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ARCHIVAL THEORY AND PRACTICE
Lecture notes by Todd Ellison. Copyright Todd Ellison 2015. Permission is granted for use, but not for sale or any commercial or monetary gain, and you must link to this website. |
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8th section of this course, 1st part:
Automation in general, and archival applications in general
#8A
Computers were strangers to archives
'til change made us think and revise.
Now, we all love to use 'em,
though they're plenty confusin'
to all but the wisest of guys.
XV. Archival automation
A. What can automation do for us and where is it headed?
1. an archivist can use a computer for nearly everything:
a. records management (file location, size, retirement date), intermediate storage control (in the records center)(downtown DC office space, as of 1985, cost $26-46/sq. ft., and an office file cabinet takes up 2 square feet; space in a records center costs 1/25 the amount, @$1.50/sq. ft.)
b. management of collections from solicitation process and accessioning through administration (where it is, and quantity)
c. intellectual (what it is) controls--including networking with other repositories
d. automation allows for unique catalog records to be accessible in an integrated system from one terminal
e. use statistics
f. environmental/security controls
g. other uses of automation: cf. article "Gothic Mystery" on use of u-v scanning and computerized imaging to reconstruct ancient and unreadable manuscripts
2. in summary: access and administrative control can be radically improved
3. positive developments since 1975
a. money has become available in the archival world for automation, from the Council on Library Resources, NHPRC Records Program, & NEH
b. computer equipment has become ubiquitous and affordable and approachable
c. students are computer literate and are ready to apply their knowledge
d. nobody has to start from scratch; can buy software package off the shelf
e. there are online capabilities (no waiting for batch off-line processing)
f. everything is moving toward automation, so archivists are moving with the technology
g. democratization of repositories is possible with pc's--don't have to be squeezed into a nation-wide format, but can return to the individualism so traditional to archives, with the possibility of converting the data into a nationally transmittable form
h. supermarket techniques are revolutionizing archives--boxes and cans with barcode labels on them are being used--NARA can thereby shelve film cans randomly
i. digital imaging technologies increasingly are being used in document creation, distribution by fax or image networks, and in data processing and file/find operations
j. optical scanning in particular offers great benefits for archives
(1) provides storage for media for which microform is inappropriate: e.g. photos and maps
(2) provides access in the same ways that a computer database does
(a) for instance, newspapers converted to digitized form by optical scanning do not need to be indexed for complete access
(b) keyword search (for instance, of a proper name) is possible
(3) optical scanning has potential for providing another format for preservation
(4) cf. insert in Nov./Dec. 1991 newsletter of the Commission on Preservation and Access re: reformatting through the use of digital technology
(a) makes it possible to transmit images of pages across the country
(b) a recently released Xerox product prints 600 dpi pages from scanned images at the rate of 135 pages/minute
(c) printer could be located far from the site of the electronic storage of the data
(5) aside from possible copyright problems and verification of authenticity, customized anthologies or reserve reading packets could be assembled and annotated from digital files of books and articles and other scanned documents or images. (p. 5 of insert)
B. Common sense principles for archival automation
1. don't rely on software that may become extinct in a few years
a. go back to what archives and mss are all about and design your tags accordingly
b. first develop a good manual system
c. an automated system can be only as good as the manual structure it's based on
2. "never produce something which makes the reader have to retrain himself in how to read it" (Frank Burke)
a. make the computer do the work for you
b. print it out/display it in the form the reader expects
C. Get yourself some hands-on experience using various archival automation software
1. for image access
2. for accessions management
3. for textual cataloging
4. for forms design
8th section of this course, part 2:
Applications of automation for archival description
#8B
Today's hot possibilities
are networks of data deliv'ries.
They tell where--what--when,
without using a pen;
if you have the money to buy these.
