What is Documention?
Cultural heritage institutions whether archives, libraries, or
museums gather, preserve, and interpret the record of human thought,
word, and action. The collections of these institutions come in
many forms and are managed according to different curatorial traditions.
Yet archivists, librarians, and curators share mutual activities
that reflect common social, administrative, fiduciary, and legal
responsibilities. Among these is the need to document the origins,
nature, and physical characteristics of the materials they collect
and preserve.
Among archivists the term documentation has several meanings. It
refers to a process: a broad range of activities undertaken to create
descriptive tools to make collections easier to use, to establish
the authenticity of holdings, and to satisfy administrative needs.
Documentation can also denote the products of this process, the
descriptive tools themselves: inventories/registers and catalog
records. Finally, the materials in archival collections can be considered
documentation in that they provide documentary evidence and information
concerning people, events, activities, objects, and ideas.
Why Document?
There are three primary reasons for documenting the collections
of cultural heritage materials.
- To facilitate users' discovery of materials
- To establish the authenticity of holdings
- To satisfy administrative needs
Facilitate user discovery
Archives preserve the historical record so that it can
be consulted. To that end, documents are organized and identified
so that researchers
and institutional staff can locate the materials they
require. Users come to archival collections with different needs.
Some pose
specific questions for known items: "I would like to see Mary
Richardson's naturalization certificate." Other requests are
more open-ended: "What information do you have on the licensing
of physician's assistants?" Or, "What records in your
archives are relevant to urban renewal projects in downtown Buffalo?" The
descriptive tools such as the catalog records and inventories/registers
created by archivists bring out important information
about collections to guide users in this process of discovery.
Authentication and reliability
The collections in cultural repositories are the tangible evidence
of particular activities: the writing of an essay, the taking of
a photograph, the painting of a picture, or the naturalization of
a new citizen. But are these materials what they seem to be? To
establish the authenticity of the documents and items in their care,
archivists must compile evidence of the origins, chain of ownership,
and completeness of their collections. They may capture and convey
this information in different ways: through background documentation,
deeds of gift, records of administrative transfer, certificates
of authenticity, and maintenance of the integrity of the physical
and administrative order of the record.
Archivists add value to their collections by documenting the contents
and maintaining information about them. Other sections of this Web
site describe the activities associated with gathering the information
needed to describe, provide access, and establish authenticity,
as well as the tools used to deliver this information to others.
Administration.
Recording information about collections is also an administrative
necessity. An effectively managed institution creates and maintains
a record of the activities it carries out with respect to its collections:
acquiring, processing, conserving, exhibiting, storing, loaning,
and providing reference services. Collections are as valuable an
asset as financial or human resources; this value is protected by
means of appropriate administrative information.
What Does Archival Documentation Involve?
To make a collection useful to researchers, the archivist must
undertake a variety of activities that will make the content accessible
both intellectually and physically. The following activities, which
are collectively referred to as processing, are necessary in order
to provide access.
- Analyzing the materials to identify their origins, structure
and content.
Assembling Documentation, in the chapter Gathering and Analyzing Archival Information
- Organizing and arranging the materials.
Organization and Arrangement, in the chapter Archival Processing
- Creating finding aids to provide access to the materials.
Description: Conveying Information to Users, in the chapter Archival Description
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