[Personal_archives] general agreement

[Fisher, Robert]

Heather's comments on the "consistency of arrangement" reminded me of some of the issues we face as we go from an ideal arrangement to hierarchical descriptions.  I have sometimes resorted to "asymmetrical" arrangement or description, where some series have sub-series and other series do not, and where not every file in the series belongs to one of the sub-series, so that some files are linked directly to a series.  It was a way of translating the arrangement into levels of description without trying to make everything "fit" somewhere.  But I don't think that I have ever done this at the series level, i.e. everything below the series level has been linked to a series (however artificial that series might be) and no files or sub-series are linked directly to the fonds.  Given our arrangement guidelines, we would try to call a series anything but "miscellaneous" looking for some more descriptive or accurate organizing basis for a title.

-        I have also been thinking about the "consistency of levels of arrangement". What if you can identify and articulate one obvious series within a fonds? If one is found you are required (within description) for there to be at least two. If you identify the one discernable series, the second series has the "authority " of a series placed on it when it may well just be the "Rest of the stuff that could not be arranged or where no arrangement could be discerned" series, or more commonly known as Miscellaneous. So we confer some kind of authority on it by naming it a series and then we strip it of any meaning by calling it "Miscellaneous

Cheers,
Rob

From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of home at queensu.ca
Sent: February-02-12 3:28 PM
To: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] general agreement

I'm so happy to hear from you all!! I think, like Amy, that I may just stick to some point form thoughts, comments or reactions (I am on reference today and the joint is jumping!)

  *   These readings have given me a much better understanding of the work that my predecessors performed. I have a better understanding of why they made the choices they did. I also know that future generations of archivists will look at the attempts that I have made with a certain amount of quizzical wonder. Documenting our arrangement (and appraisal) decisions are important factors in sharing that information, and it is something I know that I am personally not very good at, nor consistent about: there is the time factor and the articulation factor. Generally, the most common attempt I have seen for overcoming those two factors is through a "form" approach. But like arrangement, it is hard to have a form articulate all that is involved in so many diverse fonds. This calls to mind something that Tom Nesmith (I think) or Joan Schwartz (maybe) said at sometime somewhere (I'm nothing if not precise) about archivists writing essays about the fonds or accruals they are acquiring, arranging and describing. A narrative of the process they go through and the decisions they made. I think this is an intriguing proposition, though time-consuming and unlikely to be administratively supported.
  *   I am also interested in the discussion of the series. The NSARM policy states that the only place that arrangement really happens is at the series level (perhaps I've simplified it a bit much but that's the gist of what they're saying). The fonds is the fonds, and the file and item are components of the fonds but they are not levels of arrangement. Which leaves us with the series. I am wondering about the fact that arrangement informs description, but that there may be series descriptions without a corresponding arrangement level. How many people have done this? I am also curious that if we have the fonds and then the file, is this not returning to the problem that is articulated in the Powell/Hurley discussion about the manuscript librarians' habit of describing the item (in this case the file becoming the item) without creating context.
  *   I have also been thinking about the "consistency of levels of arrangement". What if you can identify and articulate one obvious series within a fonds? If one is found you are required (within description) for there to be at least two. If you identify the one discernable series, the second series has the "authority " of a series placed on it when it may well just be the "Rest of the stuff that could not be arranged or where no arrangement could be discerned" series, or more commonly known as Miscellaneous. So we confer some kind of authority on it by naming it a series and then we strip it of any meaning by calling it "Miscellaneous".
Okay - I'm going to stop for now...
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