XVI. Local, regional and national information systems
A. Historical development of pre-automatation national systems for archival description in U.S.
1. concept of national U.S. union catalog of manuscript collections was relatively recent
2. early prototypes were at LC starting in 1918, for books
a. handbook of LC collections
(1) for internal use
(2) immediately outdated
b. checklist of collections of personal papers in historical societies, academic institutions, public libraries and other institutions of higher learning in the U.S.
(1) predecessor to Hamer's 1961 Guide
(2) based on collections' historical importance or size, not listing all collections
(3) 86 of 232 institutions surveyed replied
(4) alphabetical listing of collection titles, then a nearly useless chronological listing by decades, then a 3rd section listing institutions
(5) 1924, new edition of the 1918 checklist, leaving out public repositories; listed the institutions geographically by state and under that by city, with an alpha. index to collections listed
3. 1931-32, depression bust was boon for archivists: establishment of the WPA (Works Progress Administration)
a. among its numerous programs for public works on roads, airports, the arts and theater was employment for indigent historians to conduct statewide inventories of archives
b. done at the urge of the Am'n Hist'l Assn.
c. very little upper administration for this project--most of the funding went to the working scholars
d. formed the nucleus of today's U.S. archival profession
e. in 1938, its outpouring of guides and indexes culminated in the WPA guide to historical archives of the U.S.
(1) arranged by state, city, and repository
(2) listed ca. 100 repositories, giving their hours & describing holdings
(3) it was a guide to the repositories, not the collections
f. WPA disappeared in 1939 when the surge of American industry took people off the dole
g. when NHPRC produced its Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in 1970s, the producers weren't aware that this work already had been done 40 years before
4. Philip Hamer of the National Archives, key figure in early archival guides
a. published the first guide to the National Archives' holdings in 1948
b. in ca. 1958, Hamer conducted a survey of archives/mss repositories; his survey became an adjunct to the WPA survey
c. his guide, published in 1961 for the National Historical Publications Commission, simplified the challenge of determining where pertinent collections are located in the U.S.
d. Hamer's Guide was focused on promoting historical publication, by leading scholars to the papers
e. it was more a bibliography than a catalog, not so much a description of collections as a general survey which would lead researchers to depositories likely to contain the materials sought
5. NUCMC - National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
a. begun in 1952, but first volume not out until 1959
b. LC project to list manuscript collections from around the U.S.
c. culminated the movement to establishing national access to locating collections
d. encouraged standardization of descriptive practices
e. envisioned as a mirror image of NUC (which is for books) with card catalog and cross references
(1) but within 5 years the focus was on collections, not on items
(2) vol. 1 of NUCMC is unique, has traces of LC classifications, with separate subject and name indexes; drawn from info depositories sent on data sheets
(3) subsequent volumes discarded the use of LC subject headings
f. produced annually, with annual and 5-year indexes
g. different from Hamer's Guide in that its push for standardization reflected a librarian's approach (asked repositories to change the titles of their collections, not "Wright Bros. Papers" but "Wright, Wilbur and Orville, Papers", and in 1 year Hamer covered more repositories than NUCMC described in its 1st 20 years
h. NUCMC has been slow to change, slow to automate
i. now has about 50,000 entries to automate retrospectively
j. NUCMC has always been understaffed, a poor stepchild at LC
k. due to lack of online searching capabilities, one must consult at least 5 indexes to search for materials
l. see email on NUCMC developments recently (nearly abandoned in 1993)
6. American Literary Manuscripts, by John Robbins, 1977
a. includes many non-literary figures
b. from an archivist's point of view, it's a mix of a German army's coding manual and a year-end stock market compilation
c. "an abomination of abominations" (Frank Burke)
7. Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories - 1978 (2nd ed. 1988)
a. instigated by Hamer's Guide
b. 1st ed. listed 3,250 repositories, not collections; over 4,000 in 2nd ed.
