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#2: Folders: The nuts and bolts of archives
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DEFINITION:
The following is the official/ standard definition (courtesy of the Society of American Archivists) of a folder -- followed by the definition of a folder list:
The following is the official/ standard definition (courtesy of the Society of American Archivists) of a folder -- followed by the definition of a folder list:
In short, a folder is a giant paperclip for archives, which facilitates both access to and preservation of the two-dimensional contents of an archival collection.
EXAMPLES OF THIS KEY AT WORK
Look at examples of folder descriptions in these online inventories of different types of collections at the Center of Southwest Studies:
A simple collection of personal papers
Papers of a politician whose collection is quite large and quite detailed in its organization.
A simple collection of records of a non-profit organization.
A simple collection of records of a business.
Folders holding a large collection of photographs.
Look at examples of folder descriptions in these online inventories of different types of collections at the Center of Southwest Studies:
A simple collection of personal papers
Papers of a politician whose collection is quite large and quite detailed in its organization.
A simple collection of records of a non-profit organization.
A simple collection of records of a business.
Folders holding a large collection of photographs.
PRACTICAL HOW-TO’S
We use archival folders that have a full tab across the top of the folder. Folders and envelopes should be labeled on the tab as follows, using pencil.
LEFT: collection title MIDDLE: folder title RIGHT: call number
· Print or write neatly, in characters that are approximately 3/8" high (in other words, not in large or sloppy writing).
· Place all essential information on the top portion of the tab, so that it can be read most easily.
· Only capitalize the first letter of a title and the first letter of proper names.
Now, for more detail on each of these three components of a folder tab:
Tips for writing the collection title: It is acceptable to simplify the collection title for the file folder, rather than tediously writing it out each time. Part of the solution here is to come up with a good collection title in the first place -- one that has the closest possible level of specificity to describe the contents of that collection. For example, rather than simply using the word "collection" in every collection title, we should employ the most informative, meaningful word. If the contents all belong to the same genre, use that genre term (for example, postcards, or pamphlets, or photographs) instead of the word collection.[1]
If you simplify a collection title that you are penciling in on folders, avoid acronyms or anything that will make the collection title difficult for the user to understand. When processing a large collection like Ben Nighthorse Campbell's or the Fort Lewis College Archives we use a rubber stamp to print the COLLECTION NAME on the folders we will be using for that collection. We rubber stamp ALL of our folders with the call number categories (Coll. Box Series Folder); we have a simpler stamp (Coll. Box Folder)to use for collections that don't have series.
The folder title generally includes these 3 components (in this sequence):
name/subject, type of materials, date or inclusive dates of creation.
Become familiar with the three parts of a folder title:
1. The name of the person or institution or topic that is predominantly associated with, or responsible for, the materials in that folder.
Notes for formulating the name/subject component of the folder title:
· Individual/personal names are written in natural language order of the language associated with that individual, for example (for English-speaking situations, which are generally the case with us) the person's given name/s and/or initials, last name, and any suffixes like Jr., Sr., or III. For example, A. G. Morris III.
· Corporate names are likewise written straight out, with the city and abbreviated state name of a corporate entity following in parentheses (for example, A.A. Cross & Co. (Durango, Colo.). Note that we have no space between the initials of a corporate name, but we do have a space for a personal name as in the previous example.
· Our state name abbreviations are by librarians' standards, not by the Postal Service's. So, we don't use two-letter abbreviations, but rather the following types of abbreviations: Colo., Ariz., N.M., Utah, Calif., N.Y., Mich., Ala.
· When we're labeling a folder that contains a book, we simply list the title as written on the title page of the book. For example: That Was Then, book / by John Doe (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006).
2. The type of materials in this folder. Our goal in assigning folder titles is to provide a capsule description of the contents.
Following are definitions of some of the more frequently used or misunderstood GENRE TERMS that we use to describe manuscript and photograph materials. For a thorough online presentation of the possible genre terms, see the links below to AAT and the LC Thesaurus of Terms for Graphic Materials.
