Something for Everything: Thoughts on Archival Description at Princeton

Dan SantamariaPACSCL: Something New for Something Old ConferenceDecember 4, 2008

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

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

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

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

Our Approach

Why MARC?

Collection Level EAD

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

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

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!

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

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)

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

Questions?

dsantam@princeton.edu