c. 1st ed. had 149% more repositories listed than in Hamer's 1961 Guide
d. contains statements of acquisition policies
e. combined needs of archivist and researcher
f. in the true tradition of Hamer and in archival fashion, it arranged the entries geographically by state and city
g. entries were put into computer, tagged into certain data fields, so the data could be sorted in various helpful ways, enabling the staff to produce many guides from it (e.g., of Texas archives)
8. National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS)
a. Chadwyck-Healey's microfiche publication of repositories' finding aids
b. project begun in about 1986--also for the UK and Ireland, for Canada, and for the French National Archives in Paris
c. as of 1990, 25,000 finding aids from more than 250 repositories
d. indexed by name and subject
9. Other approaches: ca. 1979, Women's History Sources published commercially
a. compiled by research teams
b. combined reports of visits to repositories with the results of surveys mailed to outlying institutions
B. Archival automation lagged behind library automation for collection description
1. both began automating their collection descriptions in 1963
2. but whereas librarians pulled together and pulled ahead, archivists have lagged and still aren't sure which direction to choose
C. Why was archival automation 20 years behind library automation?
1. little economical imperative
a. the Librarya of Congress sold tapes of catalog records for books libraries purchase; this saved on processing costs; this wouldn't have worked for archives, cataloging unique items
b. because archival items are unique, no economy in centralizing administration for description of the documents
2. no mass acceptance
a. libraries supported automation whole hog--an institutional commitment
b. individual archivists crept in the back door because they had difficulty winning institutional support for archival automation
3. small numbers
a. archivists were just a few people in the attic or behind a cage, peripheral to the needs of the library they usually were part of
b. if one archivist left, the project usually fizzled because it had been a one-person initiative
c. American Archivist of April 1967 mentions automation projects that are extinct today
4. no rules
a. computer is a logic machine, and can handle structured info
b. librarians had rules from early on, which gave their cataloging system a structure
(1) Henrietta Abram at LC invented MARC by following these standards
(2) librarians had the King Report of 1961 on how automation could affect every part of the Library of Congress except for music, maps, & manuscripts
c. for archivists, there has been no archival bible, laying down rules of archivy
(1) we didn't have one until recently: (Hensen's manual, APPM)
(2) archival automation grew without a centralized plan
(3) historical background: at the urging of Frank Burke after the annual SAA meeting in 1966, SAA formed a Committee on Automated Techniques for Archival Agencies (Source: Steven B. Rhodes, "Archival and Records Management Automation," ARMA Records Management Quarterly, Apr. 1991, p. 14)
(4) Committee realized that they first must standardize the finding aids (in a suggestive essay, still no rules) before they could automate, thus taking one step back first
5. complexity of choices, and lack of great choices
a. RLIN, OCLC, LC's own system? NUCMC? NISTF?
b. which level of description to aim for?
(1) most automation now focusses on the collection level
(2) are we returning to library techniques in adapting the MARC format to archives (the work of the NISTF)?
6. complexity of the database
a. 1st archival automation by Frank Burke et al. was to enter series data & info from NUCMC data sheets
b. problem: they were trying to automate non-standardized data
7. limited by the physical format of data records
a. until keypunched cards were phased out (1970s), rigid column organization meant that the length of fields was fixed
b. disadvantage of the introduction of variable length fields, at first, however, was that one couldn't count on the physical structure of the data to find the data sought
D. Archival automation solutions
1. limitations of keypunched cards led to the use of tagged fields
a. give each field (category of data) a #, followed by a numeric or alphabetical symbol
b. this coding warns the machine of a new sub-field and to tell it which data to index, and in which index
2. SPINDEX (Selective Permutation Indexing) was the first step
a. a format to standardize inter-institutional communication
b. a committee began developing SPINDEX in 1969
c. it was a 2 year project at the National Archives
d. funded by Council on Library Resources
e. goal: to create a computer system that could be used by archives nationwide
3. in 1977, SAA formed the National Information Systems Task Force (NSTIF)
a. NISTF decided that no existing database system could serve all the needs of all the U.S. archives and manuscript repositories
b. NSTIF urged the creation instead of format standards that could be used with any system, thus allowing for exchange of info between repositories
c. it chose the MARC format for archival and manuscript control as the basis for these proposed standards
4. MARC AMC is the format for archival and manuscript control
a. MARC= Machine Readable Cataloging
b. development from SPINDEX
c. nationally accepted standard for structural archival cataloging data, regardless of the form of the material cataloged
d. tags and variable field lengths were added to the familiar book cataloging format to accommodate the needs of archivists
e. data can be exchanged between automated systems
f. five basic format fields are:
(1) responsibility (creators and compilers)
(2) title
(3) physical description
(4) description of the intellectual content
(5) access points (subject headings, forms of material)
g. difficulty with MARC: doesn't easily reflect the hierarchical structure of archival records
E. Summary statement: for archivists, the tail has wagged the dog
1. we established rules we so could enterd info into the computer
2. automation drove archivists to standardization
F. Levels of control: national, institutional, collection, item
1. networking at the collection level is the new focus
2. are archivists jumping on the RLIN bandwagon?
