') (set: $sa_arrange to 'split') (set: $pf_arrange to 'split') You've decided to split your resources between both record groups, but this means your staff will be split among the arrangement work. You're GA will take lead on the president files with some help from a student worker, and you'll work on the Student Affairs records, with the help of one of your volunteers. You discover the following arrangement among the collections you've examined **Student Affairs Series** * Audio Visual Materials * Student Group Records * Disciplinary Records * Events and Activities **President Files** * Correspondence * Reports * Development Activities [[Description Decisions]]

(set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') (set: $vol to '1') (set: $sa_arrange to 'sa_af') You put your graduate assisstant, one student worker and two volunteers on the project of arrange the student affairs files. You've essentially dedicated your full team to working with these materials.It was discovered that there were at least four series of physical records, with a few subseries. You were even able to tease out the orginal order of the collection. * Audio Visual Materials * Subseries - Videos * Subseries - Audio * Student Group Records (Arranged by Student Group) * Disciplinary Records (Arranged by Date) * Events and Activities (Arranged by Semester) [[Description Decisions]]

(set: $ga to '1') (set: $sw to '2') (set: $vol to '3') (set: $sa_arrange to 'sa_digital') Despite some arrangement issues you thinking that it's a good idea to focus on working on the digital records. Unfortunately, you are the only person qualified to work with these records. In reality, the arrangement of the digital records looks good, and altering it would destroy orginal order. It'd be much better use off your time to focus on descriptive activities. While you work on examining the arrangement of the digital student affairs files, you assign your staff to other mundane activities that don't move the current projects forward. [[Description Decisions]]

(set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') (set: $vol to '2') (set: $sa_arrange to 'sa_both') You decide to examine both parts this record group. Since you the only one with the skill set needed, you put some energy into examining the digital files, and you quickly discover there's really no need to arrange them. You put your graduate assisstant, one student worker and a volunteer on the project of arrange the student affairs files. Since you are working on the digital files, you are not able to fully oversee the arrangement of the physical materials, but it was discovered that there were at least four series of physical records. * Audio Visual Materials * Student Group Records * Disciplinary Records * Events and Activities [[Description Decisions]]

(set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') (set: $vol to '3') (set: $pf_arrange to 'pf_mess') Despite knowing that the collection is fairly well arranged, you dive into an major re-arrangement of this record group. You notice the same basic arrangement, but discover a few sub series that seem worth using for the collection's arrangement. * Correspondence ** Faculty ** Students ** Outside Groups * Reports ** Board Reports ** Academic Departments ** Student Affairs * Development Activities Unfortunately, because of your decision to focus on the President files your voluteeners have decided to focus on other anniversary activities. You will not be able to rely on them to aid during you description on this record group. [[Description Decisions]]

(set: $ga to '1')(set: $sw to '2')(set: $vol to '3')(set: $pf_arrange to 'pf_alone') You examine the arrangement of the files, and decide you don't really need to do a lot of work on them. They are really well arranged, and don't need much work. A missed file folder and an out of place item there, and it's good to good. You note the following series. * Correspondence * Reports * Development Activities Unfortunately, because of your decision to focus on the President files your voluteeners have decided to focus on other anniversary activities. You will not be able to rely on them to aid during you description on this record group. [[Description Decisions]]

