unearthing philadelphia’s hidden collections: the pacscl consortial survey initiative

28
Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative Rachel Onuf SAA Annual Meeting August 2009

Upload: alijah

Post on 12-Jan-2016

31 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

DESCRIPTION

Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative. Rachel Onuf SAA Annual Meeting August 2009. PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative. Assessed backlogged archival collections in 22 PACSCL institutions using a series of quantitative and qualitative measures. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections:

The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Rachel OnufSAA Annual Meeting

August 2009

Page 2: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Assessed 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 antecedent 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.

Page 3: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

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. More information on website at http://www.pacscl.org

Page 4: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

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

Page 5: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Project description

Defining terms:Backlog: Unprocessed, under-processed or under-described material.

Under-processed: collections that are partially processed or done to an earlier standard that staff members no longer consider adequate.Under-described: collections that are partially described or done to an earlier standard that staff members no longer consider adequate.

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.

Page 6: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Project description

Defining terms (continued):Quantitative: Numerical ratings (1-5) for physical condition, quality of housing, physical access, intellectual access, documentation quality and interest.Qualitative: Narrative descriptions of quantifiable and unquantifiable properties.

Page 7: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Prior to surveying

Training and discussions with local staff.

What to survey?

Preparation of basic collection records.At minimum, needed title/main entry and some indication of location and extent.

Background research.

Page 8: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

During surveying

Working in teams of two or more, looked through boxes, volumes and other collection materials to determine physical arrangement and condition.Looked through enough to get a good sense of the content of the collection (subject matter, themes, depth of coverage, document genres, etc.).Reviewed and assessed 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.Verified and revised titles, dates, extents and other components of archival description as needed.

Page 9: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Ratings

Discussed and achieved consensus to assign ratings to different physical and intellectual characteristics of collections.

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

Documented rationale in the General Note.

Page 10: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

After surveying

Refined abstracts.Added name and subject headings.Applied PACSCL’s 37 identified “themes of interest.”Indicated related collections (PACSCL and non-PACSCL) as appropriate.Followed up with staff.

Page 11: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

The survey database

AccessSecurityDesignMetadata and content standardsGetting data out of the databasePublic interface

Page 12: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative
Page 13: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Access

Via FileMaker Pro client or web browserProject 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.

Page 14: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Security

Must log in to use database.Each institution has two database accounts that can be shared within the institution; additional accounts can be requested.Multiple levels of privileges – read-only, editing pre- and post-surveying, authority file access.Local information can only be viewed by people logged in under the institution’s account.Survey data could only be changed by project staff.

Page 15: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Design

Multiple tablesRepository dataCollection dataAuthority data

Search and display layouts could be partially customized according to institutional preferences

Page 16: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

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. (Used other controlled vocabularies 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.

Page 17: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Metadata standards and output

Collection-level description fields have been designed to map to MARC.Crosswalks from MARC to other metadata standards facilitate use of information toward the creation of other metadata outputs.

Page 18: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Export

Built-in FileMaker options for exporting full records for use in other applications.

Institutions with existing collections management databases could integrate survey data by exporting full records as tab-delimited text, Excel spreadsheet or other file formats built into FileMaker.

Capabilities for exporting MARC, EAD, HTML and PDF.Export into Archivists’ Toolkit (to come)

Page 19: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Public Interface

Available on the project website, and participating institutions have also linked to it.Provides a point of access in addition to other methods selected by individual institutions and is the only place for researchers to search across collections surveyed for this project.Only finalized records designated as “public” in the survey database are included.

Institution can designate all, some or none of its records for inclusion.

Page 20: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative
Page 21: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Surveying facts and figures

2,099 collections19,400 linear feetSurveyors averaged 45 minutes per collectionSurveyors averaged 12 LFPH (linear ft. per hour)

Page 22: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Surveying facts and figures

621 collections greater than 5 LF568 collections between 1 and 5 LF910 collections less than 1 LF

Page 23: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Surveying facts and figures

Average ratingsCondition 3.53Housing 3.45Physical Access 3.55Intellectual Access 1.66Interest 2.55 plus Documentation Quality 2.43 = Research Value (RVR) of 4.98

Page 24: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Surveying facts and figures

20% (67% of total LF) received RVR between 7 and 10 with 32 (3,280 LF) receiving a 10

55% (30% of total LF) received RVR of 4, 5, or 6

22% (2.5% of total LF) received RVR of 2 or 3

Page 25: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Surveying facts and figures

Less than 10% had a publicly available catalog record

Less than 7% had a finding aid

“Hidden” collections, for all intents and purposes.

Page 26: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Benefits to PACSCL and participating institutions

Gained additional information on the condition and content of specific collections.Created information that can be used for both collection management and intellectual access purposes.Developed 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.

Page 27: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

Still more benefits!

CLIR-funded “Hidden Collections” project underway.PACSCL-wide EAD repository, hosted by University of Pennsylvania.

Page 28: Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

To learn more

Project website: http://www.pacsclsurvey.org