Account books..... Ledgers of customer accounts, organized by customers' names.
Aerial photographs.....Photographs taken from an airborne vehicle.
Cityscape photographs..... Broad photographic views of cities or towns or sections of them, usually made from an elevated or distant vantage point.
Collection..... Materials of various genres gathered together to form a research resource unit.
Correspondence.....Use instead of Letters, generally.
Daybooks..... Ledgers that list daily sales or expenses; the equivalent of a cash register receipt.
Group portraits..... Graphic representations, especially of the face, of two or more people, usually posed; the people are the main subject of the picture, not simply part of the scene.
Handbills..... Small single sheet notices, usually unfolded, intended for mass distribution.
Landscape photographs..... Broad or general photographic views of natural scenery; if figures or man-made objects are in view, they are of secondary importance to the composition of the photo. Usually taken from an elevated or distant vantage point, such as from a hilltop.
Leaflets..... Unbound volumes that contain less than 5 pages.
Letters..... Generally, use the term Correspondence instead; use Letters for mass mailings and for single items of correspondence.
Pamphlets..... Published non-periodical volumes of 5 to 49 pages that have no cover or a paper cover.
Panoramic photographs..... Photographs that provide a continuous view of a broader section of the horizon than customarily could be photographed in one exposure. They may be separate photos or one wide photo produced by using a special camera.
Papers..... The writings of (or collected by) an individual.
Photograph collection..... We add the word "Photograph" if one of our manuscripts collections otherwise has the same title.
Photographs..... A general term for items produced by any photographic process.
Photonegatives..... Photographs in which the tonal values are the opposite of those in the subject photographed; used for producing positive photographic images of the subject.
Postal cards..... Postcards with preprinted postage on them.
Postcards..... Cards, often having a picture on one side, on which a message can be written for mailing without using an envelope. Written as one word, not two.
Records..... The paperwork generated by an institution.
Registers..... Numerical listings, possibly of sales tickets or of checks issued.
Snapshots.....Photographs that appear to have been produced quickly by amateurs to serve as a remembrance of people, places or events.
Notes regarding the material/genre type component of the folder title:
· Letters are a term for form mailings, whereas correspondence is the more commonly encountered term, used to describe personalized mailings.
· Occasionally we need to include the author's name in a folder title. We don't generally include this when the whole collection is the work of that author. We do include the author's name for a book or other item that is by some author This can be appended to the genre section; here, we list the person's name in straight order (first name/initials and last name), not inverted, and we precede it by a forward slash and the word "by".
3. The date or inclusive dates during which the materials in this folder were created. In most cases, this will be a year or span of years. If it is more than that, write the date in this order:
year mo. day (for example: 1892 Nov. 12)
Notes for formulating the date component of the folder title:
· The format is the year (or years), no comma, the month, abbreviated, no comma, and the date--give the date if it's available and especially if there's only one item in the folder.
· Be consistent within each folder title; if you state a beginning month and day, you should also state the ending month and day.
· If most of the records in a folder are from a certain span of years, add that info, preceded by the word bulk. For example (from DACS, page 26): 1785-1960, bulk 1916-1958.
· If you don't know the year or date, put your estimated date in square brackets. Often we can approximate the year of a document by looking at the dates of the materials we found it next to. We don't want to lose the contextual information of our records.
If we think we know the year, it could be written like this: [ca. 1921].
If we think we know the decade, then write that like this: [191-].
Additional notes for writing folder titles:
· The folder title is written at a standard indentation of 4" from the left margin (by using a template that is aligned with the right edge of the file folder).
· Folder headings are written in pencil and as one unit (not spaced across the folder tab!).
Longer headings continue, indented like this line, on a second or even a third line.
· Only capitalize the first letter in the title and the proper names (of persons or institutions, place names, etc.).
· Please note the standardized punctuation: use a comma between the genre term and the date section of the folder title, and end the folder title with a period.
