Uncovering Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections:

The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Delaware Valley Archivists GroupOctober 18, 2007

Plan for the afternoon

Overview of project and progressSurveyors’ perspectiveExperience of participating institutions

Haverford CollegeUniversity of DelawareHistorical Society of Pennsylvania

Questions and wrap upExhibit tour and reception in Magill Library

Philadelphia Area Consortiumof Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL)

Founded in 1985.33 members currently

Academic archives and special collections, historical societies, museums, and non-profit institutional archives.Range from small shops within larger organizations to large independent repositories.

Past projects include collaborative exhibits, coordinated cataloging and OPAC work, EAD, and GIS. More information on website at http://www.pacscl.org

PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Assessing backlogged archival collections in 22 PACSCL institutions using a series of quantitative and qualitative measures.Thirty-month project funded by the Mellon Foundation, who previously funded surveys at Historical Society of Pennsylvania (direct antecdent to this project), Columbia University, and University of Virginia.Proposal submitted to Mellon in 2004 and funding was received in 2005.Official start of work was in May 2006 - surveying of collections began in September 2006.Three project staff, plus staff at participating institutions and an advisory committee.

Participating institutions

Academy of Natural SciencesAmerican Philosophical SocietyAthenaeum of PhiladelphiaBryn Mawr CollegeChemical Heritage FoundationCollege of Physicians of Philadelphia Free Library of Philadelphia Haverford CollegeThe Historical Society of

PennsylvaniaIndependence Seaport MuseumLibrary Company of Philadelphia

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

Philadelphia Museum of ArtPresbyterian Historical SocietyRosenbach Museum & LibrarySwarthmore CollegeTemple UniversityUnion League of PhiladelphiaUniversity of DelawareUniversity of PennsylvaniaVillanova UniversityWagner Free Institute of

Science

Benefits to PACSCL and participating institutions

Gain additional information on the condition and content of specific collections.Create information that can be used for both collection management and intellectual access purposes.Develop a central repository of PACSCL collection and assessment data that can be used to inform the development of institutional and consortial priorities and funding proposals.

Project description

Defining terms:Backlog: Unprocessed, under-processed or under-described material.Archival: Managed according to archival principles – usually by provenance rather than subject; described at the collection, series and folder level rather than as individually cataloged items.Collections: Range of formats, from manuscripts to photographs to architectural drawings to audiovisual materials.

Project description

Defining terms (continued):Quantitative: Numerical ratings for physical condition, quality of housing, physical access, intellectual access, documentation quality and interest. Confirm measurements and date spans of collections.Qualitative: Narrative assessments of quantifiable and unquantifiable properties. We also write abstracts, apply name and subject headings, and indicate related collections, when applicable.Providing both quantitative and qualitative data makes the assessments more useful and allows people to use the information for multiple purposes.

Prior to surveying

Discussions with local staff.Preparation of basic collection records.Background research.

During surveying

Working in teams of two or more, look through boxes, volumes and other collection materials to determine physical arrangement and condition.Look through enough to get a good sense of the content of the collection (subject matter, themes, depth of coverage, document genres, etc.).Review and assess the existing intellectual access tools, such as collection/donor/control folders, inventories, catalog records/cards, and finding aids, in terms of how well they provide access to the collection.Verify and revise titles, dates, extents and other components of archival description as needed.

Ratings

Discuss and achieve consensus to assign ratings to different physical and intellectual characteristics of collections.

Condition of materialQuality of housingPhysical accessIntellectual accessDocumentation quality + interest = research value rating.

Document rationale.

After surveying

Fleshing out abstracts.Adding name and subject headings.Indicating related collections (PACSCL and non-PACSCL) as appropriate.Follow up and discussion with staff.

The survey database

Developed in FileMaker Pro and accessible to participants via FileMaker client or web browser. Project participants have access to assessment data about each other’s collections. Information in a small number of local fields is available only to the holding repository.Collection-level description fields map to MARC.Crosswalks from MARC to other metadata standards facilitate use of information towards the creation of other metadata outputs.Capabilities for exporting MARC, EAD, HTML and PDF, to assist institutions in integrating into access strategies for processed collections.For institutions that already have collections management databases and want to integrate survey data, can export full records as tab-delimited text, Excel spreadsheet or other file formats built into FileMaker.Separate web interface allows researchers to view archival descriptions for selected collections.

Content standards and controlled vocabularies

Archival description follows Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS).Name headings are from the Library of Congress Name Authority File when possible; from local authority files or created according to DACS/AACR2 otherwise.Topical and geographic headings are from Library of Congress Subject Headings. (Open to using other controlled vocabularies, such as MeSH, for subjects when appropriate to the holding institution.)Genre and occupation headings are a subset of Art and Architecture Thesaurus.Theme list developed with PACSCL participant input.

Surveying facts and figures

As of October 15, 200713 institutions968 collections7,892 linear feet

Surveying facts and figures

Smallest: .01 feet (1 folder of correspondence)Largest: 540 feet (congressional papers)182 collections 10 feet and over786 collections under 10 feet

667 of those are under 5 feet371 of those are under 1 foot

Surveying facts and figures

572 personal papers (74 of those are family papers)281 organizational records115 “artificial” collectionsHave surveyed organization’s own institutional records at 7 institutions (and will be returning to survey institutional records at another institution later in the project).

Surveying facts and figures

496 collections (51%) had no intellectual access beyond an accession record or other internal documentation.An additional 265 collections (27%) had paper-only documentation that did not adequately provide access.In all, 79% of the collections surveyed were characterized as having poor or no intellectual access

“Hidden” collections, for all intents and purposes.

Surveyors’ perspective

Experience of some participating institutions

Haverford CollegeUniversity of DelawareHistorical Society of Pennsylvania

Future plans

Survey at remaining 9 institutions.Consortial planning and funding proposals.Disseminating information about the project beyond PACSCL.Project-end conference.Current information always available on project website: http://www.pacsclsurvey.org