## Outcomes You've done as much as you can do with the arrangement and descriptive activities that you can. It's now time to wait for the reference questions to flood in and manage them as best as you can. Some of your students are still working on projects as the question begin to rush into your office. ### Working the Reference Desk { (if: $ga is '1')[You feel relieved that you didn't assign your graduate assisstant to work on any projects. They have been a big help answering questions.] (elseif: $ga is '0')[Your graduate assistant is great, but you probably could have used their help fielding all of the anniversary related questions.] } { (if: $sw is '0')[ You can take some solace in the fact that your student workers are busy working on projects. You tend to keep them off the reference desk because their skills with the public aren't always great.] (elseif: $sw is '1')[You chose not to put one student to work processing materials, and instead are letting the serve as a "runner" for the reference desk. This is helping your ability to speedly answer questions and get materials out for the anniversary.] (elseif: $sw is '2')[You chose not to use your student workers for any back of the house activities, and instead you put them on the reference desk, even though they haven't proven that they are capable of handling complex reference questions. This still seems to be proven true, but it took you three weeks and a phone call to discover that you missed an important request] } ## President Files { (if: $prioritize is 'sa')[Since you've decided to focus on student affairs files and leave the president files as is, you must deal with the fact that you might not have a perfect arrangement and description for these collections.] (elseif: $prioritize is 'pf')[You know that the arrangement was basically there, but could use some more help. You hope that your effort will pay off.] (elseif: $prioritize is 'sr')[You split your energy among the two major record groups needing work, so you feel confident that the minimal arrangement and description updates should help with your reference work] } ### Arrangement { (if: $pf_arrange is 'pf_mess')[You now know this collection as throughly as you possibly could. You feel strong in your ablilty to answer questions based on the work you made to fully arrange this record group, even if you are a bit short staffed because students are working on this project and others.] (elseif: $pf_arrange is 'pf_alone')[You are nervous, but you realize that it's probably not a good use of time working with a collection that has a pretty good arrangement.] (elseif: $pf_arrange is 'none')[You feel some concern not working with these materials more, but you know that the arrangement makes some sense.] (elseif: $pf_arrange is 'both')[You split your time between all collections and have a rough handle on everything. It's better but not perfect.] } ### Description { (if: $des_pf is 'none')[You opted not work on this collection, and now you are in trouble. You and your remaining staff struggle to tease out information about important historical happenings and major events. These request seem to come in hourly. You'll be very happy when this whole anniversary celebration is over.] (elseif: $des_pf is 'pf_event')[You focused on identifying information about events, and it has paid off. You've gotten request for information about what campus was like during WWII, the 1960's, etc. It's been a boon to you outreach endeavors, but you've struggled finding information about milestones, such as how you came to have graduate programs.. ] (elseif: $des_pf is 'pf_milestone')[You chose to focus on milestone moments, such as when the university started offering graduate programs.] (elseif: $des_pf is 'both')[You split your time between all collections and are able to handle most questions. Some have been far more complex than you'd like, but you've managed. You'll be happy when this year is over.] } ## Student Affairs { (if: $prioritize is 'sa')[You put all your effort into working with this record group. You know it should be easy to answer questions because you put so much energy into working with this collection.] (elseif: $prioritize is 'pf')[You're not one to be nervous, but you are given the state of the Student Affairs records. You think you'll have more questions for the presidents office materials] (elseif: $prioritize is 'sr')[You split your energy among the two major record groups needing work, so you feel confident that the minimal arrangement and description updates should help with your reference work. This won't mean that the Student Affairs materials will be perfect, but it's better than nothing.] } ### Arrangement { (if: $sa_arrange is 'none')[You probably made a bit of a mistake not spending some staff time working with these materials. This is going to make answering questions that could orginiate from this record group a bit difficult.] (elseif: $sa_arrange is 'sa_both')[ You split you work force between these two projects, so you feel confident that you'll be able to answer questions well.] (elseif: $sa_arrange is 'sa_digital')[You probably wasted your time focusing on the digital materials. They are too new to be of interest to most requestors.] (elseif: $sa_arrange is 'sa_af')[You feel that your hard work arranging the mixed up files will pay off, even if it took a lot of staff to accomplish this project. Several are still working on it.] (elseif: $sa_arrange is 'both')[You split your time between all collections and have a rough handle on everything. It's better but not perfect.] } ### Description { (if: $des_sa is 'none')[You opted not work on this collection, and now you are in trouble. You and your remaining staff struggle to tease out information about important alumni and student events. These request seem to come in hourly. You'll be very happy when this whole anniversary celebration is over.] (elseif: $des_sa is 'sa_students')[You focused on students and you've had several request about important alumni. It's a good think you put some effort into identifying them. You are having trouble providing information on major student events.] (elseif: $des_sa is 'sa_activities')[You focused on students and you've had several request about important student events. It's a good think you put some effort into identifying them. You are having trouble providing information on major alumni.] (elseif: $des_sa is 'both')[You split your time between all collections and are able to handle most questions. Some have been far more complex than you'd like, but you've managed. YOu'll be happy when this year is over.] } [[Discussion]]

## Discussion No pathway was "absolutely" correct, but each was similar a decision making process an archivist could make based upon their expirence. ### Questions * Why do you think this turned out the way it did for you? * Do you think your outcome was "fair"? * How would you have handled things differently if you had had the following? ** More Staff ** Better organized collections ** More time

(set: $ga to '0')(set: $sw to '0')(set: $vol to '0')(set: $des_pf to 'both') (set: $des_sa to 'both')(set: $pf_arrange to 'both') (set: $sa_arrange to 'both') You've decided to split your staff and volunteers among all the projects. The volunteers are happy to skim student affairs records for information related to student events and look for important individuals. You student staff is busy looking for major historic event and university milestones. You are able to create complete file inventories for both collections, with a few very important items noted in those inventories. [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_pf to 'none') { (if: $ga is '1')[You need to decide how to complete the description of this record group of university records. [[Focus on Student Names (1 GA)]] [[Focus on Activities and Events (1 GA)]]] (elseif: $ga is '0')[You need to decide how to complete the description of this record group of university records. [[Focus on Student Names (0 GA)]] [[Focus on Activities and Events (0 GA)]] ] }

(set: $des_sa to 'none') It's time focus on you decriptive activities. You can't describe everything in the time you have let before the anniversary year, so you'll need to prioritize your descriptions. { (if: $ga is '1')[ [[Focus on Major Historical Events (1 GA)]] [[Focus on Uni Milestones (1 GA)]] ] (elseif: $ga is '0')[ [[Focus on Major Historical Events (0 GA)]] [[Focus on Uni Milestones (0 GA)]] ] }