a. Research Libraries Information Network
b. formed by research libraries who thought OCLC too specialized)
c. RLIN is based at Stanford (?)
3. RLIN and OCLC both use the MARC format (with numbered identifying data elements), creating a pool of data contributed by the member libraries; in the NUCMC tradition
4. NUCMC only recently automated; data keyed in to RLIN
G. If you could design a national info system, what would it look like?
1. which of the 5 levels of archival description? why?
2. textual/ image / both? why? what components for its content?
3. where would it be accessible? at what types of institutions?
4. what problems would you expect to encounter?
a. lack of standardization
b. scarcity of funding/ uneven availability of resources
c. lack of storage and transmission capabilities
H. Issues in national collection description
1. ca. 80% of all significant manuscript collections are at fewer than 100 repositories (per Frank Burke), so why try to cover the little repositories?
2. cost factor
3. influence of printed guides on automated versions
a. progress/inefficient overlapping by database vendors
b. RLIN (Research LIbrary Information Network) used a NUCMC approach to automated access
I. Hands-on experience of archival cataloging/access automation
1. MARC:AMC textual cataloging in-class exercise
2. use First Search (for access to Worldwide OCLC database) and other worldwide catalogs via email
Automation in general, and archival applications in general
#8A
Computers were strangers to archives
'til change made us think and revise.
Now, we all love to use 'em,
though they're plenty confusin'
to all but the wisest of guys.
XV. Archival automation
A. What can automation do for us and where is it headed?
1. an archivist can use a computer for nearly everything:
a. records management (file location, size, retirement date), intermediate storage control (in the records center)(downtown DC office space, as of 1985, cost $26-46/sq. ft., and an office file cabinet takes up 2 square feet; space in a records center costs 1/25 the amount, @$1.50/sq. ft.)
b. management of collections from solicitation process and accessioning through administration (where it is, and quantity)
c. intellectual (what it is) controls--including networking with other repositories
d. automation allows for unique catalog records to be accessible in an integrated system from one terminal
e. use statistics
f. environmental/security controls
g. other uses of automation: cf. article "Gothic Mystery" on use of u-v scanning and computerized imaging to reconstruct ancient and unreadable manuscripts
2. in summary: access and administrative control can be radically improved
3. positive developments since 1975
a. money has become available in the archival world for automation, from the Council on Library Resources, NHPRC Records Program, & NEH
b. computer equipment has become ubiquitous and affordable and approachable
c. students are computer literate and are ready to apply their knowledge
d. nobody has to start from scratch; can buy software package off the shelf
e. there are online capabilities (no waiting for batch off-line processing)
f. everything is moving toward automation, so archivists are moving with the technology
g. democratization of repositories is possible with pc's--don't have to be squeezed into a nation-wide format, but can return to the individualism so traditional to archives, with the possibility of converting the data into a nationally transmittable form
h. supermarket techniques are revolutionizing archives--boxes and cans with barcode labels on them are being used--NARA can thereby shelve film cans randomly
i. digital imaging technologies increasingly are being used in document creation, distribution by fax or image networks, and in data processing and file/find operations
j. optical scanning in particular offers great benefits for archives
(1) provides storage for media for which microform is inappropriate: e.g. photos and maps
(2) provides access in the same ways that a computer database does
(a) for instance, newspapers converted to digitized form by optical scanning do not need to be indexed for complete access
(b) keyword search (for instance, of a proper name) is possible
(3) optical scanning has potential for providing another format for preservation
(4) cf. insert in Nov./Dec. 1991 newsletter of the Commission on Preservation and Access re: reformatting through the use of digital technology