· Thus, we separate the second and third categories of folder titles by commas, except that when there's a bracket or a parenthesis mark. Don't use any punctuation between the name and the material type, except for using a comma for clarification when using a complex personal or corporate name: for example: J.J. Smith, check registers, 1892.
Examples of folder titles:
· Board of Directors minutes, 2002 Jan.–2004 Apr.
· Tuition and fee schedules, 1961-1962.
· President’s subject files, 1998-99 [note: this refers to a fiscal year – if it were two years, they would be written 1998-1999]
· Animas Ditch Company records, 1885-1900.
· Alva A. Adams diary, 1899 Apr. - 1901 June.
· Elizabeth Angiostaphany memoirs, [1907?]-1919.
· Ansel Jones corresp. from Angela Jones, [199-]-1948.
· R.R. and Adams Co. (Boston, Mass.) records and corresp., 1901-1940.
· Cows and sheep at old Fort Lewis lists / by Sonny Shepherd, 1889 Aug.-Nov.
· Auditorium capital construction project photoprints, 1951 Apr. 4.
· Haviland Lake (Colo.) photoprints / by Ansel Hall, 1941-1955, bulk 1941-1943.
· Culture Shock video / by Boston University Preservation Studies Program, 1998.
[1] Using the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (aat) which includes the RLIN List of Form Terms for Archival and Manuscripts Control (February 1985) for all collections, and the Library of Congress Descriptive Terms for Graphic Materials (1995) for photographs and other graphic materials.
For writing the call number: Unlike librarians, who use an artificial classification scheme (e.g., Library of Congress) with its associated categorically assigned numbering system, archivists organize collections by principles of provenance and original order (the subject of the next archival key), and therefore our "call numbers" are associated with collection numbers, series numbers, box numbers, and folder numbers. We leave off writing this information on our file folders until we've totally finished physically arranging the contents of a collection.
We use archival folders that have a full tab across the top of the folder. Folders and envelopes should be labeled on the tab as follows, using pencil.
LEFT: collection title MIDDLE: folder title RIGHT: call number
· Print or write neatly, in characters that are approximately 3/8" high (in other words, not in large or sloppy writing).
· Place all essential information on the top portion of the tab, so that it can be read most easily.
· Only capitalize the first letter of a title and the first letter of proper names.
Now, for more detail on each of these three components of a folder tab:
Tips for writing the collection title: It is acceptable to simplify the collection title for the file folder, rather than tediously writing it out each time. Part of the solution here is to come up with a good collection title in the first place -- one that has the closest possible level of specificity to describe the contents of that collection. For example, rather than simply using the word "collection" in every collection title, we should employ the most informative, meaningful word. If the contents all belong to the same genre, use that genre term (for example, postcards, or pamphlets, or photographs) instead of the word collection.[1]
If you simplify a collection title that you are penciling in on folders, avoid acronyms or anything that will make the collection title difficult for the user to understand. When processing a large collection like Ben Nighthorse Campbell's or the Fort Lewis College Archives we use a rubber stamp to print the COLLECTION NAME on the folders we will be using for that collection. We rubber stamp ALL of our folders with the call number categories (Coll. Box Series Folder); we have a simpler stamp (Coll. Box Folder)to use for collections that don't have series.
The folder title generally includes these 3 components (in this sequence):
name/subject, type of materials, date or inclusive dates of creation.
Become familiar with the three parts of a folder title:
1. The name of the person or institution or topic that is predominantly associated with, or responsible for, the materials in that folder.
Notes for formulating the name/subject component of the folder title:
· Individual/personal names are written in natural language order of the language associated with that individual, for example (for English-speaking situations, which are generally the case with us) the person's given name/s and/or initials, last name, and any suffixes like Jr., Sr., or III. For example, A. G. Morris III.
· Corporate names are likewise written straight out, with the city and abbreviated state name of a corporate entity following in parentheses (for example, A.A. Cross & Co. (Durango, Colo.). Note that we have no space between the initials of a corporate name, but we do have a space for a personal name as in the previous example.
