Workflow for Accessioning Manuscripts & Archives - smith-special-collections/sc-documentation GitHub Wiki

The collection steward, the Accessioning Archivist and/or the Digital Preservation Archivist, and the Head of Technical Services for Special Collections all have responsibilities in this process.

The workflow is managed in a dedicated Airtable base.

  • The collection steward should notify the Accessioning Archivist of any accessions that are likely to be coming in. The collection steward creates a new record in Airtable with all available information.

    • The Accession title should include the name of the creator and the notes field should include any information about the donor, type and quantity of materials, and expected delivery/transfer date.

  • Before Special Collections takes possession of any newly acquired materials, whether physical or digital, the collection steward must have a completed deed of gift (if donation), transmittal form (for Smith College records), or receipt for sale (if purchase). Exceptions may be made in the very rare cases where property is effectively abandoned with us by an anonymous person and the collection steward wishes to add it to the collection. Whenever a source can be identified, though, a deed of gift should be sought.

  • The collection steward coordinates the delivery of physical materials to the Accessioning Archivist and/or of digital materials to the Digital Preservation Archivist.

  • Hybrid collections should first go to the Accessioning Archivist (see Digital accessioning workflow).

  • When materials have been added to the accessioning/processing swing space and are ready for accessioning, the Airtable record receives a "Submission received" tag.

  • The Accessioning Archivist or Digital Preservation Archivist is responsible for the completion of all activities on the Accessioning Checklist, some of which may be appropriate to assign to students under the archivist's close supervision. While this work is being done, the Airtable record is tagged with an "In progress with AA", "In progress with DA", or “In progress with student” tag.

  • If the Accessioning Archivist or Digital Preservation Archivist requires follow-up with the donor before the accession can be completed, the Airtable record is tagged with "Needs steward attention". Airtable will send an email to the appropriate steward to notify them.

  • If the accession is for a new collection, once the accession and resource records are complete, the Accessioning Archivist follows the Finding Aid Review Workflow. When the review process is complete, the Accessioning Archivist changes the tag in the Airtable record to “Complete”.

  • If the accession is an accrual to an existing collection and the resource record does not need to be heavily revised, the Accessioning Archivist tags the Airtable record as "Complete". If the resource record is not to be published at this time, add a note to the Notes section of the AirTable record: "Not published because (reason)." If the resource record is for a processed collection with series and there is no series level description, the Accessioning Archivist will submit a ticket to the SC TaDS issue tracker. For resource records for collections consisting of only unprocessed accessions, it is at the discretion of the Accessioning Archivist to create minimal description to improve access to the collection.

  • The collection steward may review the accession and resource record at any point in the process. If the steward would like additional work done, the steward must submit a ticket to the SC TaDS issue tracker (an Airtable base). It is at the discretion of the Head of Technical Services to assign that work.