(a) makes it possible to transmit images of pages across the country
(b) a recently released Xerox product prints 600 dpi pages from scanned images at the rate of 135 pages/minute
(c) printer could be located far from the site of the electronic storage of the data
(5) aside from possible copyright problems and verification of authenticity, customized anthologies or reserve reading packets could be assembled and annotated from digital files of books and articles and other scanned documents or images. (p. 5 of insert)
B. Common sense principles for archival automation
1. don't rely on software that may become extinct in a few years
a. go back to what archives and mss are all about and design your tags accordingly
b. first develop a good manual system
c. an automated system can be only as good as the manual structure it's based on
2. "never produce something which makes the reader have to retrain himself in how to read it" (Frank Burke)
a. make the computer do the work for you
b. print it out/display it in the form the reader expects
C. Get yourself some hands-on experience using various archival automation software
1. for image access
2. for accessions management
3. for textual cataloging
4. for forms design
8th section of this course, part 2:
Applications of automation for archival description
#8B
Today's hot possibilities
are networks of data deliv'ries.
They tell where--what--when,
without using a pen;
if you have the money to buy these.
XVI. Local, regional and national information systems
A. Historical development of pre-automatation national systems for archival description in U.S.
1. concept of national U.S. union catalog of manuscript collections was relatively recent
2. early prototypes were at LC starting in 1918, for books
a. handbook of LC collections
(1) for internal use
(2) immediately outdated
b. checklist of collections of personal papers in historical societies, academic institutions, public libraries and other institutions of higher learning in the U.S.
(1) predecessor to Hamer's 1961 Guide
(2) based on collections' historical importance or size, not listing all collections
(3) 86 of 232 institutions surveyed replied
(4) alphabetical listing of collection titles, then a nearly useless chronological listing by decades, then a 3rd section listing institutions
(5) 1924, new edition of the 1918 checklist, leaving out public repositories; listed the institutions geographically by state and under that by city, with an alpha. index to collections listed
3. 1931-32, depression bust was boon for archivists: establishment of the WPA (Works Progress Administration)
a. among its numerous programs for public works on roads, airports, the arts and theater was employment for indigent historians to conduct statewide inventories of archives
b. done at the urge of the Am'n Hist'l Assn.
c. very little upper administration for this project--most of the funding went to the working scholars
d. formed the nucleus of today's U.S. archival profession
e. in 1938, its outpouring of guides and indexes culminated in the WPA guide to historical archives of the U.S.
(1) arranged by state, city, and repository
(2) listed ca. 100 repositories, giving their hours & describing holdings
(3) it was a guide to the repositories, not the collections
f. WPA disappeared in 1939 when the surge of American industry took people off the dole
g. when NHPRC produced its Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in 1970s, the producers weren't aware that this work already had been done 40 years before
4. Philip Hamer of the National Archives, key figure in early archival guides
a. published the first guide to the National Archives' holdings in 1948
b. in ca. 1958, Hamer conducted a survey of archives/mss repositories; his survey became an adjunct to the WPA survey
c. his guide, published in 1961 for the National Historical Publications Commission, simplified the challenge of determining where pertinent collections are located in the U.S.
d. Hamer's Guide was focused on promoting historical publication, by leading scholars to the papers
e. it was more a bibliography than a catalog, not so much a description of collections as a general survey which would lead researchers to depositories likely to contain the materials sought
5. NUCMC - National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections
a. begun in 1952, but first volume not out until 1959
b. LC project to list manuscript collections from around the U.S.