· Our state name abbreviations are by librarians' standards, not by the Postal Service's. So, we don't use two-letter abbreviations, but rather the following types of abbreviations: Colo., Ariz., N.M., Utah, Calif., N.Y., Mich., Ala.
· When we're labeling a folder that contains a book, we simply list the title as written on the title page of the book. For example: That Was Then, book / by John Doe (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006).
2. The type of materials in this folder. Our goal in assigning folder titles is to provide a capsule description of the contents.
Following are definitions of some of the more frequently used or misunderstood GENRE TERMS that we use to describe manuscript and photograph materials. For a thorough online presentation of the possible genre terms, see the links below to AAT and the LC Thesaurus of Terms for Graphic Materials.
Account books..... Ledgers of customer accounts, organized by customers' names.
Aerial photographs.....Photographs taken from an airborne vehicle.
Cityscape photographs..... Broad photographic views of cities or towns or sections of them, usually made from an elevated or distant vantage point.
Collection..... Materials of various genres gathered together to form a research resource unit.
Correspondence.....Use instead of Letters, generally.
Daybooks..... Ledgers that list daily sales or expenses; the equivalent of a cash register receipt.
Group portraits..... Graphic representations, especially of the face, of two or more people, usually posed; the people are the main subject of the picture, not simply part of the scene.
Handbills..... Small single sheet notices, usually unfolded, intended for mass distribution.
Landscape photographs..... Broad or general photographic views of natural scenery; if figures or man-made objects are in view, they are of secondary importance to the composition of the photo. Usually taken from an elevated or distant vantage point, such as from a hilltop.
Leaflets..... Unbound volumes that contain less than 5 pages.
Letters..... Generally, use the term Correspondence instead; use Letters for mass mailings and for single items of correspondence.
Pamphlets..... Published non-periodical volumes of 5 to 49 pages that have no cover or a paper cover.
Panoramic photographs..... Photographs that provide a continuous view of a broader section of the horizon than customarily could be photographed in one exposure. They may be separate photos or one wide photo produced by using a special camera.
Papers..... The writings of (or collected by) an individual.
Photograph collection..... We add the word "Photograph" if one of our manuscripts collections otherwise has the same title.
Photographs..... A general term for items produced by any photographic process.
Photonegatives..... Photographs in which the tonal values are the opposite of those in the subject photographed; used for producing positive photographic images of the subject.
Postal cards..... Postcards with preprinted postage on them.
Postcards..... Cards, often having a picture on one side, on which a message can be written for mailing without using an envelope. Written as one word, not two.
Records..... The paperwork generated by an institution.
Registers..... Numerical listings, possibly of sales tickets or of checks issued.
Snapshots.....Photographs that appear to have been produced quickly by amateurs to serve as a remembrance of people, places or events.
Notes regarding the material/genre type component of the folder title:
· Letters are a term for form mailings, whereas correspondence is the more commonly encountered term, used to describe personalized mailings.
· Occasionally we need to include the author's name in a folder title. We don't generally include this when the whole collection is the work of that author. We do include the author's name for a book or other item that is by some author This can be appended to the genre section; here, we list the person's name in straight order (first name/initials and last name), not inverted, and we precede it by a forward slash and the word "by".
3. The date or inclusive dates during which the materials in this folder were created. In most cases, this will be a year or span of years. If it is more than that, write the date in this order:
year mo. day (for example: 1892 Nov. 12)
Notes for formulating the date component of the folder title:
· The format is the year (or years), no comma, the month, abbreviated, no comma, and the date--give the date if it's available and especially if there's only one item in the folder.
· Be consistent within each folder title; if you state a beginning month and day, you should also state the ending month and day.
· If most of the records in a folder are from a certain span of years, add that info, preceded by the word bulk. For example (from DACS, page 26): 1785-1960, bulk 1916-1958.
