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An archivist's work is never done, there is always more to do. Whenever we accession a new collection, add an accession to an existing collection, or process a collection, we try to do just enough work to make those materials usable and accessible to researchers. Before you begin working on a collection, your supervisor will speak with other staff in SCSC and make decisions about how thorough to be when arranging and describing the collection. Ask your supervisor if you are unsure of how thorough to be when describing or rehousing materials.

Accessioning

The main goal of accessioning is to make materials accessible and usable for researchers. There is a lot of variety in how thoroughly accessions are described. This might mean reorganizing material, and creating series or file-level inventories. Or it might mean simply describing an entire accession as one archival object. Rehousing might involve placing material in new folders and containers, but it might also mean keeping material in their existing containers and folders if they are in good condition.

These cost-benefit decisions are made by balancing the cost of labor with the benefits the additional work would bring to the collection. If you are unsure how thorough to be when rehousing or describing collections, ask your supervisor.

For more information about rehousing see this page.

Processing

Before processing a collection, a supervising archivist will review the materials in the collection and come up with a processing plan. This report will include a proposed structure for the collection, as well as recommendations on how much work to put into rehousing and describing materials. Before you begin processing the collection, you will meet with your supervisor to go over this processing plan.

Just as some collections need more work than others, we decide if there are particular parts of the collection that require more work than others. We assess the current state of the organization and what each section would ideally look like. We do the minimum amount of work to get to that point. Sometimes, this means that we just divide the collection into series and do a really solid series description explaining what is in that series. Sometimes we are more thorough, especially if there is a lot of restricted material mixed in or if the collection is very well used by researchers. Before you ever work on a collection, your supervisor will already have consulted with staff, surveyed and assessed the collection, and decided how thoroughly the collection will be described.

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