Doing it Yourself (Almost): The Dreaded MoveJennifer Wright, Tammy Peters, and Ginger Yowell

Society of American Archivists, August 2009

Between 2006 and 2009, the Smithsonian Institution Archives moved approximately 26,000 cubic feet of permanent and temporary records (about 70% of its total collections) from three existing facilities into two new facilities and commercial storage. During this process, the Archives was chiefly concerned with two issues: 1) materials were housed in such a way that they can safely be transported by movers; and 2) materials being sent to commercial storage are described at a level that allows staff and researchers to identify individual boxes for retrieval. Since funding was only appropriated for the facilities and the physical move of the records from one facility to another, the Archives had to leverage its existing resources for move planning and collections preparation. The supervisory archivist and the four-person Archives and Information Management (AIM) Team spearheaded the effort, spending 60-80% of their time preparing for the moves; however, instructions for minimal processing and description were developed so that interns, archivists from other teams, other professional staff, and even administrative staff could contribute to the project by working on carefully selected collections as time allowed. The charts below highlight three aspects of the move. “Collections to Commercial Storage” demonstrates the steps taken to prepare each collection, physically and intellectually, to be transported to an Iron Mountain storage facility in Boyers, PA. “Oversized Materials” focuses on the unique preparations required for maps, blueprints, and other items found in map cases, some of which had lost their identifying information during a previous move, as well as the actual transportation of these materials. “Collections to Smithsonian Storage” encompasses procedures followed for both the move of permanent collections to new on-site storage as well as the move of the Records Center, and emphasizes space planning and logistics.

Collections to Commercial Storage

• Supervisory Archivist creates folder for each collection, including checklist and copy of most current finding aid

• Staff or intern removes binders, hanging folders, rubber bands, comb bindings, binder clips, and other large attachments and ensures all materials are in labeled file folders and acid-free boxes with spacers or bubble wrap, if necessary

• Staff or intern alerts an archivist to possible deaccessions, electronic records, or personally identifiable information

• Staff revises existing finding aid or creates new finding aid at the folder level and submits finding aid to AIM Team so that it can be parsed through a database and an html version automatically created for the public website

• Staff fills out a preservation intervention form in the Collection Management System (CMS), including changes in size, the number of hours required, and what actions were performed which provides documentation as well as data from which statistical reports can be generated

• Staff alerts AIM Team to changes in date range, collection-level description, or material types that need to be made in CMS

• Staff submits folder for a preservation assessment of the collection to be performed by the Preservation Manager or her designees

• Preservation Manager submits folder for barcoding by AIM Team following Iron Mountain protocols and places transfer manifests in collection folder

• Throughout the process, staff enter their initials and date into a database for each step completed and the AIM Team runs a report to identify ready-to-go collections

• AIM Team pulls collections and loads them onto pallets in an overlapping configuration

• AIM Team changes locations in CMS to the pallet number and later to Iron Mountain

• AIM Team verifies manifests prior to shipment and confirms receipt of all boxes by Iron Mountain

Oversized Materials

• AIM Team attempts to associate all orphaned materials with their collections using accession correspondence, notations on folders and materials, the Collection Management System (CMS), and the recollections of long-time staff members

• AIM Team removes all rolled materials for placement in tubes

• AIM Team ensures that all materials are in folders labeled with the collection number, folder number, and any unique information about the contents

• Preservation Manager and AIM Team perform minor preservation and conservation work on materials identified as too fragile to travel as is

• AIM Team shifts some folders to ensure that each drawer is completely full

• AIM Team creates spreadsheet of oversized materials including existing location, collection number, and number of folders to be used as manifest

• Movers, under the supervision of Archives staff, cover each drawer with a piece of cardboard and place a blanket on top, securing the blanket to the outside of the drawer with tape

• Movers stack five wrapped drawers, with the lowest number drawer on top, on top of a rolling bin and secure everything with stretch wrap

• Movers number each cart and carts remain wrapped until they arrive in new space, except for largest drawers which needed to be slightly tilted in elevator

• Archives staff transfer contents of old drawers into new map cases, refoldering materials in damaged, flimsy, or overstuffed folders, and noting new drawer numbers and other changes on the manifest