· If you don't know the year or date, put your estimated date in square brackets. Often we can approximate the year of a document by looking at the dates of the materials we found it next to. We don't want to lose the contextual information of our records.
If we think we know the year, it could be written like this: [ca. 1921].
If we think we know the decade, then write that like this: [191-].
Additional notes for writing folder titles:
· The folder title is written at a standard indentation of 4" from the left margin (by using a template that is aligned with the right edge of the file folder).
· Folder headings are written in pencil and as one unit (not spaced across the folder tab!).
Longer headings continue, indented like this line, on a second or even a third line.
· Only capitalize the first letter in the title and the proper names (of persons or institutions, place names, etc.).
· Please note the standardized punctuation: use a comma between the genre term and the date section of the folder title, and end the folder title with a period.
· Thus, we separate the second and third categories of folder titles by commas, except that when there's a bracket or a parenthesis mark. Don't use any punctuation between the name and the material type, except for using a comma for clarification when using a complex personal or corporate name: for example: J.J. Smith, check registers, 1892.
Examples of folder titles:
· Board of Directors minutes, 2002 Jan.–2004 Apr.
· Tuition and fee schedules, 1961-1962.
· President’s subject files, 1998-99 [note: this refers to a fiscal year – if it were two years, they would be written 1998-1999]
· Animas Ditch Company records, 1885-1900.
· Alva A. Adams diary, 1899 Apr. - 1901 June.
· Elizabeth Angiostaphany memoirs, [1907?]-1919.
· Ansel Jones corresp. from Angela Jones, [199-]-1948.
· R.R. and Adams Co. (Boston, Mass.) records and corresp., 1901-1940.
· Cows and sheep at old Fort Lewis lists / by Sonny Shepherd, 1889 Aug.-Nov.
· Auditorium capital construction project photoprints, 1951 Apr. 4.
· Haviland Lake (Colo.) photoprints / by Ansel Hall, 1941-1955, bulk 1941-1943.
· Culture Shock video / by Boston University Preservation Studies Program, 1998.
[1] Using the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus (aat) which includes the RLIN List of Form Terms for Archival and Manuscripts Control (February 1985) for all collections, and the Library of Congress Descriptive Terms for Graphic Materials (1995) for photographs and other graphic materials.
For writing the call number: Unlike librarians, who use an artificial classification scheme (e.g., Library of Congress) with its associated categorically assigned numbering system, archivists organize collections by principles of provenance and original order (the subject of the next archival key), and therefore our "call numbers" are associated with collection numbers, series numbers, box numbers, and folder numbers. We leave off writing this information on our file folders until we've totally finished physically arranging the contents of a collection.
Links to other online sources for further examples and/or discussion of this Key:
· Search the online Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) for the terms letters and correspondence and see how the possible genre terms are listed and described.
· Visit the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials / compiled by Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, 1995, and look up several genre types, such as aerial photograph, lantern slide, and postcard.
· Standards for Archival Description (compiled by Victoria Irons Walch for the Society of American Archivists; a handbook describes technical standards, conventions, and guidelines used by archivists in describing holdings and repositories). Click on the link for Labeling and filing (chapter 10) and browse that information.
· Persons who are processing archival collections spend much of their work hours typing folder lists to display on the Web. Being able to type accurately and rapidly is a necessary skill for most anyone in the 21st century, and is an important aspect of archival exactness. Someone doing a keyword search of an archival collection inventory online may fail to find an important document if the name or the date or some other data was typed incorrectly. For a superb method to increase your touch-typing speed and accuracy in a short time, see the description of Zoom-Type. It is produced by a woman-owned business, which various state governments including the State of Colorado have recommended as a desirable feature when selecting a vendor.