c. culminated the movement to establishing national access to locating collections
d. encouraged standardization of descriptive practices
e. envisioned as a mirror image of NUC (which is for books) with card catalog and cross references
(1) but within 5 years the focus was on collections, not on items
(2) vol. 1 of NUCMC is unique, has traces of LC classifications, with separate subject and name indexes; drawn from info depositories sent on data sheets
(3) subsequent volumes discarded the use of LC subject headings
f. produced annually, with annual and 5-year indexes
g. different from Hamer's Guide in that its push for standardization reflected a librarian's approach (asked repositories to change the titles of their collections, not "Wright Bros. Papers" but "Wright, Wilbur and Orville, Papers", and in 1 year Hamer covered more repositories than NUCMC described in its 1st 20 years
h. NUCMC has been slow to change, slow to automate
i. now has about 50,000 entries to automate retrospectively
j. NUCMC has always been understaffed, a poor stepchild at LC
k. due to lack of online searching capabilities, one must consult at least 5 indexes to search for materials
l. see email on NUCMC developments recently (nearly abandoned in 1993)
6. American Literary Manuscripts, by John Robbins, 1977
a. includes many non-literary figures
b. from an archivist's point of view, it's a mix of a German army's coding manual and a year-end stock market compilation
c. "an abomination of abominations" (Frank Burke)
7. Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories - 1978 (2nd ed. 1988)
a. instigated by Hamer's Guide
b. 1st ed. listed 3,250 repositories, not collections; over 4,000 in 2nd ed.
c. 1st ed. had 149% more repositories listed than in Hamer's 1961 Guide
d. contains statements of acquisition policies
e. combined needs of archivist and researcher
f. in the true tradition of Hamer and in archival fashion, it arranged the entries geographically by state and city
g. entries were put into computer, tagged into certain data fields, so the data could be sorted in various helpful ways, enabling the staff to produce many guides from it (e.g., of Texas archives)
8. National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS)
a. Chadwyck-Healey's microfiche publication of repositories' finding aids
b. project begun in about 1986--also for the UK and Ireland, for Canada, and for the French National Archives in Paris
c. as of 1990, 25,000 finding aids from more than 250 repositories
d. indexed by name and subject
9. Other approaches: ca. 1979, Women's History Sources published commercially
a. compiled by research teams
b. combined reports of visits to repositories with the results of surveys mailed to outlying institutions
B. Archival automation lagged behind library automation for collection description
1. both began automating their collection descriptions in 1963
2. but whereas librarians pulled together and pulled ahead, archivists have lagged and still aren't sure which direction to choose
C. Why was archival automation 20 years behind library automation?
1. little economical imperative
a. the Librarya of Congress sold tapes of catalog records for books libraries purchase; this saved on processing costs; this wouldn't have worked for archives, cataloging unique items
b. because archival items are unique, no economy in centralizing administration for description of the documents
2. no mass acceptance
a. libraries supported automation whole hog--an institutional commitment
b. individual archivists crept in the back door because they had difficulty winning institutional support for archival automation
3. small numbers
a. archivists were just a few people in the attic or behind a cage, peripheral to the needs of the library they usually were part of
b. if one archivist left, the project usually fizzled because it had been a one-person initiative
c. American Archivist of April 1967 mentions automation projects that are extinct today
4. no rules
a. computer is a logic machine, and can handle structured info
b. librarians had rules from early on, which gave their cataloging system a structure
(1) Henrietta Abram at LC invented MARC by following these standards
(2) librarians had the King Report of 1961 on how automation could affect every part of the Library of Congress except for music, maps, & manuscripts
c. for archivists, there has been no archival bible, laying down rules of archivy
(1) we didn't have one until recently: (Hensen's manual, APPM)
(2) archival automation grew without a centralized plan
(3) historical background: at the urging of Frank Burke after the annual SAA meeting in 1966, SAA formed a Committee on Automated Techniques for Archival Agencies (Source: Steven B. Rhodes, "Archival and Records Management Automation," ARMA Records Management Quarterly, Apr. 1991, p. 14)
(4) Committee realized that they first must standardize the finding aids (in a suggestive essay, still no rules) before they could automate, thus taking one step back first
5. complexity of choices, and lack of great choices
a. RLIN, OCLC, LC's own system? NUCMC? NISTF?
b. which level of description to aim for?