• Movers pick up packing materials at the end of each day to be reused the following day and empty drawers to be returned to the old map cases for surplusing

• AIM Team enters new locations into CMS and makes any necessary revisions to finding aids

• AIM Team and interns affix printed labels to folders indicating new location

Collections to Smithsonian Storage

• Supervisory Archivist and AIM Team complete shelf read and make note of any minor physical problems to be rectified prior to move

• AIM Team replaces boxes and lids and adds spacers as needed

• Supervisory Archivist creates maps representing each new shelving unit and adds each collection to the diagrams

• AIM Team reviews maps, ensuring that all collections are accounted for, all boxes of each collection are accounted for, and no shelf has been overfilled

• Supervisory Archivist adds all new locations to CMS and AIM Team verifies information against maps

• AIM Team places a sticker on the label of each box with the collection number, box number, and new location

• AIM Team moves the most fragile collections

• Because collections are not being shelved in the same order in the new facility as in the old facility, the supervisory archivist creates move “stages” that assist the movers in skipping over collections at the old facility and in shelving everything in order in the new facility

• Ordered lists of all collections and their locations are posted at the end of each row at the beginning of each move stage

• Archives staff guide movers through the stacks pointing out which boxes to pull and in what order

• Movers place boxes, in order, on book trucks and e-carts and then number and stretch wrap each cart

• Movers remain at the old facility to continue loading carts and a second moving crew unloads the carts at the new facility

• Movers, under the supervision of Archives staff, shelve the boxes according to the maps

• Archives staff make notes of location changes that need to be made

• Supervisory Archivist deletes old locations in main CMS location table

• AIM Team performs shelf read at new facility and makes necessary changes to CMS and box labels

Outcomes

3.5 years spent planning and preparing for moves, including 8471.83 hours (the equivalent of 211 work weeks) minimally processing collections10,093.43 cubic feet of permanent records received physical interventions such as acid-free boxes, acid-free folders, spacers, sleeves, or reorientation50.4 minutes was the average time spent minimally processing and creating/revising the finding aid per cubic foot

90% of permanent collections have finding aids with folder-level detail or greater68% of permanent collections (and counting) have online finding aids with full-text search capabilities5% decrease (on average) in the size of collections that were rehoused472.25 cubic feet of non-archival materials were removed from the permanent records and deaccessioned

Lessons Learned/Advice to Other Archives

Minimally process all collections at time of transfer. We began moving towards what is now known as “minimal processing” in 2000, requiring all new transfers of records to be in folders in acid-free boxes with a folder-level finding aid at the time of the acquisition. Materials accessioned since then generally only required spot-checking prior to moves. Even if you will not be moving, minimally processing collections at time of transfer will prevent large backlogs, allow for more timely access to the records, and identify preservation problems before they worsen. All of this ultimately saves time.

Plan, coordinate, and make the right friends. Plan as early and as obsessively as possible, but be flexible to allow for circumstances outside of your control. With the amount of detail that needs to be checked, a third or even fourth set of eyes may find an error that could create problems during the move itself. Write instructions for everything and be sure they are available to everyone. Coordinate with all staff who will be involved with the move so that everyone knows what needs to happen and when. Don’t forget other departments, facilities staff, loading dock staff, security, and the movers. Lack of coordination could result in unnecessary downtime, “traffic jams,” or even total chaos. Making friends with the support staff such as facilities or security will not only make the move more pleasant, but you may be able to call on them for favors to help the process run more smoothly. Instead of just giving orders, particularly to the movers, explain why it is important that a task be performed in a particular way. They’ll appreciate why you want it done that way and be more likely to perform the task correctly.

Maximize the utility of your collections management system. Without our collections management system (CMS), we could not have performed the preparations or the moves as efficiently or quickly as we did. It allowed us to track where every box was at any given moment, who worked on each collection, how each collection was physically improved, what still needed to be done to each collection, and where the most current version of each finding aid could be found. Since all of these tables and forms were built into CMS years ago, there was no need to retroactively enter the necessary data to create the reports and statistics we needed.

Facilities

Former Off-site Storage

Former Records Center Former On-site Storage

On-site Storage Records Center Commercial Storage

Befo

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Aft

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Minimal Processing