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How do you prepare your stuff for the archives?


To help you prepare your stuff for the archives, let's have a peek at what archivists consider when they organize records. Archivists use principles and practices to guide the work that they do, much like other professions.


Section Overview

In this section, we'll talk about the larger ideas that guide what archivists do when they work with archival materials. We hope that sharing some of these ideas with you will make you think about the ways that you keep your own materials.

If you're using the donor workbook, you may want to start thinking about your answers to questions that an archivist might ask when you donate your materials - questions about your privacy, the privacy of people who appear in your records, and questions about copyright.


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Provenance

Archives abide to the principle of provenance, which means that they keep all the records made or received by one creator together and separate from records made or received by other creators.

Each of these groups of records belonging to one creator are called a fonds

The term "creator" can mean a person, a business, a government agency, an organization, etc.

Of course, in today's society, people often collaborate on projects or have records which belong to more than one person. There is a way to represent the relatedness of these records through description, so even if you share a lot of your records with your spouse or someone else, these can be linked together virtually.

Your things matter to us! Don't throw things out because you think it's not important or no one would want to look at it.

Original order

Original order is the last useful order in which records were used by their creator.

Maintaining the original order of records ensures the preservation of their context, because it reflects the way the creator used their records in their daily life, which helps users of the archives understand them better.

Of course, this should not stop you from reordering your documents as you use them - it is only to be kept in mind when actually donating your records.

Description

Archivists describe records in order to both know what's held in their collection and for the public to be better able to research their collection.

As part of this process, folders are labeled and given names in accordance to what is in them. If folders or groups of records have already been given names or titles by the creator (ie. "Correspondence, 1990s"), the archivist has to keep that name. Therefore, ponder if the names you have given boxes or folders are representative of what is in them, as you would not believe how many folders are called "Miscellaneous" because that is how their creator had labeled them.

Now that you understand a bit more about how to prepare your things for the archives and the core archival principles, here are a few questions to consider before you donate to your local archives:

  • In addition to preserving records, archives give access to them. With that in mind, are you comfortable with having your documents looked through by the public?
  • Are there things within your documents that would bring up third-party privacy concerns?
  • Would you be willing to have your records digitized by the archives, keeping in mind that digitization means that many more people would be having access to them than if they were simply kept in the archives for public access there?
  • Upon donating your records to the archives, you will be signing a document giving the archives both physical and legal control of the records. That being said, this only works if you are the legal owner of all the records you donate. Do you own the rights to all your records? Could issues arise with regards to copyright for your records?

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