Something for Everything: Thoughts on Archival Description at Princeton

1. Something for Everything: Thoughts on Archival Description at Princeton Dan Santamaria PACSCL: Something New for Something Old Conference December 4, 2008

2. Project Context • Inexpensive and relatively non-labor intensive once procedures are in place • Essentially two full-time staff -- one professional, one support staff • Cataloging completed in about 3 months by support staff member

3. Institutional Context • Princeton University established 1746 • Princeton University Archives established 1959 • Prior to 1990s access to University Archives was limited and arbitrary (much more attention given to public policy collections also held at Mudd). • Number of finding aids in 1990: 0 • By 2005, 2/3 of University Archives lacked descriptive records of any kind

4. Institutional context • Stated goals • Gain acceptable level of intellectual control of collections. • Provide minimum level of online access to collections (collection level records). • Provide a centralized entry point for researchers and staff

5. Our Approach • Survey entire University Archives and record holdings/location information and very (very) basic descriptive data • Summer 2007 create collection level records for all University Archives collections • MARC • DACS single level optimum • Summer 2008 convert all MARC to EAD • Processing and EAD retroconversion happening concurrently

6. Our Approach • Why MARC?

7. Collection Level EAD

8. Conclusions • Standards are essential to the process • Adherence to content standards • Structured data is essential to the process • Archival description needs to get more data-centric

9. Conclusions • Description is an iterative process • Descriptive records are dynamic • Can be expanded based on need or when additional resources become available • Can include data from a variety of sources • Staff, including public services, curators, users

11. Conclusions • Description is an iterative process • Not limited to traditional archival outputs • Can also form the descriptive infrastructure for digitization/digital library program • Can be manipulated in multiple ways • Let the user do the arrangement!

13. Conclusions • Better infrastructure needs to develop • Editing records is still a very manual process • Tracking/collection management still difficult • Traditional finding aid displays still problematic for large/complex collections

14. Conclusions • Need to advocate for integration with library technical infrastructure • Support for special collections systems not traditionally seen as responsibility of library systems (both budget and staff)

15. Conclusions • Archival description has a lot to offer • “If the Library of Congress’s well proven approach won’t work as we digitize our information, ideas, and knowledge, what will? David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous • At Princeton, EAD suggested or already in use • Engineering library technical reports • Latin American Ephemera • Rare Print Materials • Digital Objects

16. Questions? • dsantam@princeton.edu