Books:
· Hunter, Gregory S., Developing and maintaining practical archives: a how-to-do-it manual (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2nd edition, 2003). Call number: CD950 .H86 2003
· Miller, Fredric, Arranging and describing archives and manuscripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1990). Call number: Z695.2 .M55 1990
· Society of American Archivists, Describing archives: a content standard [DACS] (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2004). Call number: Z695.2 .S625 2004
· Search the online Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) for the terms letters and correspondence and see how the possible genre terms are listed and described.
· Visit the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials / compiled by Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, 1995, and look up several genre types, such as aerial photograph, lantern slide, and postcard.
· Standards for Archival Description (compiled by Victoria Irons Walch for the Society of American Archivists; a handbook describes technical standards, conventions, and guidelines used by archivists in describing holdings and repositories). Click on the link for Labeling and filing (chapter 10) and browse that information.
· Persons who are processing archival collections spend much of their work hours typing folder lists to display on the Web. Being able to type accurately and rapidly is a necessary skill for most anyone in the 21st century, and is an important aspect of archival exactness. Someone doing a keyword search of an archival collection inventory online may fail to find an important document if the name or the date or some other data was typed incorrectly. For a superb method to increase your touch-typing speed and accuracy in a short time, see the description of Zoom-Type. It is produced by a woman-owned business, which various state governments including the State of Colorado have recommended as a desirable feature when selecting a vendor.
Books:
· Hunter, Gregory S., Developing and maintaining practical archives: a how-to-do-it manual (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2nd edition, 2003). Call number: CD950 .H86 2003
· Miller, Fredric, Arranging and describing archives and manuscripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1990). Call number: Z695.2 .M55 1990
· Society of American Archivists, Describing archives: a content standard [DACS] (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2004). Call number: Z695.2 .S625 2004
YOUR PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Remember, every folder title is composed of three elements:
o Name and/or subject
o Type of material
o Date or dates
Do the online search exercises described in the previous section.
To do in DACS:
Write standardized archival folder titles for these fictitiously imagined folder-fulls of materials:
· For a collection of Durango Chamber of Commerce records: annual reports for the years 1988 through 2006. Actually, what you have is these issues: 1988, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006. (Note the bulk dates when you compose your folder title for this one.)
· For the papers of Jim Dyer: a book about his experiences in Vietnam, written by John Doe in 2006 and entitled That Was Then.
· For the Small collections of photographs [note: we also have similar catch-all collection titles for manuscripts or slides that just fill a single folder]: an aerial view of the City of Durango in approximately 1950.
You'll develop plenty of real life hands-on experience in labeling folders, so that's enough for now!
Remember, every folder title is composed of three elements:
o Name and/or subject
o Type of material
o Date or dates
Do the online search exercises described in the previous section.
To do in DACS:
- Read the explanations of how to write the name of a person or corporate body or the topic, on pages 18-22. (Also glance quickly at the naming details on pages 119-152 just long enough to know that the information is there -- don't bog down reading it now.)
- Read the commentary on the date element of an archival description and how to formulate it, on pages 24-28.
- Look at his simple example of a container list on page 141.
- Read his explanation of how to arrange records into folders, on pages 5 (bottom)-6.
- While you're in this book, read pages 95-104 to review the concept of archival series and how to write series descriptions.
Write standardized archival folder titles for these fictitiously imagined folder-fulls of materials:
· For a collection of Durango Chamber of Commerce records: annual reports for the years 1988 through 2006. Actually, what you have is these issues: 1988, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006. (Note the bulk dates when you compose your folder title for this one.)
· For the papers of Jim Dyer: a book about his experiences in Vietnam, written by John Doe in 2006 and entitled That Was Then.
· For the Small collections of photographs [note: we also have similar catch-all collection titles for manuscripts or slides that just fill a single folder]: an aerial view of the City of Durango in approximately 1950.
You'll develop plenty of real life hands-on experience in labeling folders, so that's enough for now!
FEEDBACK (if you contact me, including your 3 folder titles, above)
What was most helpful about this exercise?
What was unclear?
How could this Key be improved?
What was most helpful about this exercise?
What was unclear?
How could this Key be improved?