(set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') (set: $des_sa to 'sa_activities') You decide that you should focus broadly on the many different types of activities that could occur on a campus. Between, your graduate assisstant, student work and voluteers, you are able to describe at least in broad terms the activities that occured on campus and which folders contain information about these activities. { (if: $vol is '1')[You've assigned your one free volunteer and they are able to find many activities in this record group, but you can tell that pushing them so hard due to your time crunch has taken it's toil. You probably will not see them for a few weeks after this project is over.] (elseif: $vol is '2')[ You have two volunteers that are able to sort out activities. They do fairly well and identify many activities. They are getting distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events, but this proves to be helpful to your descriptive process. You are able to add a few names to certain files description.] (elseif: $vol is '3')[You have three volunteers that are able to look for activities. They do fairly well and identify many separate activities, but are getting very distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events. Your shop has turned into more of coffe kalasch than an archives.] } [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_pf to 'pf_milestone') (set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') Because of your arrangement decisions, you have some staff to use for this project. You are able to assign your graduate assisstant and a student worker to make not of files that are either from the same period of time or major campus events. You hope that having these noted will help you with your reference activities later. [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_pf to 'pf_events') (set: $ga to '0') (set: $sw to '1') Because of your arrangement decisions, you have some staff to use for this project. You are able to assign your graduate assisstant and a student worker to make not of files that are either from the same period of time or reference major historical events that occur in the United States and around the world. You hope that having these noted will help you with your reference activities later. You also created a folder level inventory, with some specific items of note mentioned. [[Outcomes]]

(set: $ga to '0')(set: $sw to '1')(set: $des_sa to 'sa_students') You decide that you'll need to find names of students quickly in you Student Affairs records. You set the entire archival staff onto this project. You graduate assisstant and student worker do their best, but they are only able to pick out a few names here and there. Even you struggle while going through the digital portion of this collection. Your voluteers prove to be not only usefull but zealous in their ability to find names in your collections. { (if: $vol is '1')[You've assigned your one free volunteer and they are able to find over a dozen important names, but you can tell that pushing them so hard due to your time crunch has taken it's toil. You probably will not see them for a few weeks after this project is over.] (elseif: $vol is '2')[ You have two volunteers that are able to look for names. They do fairly well and identify around 50 individuals, but are getting distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events.] (elseif: $vol is '3')[You have three volunteers that are able to look for names. They do fairly well and identify around 50 individuals, but are getting very distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events.] } You are also able to create a basic folder level inventory, with [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_sa to 'sa_students')(set: $sw to '0') You've assigned your graduate assistant to work on arrangement, so you and your undergraduate student work will have to work discovering names. You do your best, but honestly your not up to the task and it seems basically futile for a new archivist to be well aware of the important names found in these records. Your voluteers prove to be not only usefull but zealous in their ability to find names in your collections. { (if: $vol is '1')[You've assigned your one free volunteer and they are able to find over a dozen important names, but you can tell that pushing them so hard due to your time crunch has taken it's toil. You probably will not see them for a few weeks after this project is over.] (elseif: $vol is '2')[ You have two volunteers that are able to look for names. They do fairly well and identify around 50 individuals, but are getting distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events.] (elseif: $vol is '3')[You have three volunteers that are able to look for names. They do fairly well and identify around 50 individuals, but are getting very distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events.] } [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_sa to 'sa_activities') (set: $sw to '0') You decide that you should focus broadly on the many different types of activities that could occur on a campus. Between, yourself, student work and voluteers, you are able to describe at least in broad terms the activities that occured on campus and which folders contain information about these activities. { (if: $vol is '1')[You've assigned your one free volunteer and they are able to find many activities in this record group, but you can tell that pushing them so hard due to your time crunch has taken it's toil. You probably will not see them for a few weeks after this project is over.] (elseif: $vol is '2')[ You have two volunteers that are able to sort out activities. They do fairly well and identify many activities. They are getting distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events, but this proves to be helpful to your descriptive process. You are able to add a few names to certain files description.] (elseif: $vol is '3')[You have three volunteers that are able to look for activities. They do fairly well and identify many separate activities, but are getting very distracted by their reminesicents, of people and events. Your shop has turned into more of coffe kalasch than an archives.] } [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_pf to 'pf_events') (set: $sw to '0') Because of your arrangement decisions, you little staff to use for this project. You are able to assign a student worker to make not of files that are either from the same period of time or reference major historical events that occur in the United States and around the world. You hope that having these noted will help you with your reference activities later. You also created a folder level inventory, with some specific items of note mentioned. [[Outcomes]]

(set: $des_pf to 'pf_milestone') (set: $sw to '0') Because of your arrangement decisions, you few staff to use for this project. You are able to assign a student worker to make note of files that are either from the same period of time or reference major university milestones. You hope that having these noted will help you with your reference activities later. You also created a folder level inventory, with some specific items of note mentioned. You also created a folder level inventory, with some specific items of note mentioned [[Outcomes]]

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> joshuakitchens.com by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="https://joshuakitchens.com" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Joshua F. Kitchens</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Based on a work at <a xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" href="https://joshuakitchens.com" rel="dct:source">https://joshuakitchens.com</a>. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="https://joshuakitchens.com" rel="cc:morePermissions">https://joshuakitchens.com</a>