[NHCOLL-L:96] Auxiliary collections

[Sally Shelton]

Forwarded from Diane Vogt O'Connor <Diane_Vogt_O'Connor at nps.gov>


Sally:
     
     Jessie Johnson forwarded me your message.  Collections of
records, 
     gray literature, reports, and publications, are managed in situ
by 
     a wide variety of folks until they go to archives and libraries, 
     via records management programs.  The people who manage these 
     collections (once they are no longer being actively used in their

     office of origin) ultimately are librarians and archivists.  In
the 
     short term the managers can be any of a wide variety of 
     professions.
     
     Librarians manage publications, while archivists manage groups of

     related manuscripts and records, which may contain some 
     publications. Records managers are responsible for the
disposition 
     of materials that aren't permently valuable and the transfer of 
     valuable materials to the archives.
     
     Last year, our "Information Ecosystem: Managing the Life Cycle of

     Information for Preservation and Access" course at Archives II in

     College Park, MD walked attendees through the intricate web of 
     individuals involved in the creation, management, original use,
and 
     secondary use of such files in cultural and natural resource 
     management.  The skill set is changing due to the:
     * changes in information technology
     * prevelence of endangered 20th century processes (color photos, 
     videos, sound recordings)
     * wider market and increasing demand for the materials since the 
     development of the Web and edutainment such as the History
Channel. 
     
     The June 1998 CRM (21:6) available on the Web at 
     <http://www.cr.nps.gov/crm> includes some of the papers from the 
     conference.
     
     As an example, you might wish to look at my Guide to Photograph 
     Collections at the Smithsonian, Volume 2, which lists the science

     collections of this sort at the NMNH and other SI science
museums. 
     In that single volume you will find hundreds of different office 
     assistants, assistant curators, curators, technicians, 
     conservators, and specialists involved in keeping such files. 
The 
     NMNH library has a copy of the Guide.
     
     
     Best wishes.
     
     Diane Vogt-O'Connor 
     Senior Archivist
     MMP, NPS
     1849 C St., NW, NC230
     Washington, DC 20240
     Tel: 202-343-1011