(1) most automation now focusses on the collection level
(2) are we returning to library techniques in adapting the MARC format to archives (the work of the NISTF)?
6. complexity of the database
a. 1st archival automation by Frank Burke et al. was to enter series data & info from NUCMC data sheets
b. problem: they were trying to automate non-standardized data
7. limited by the physical format of data records
a. until keypunched cards were phased out (1970s), rigid column organization meant that the length of fields was fixed
b. disadvantage of the introduction of variable length fields, at first, however, was that one couldn't count on the physical structure of the data to find the data sought
D. Archival automation solutions
1. limitations of keypunched cards led to the use of tagged fields
a. give each field (category of data) a #, followed by a numeric or alphabetical symbol
b. this coding warns the machine of a new sub-field and to tell it which data to index, and in which index
2. SPINDEX (Selective Permutation Indexing) was the first step
a. a format to standardize inter-institutional communication
b. a committee began developing SPINDEX in 1969
c. it was a 2 year project at the National Archives
d. funded by Council on Library Resources
e. goal: to create a computer system that could be used by archives nationwide
3. in 1977, SAA formed the National Information Systems Task Force (NSTIF)
a. NISTF decided that no existing database system could serve all the needs of all the U.S. archives and manuscript repositories
b. NSTIF urged the creation instead of format standards that could be used with any system, thus allowing for exchange of info between repositories
c. it chose the MARC format for archival and manuscript control as the basis for these proposed standards
4. MARC AMC is the format for archival and manuscript control
a. MARC= Machine Readable Cataloging
b. development from SPINDEX
c. nationally accepted standard for structural archival cataloging data, regardless of the form of the material cataloged
d. tags and variable field lengths were added to the familiar book cataloging format to accommodate the needs of archivists
e. data can be exchanged between automated systems
f. five basic format fields are:
(1) responsibility (creators and compilers)
(2) title
(3) physical description
(4) description of the intellectual content
(5) access points (subject headings, forms of material)
g. difficulty with MARC: doesn't easily reflect the hierarchical structure of archival records
E. Summary statement: for archivists, the tail has wagged the dog
1. we established rules we so could enterd info into the computer
2. automation drove archivists to standardization
F. Levels of control: national, institutional, collection, item
1. networking at the collection level is the new focus
2. are archivists jumping on the RLIN bandwagon?
a. Research Libraries Information Network
b. formed by research libraries who thought OCLC too specialized)
c. RLIN is based at Stanford (?)
3. RLIN and OCLC both use the MARC format (with numbered identifying data elements), creating a pool of data contributed by the member libraries; in the NUCMC tradition
4. NUCMC only recently automated; data keyed in to RLIN
G. If you could design a national info system, what would it look like?
1. which of the 5 levels of archival description? why?
2. textual/ image / both? why? what components for its content?
3. where would it be accessible? at what types of institutions?
4. what problems would you expect to encounter?
a. lack of standardization
b. scarcity of funding/ uneven availability of resources
c. lack of storage and transmission capabilities
H. Issues in national collection description
1. ca. 80% of all significant manuscript collections are at fewer than 100 repositories (per Frank Burke), so why try to cover the little repositories?
2. cost factor
3. influence of printed guides on automated versions
a. progress/inefficient overlapping by database vendors
b. RLIN (Research LIbrary Information Network) used a NUCMC approach to automated access
I. Hands-on experience of archival cataloging/access automation
1. MARC:AMC textual cataloging in-class exercise
2. use First Search (for access to Worldwide OCLC database) and other worldwide catalogs via email
