Minimal Processing

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Processing plans for minimal processing

Monday, March 1st, 2010

You haven’t heard much from me in the past month or so because I have been out in the field on a reconnaissance mission, so to speak. Since the middle of January, I visited Independence Seaport Museum and Presbyterian Historical Society, and Holly joined me at The Library Company, Free Library of Philadelphia, Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Chester County Historical Society, to gather information about collections for the creation of processing plans.

Our processors do not have a lot of time to think about their processing decisions and once those decisions are made there’s no turning back. Not to mention, we are working with students, who are learning the art of archival processing as they go and therefore do not have a lot of experience to draw from when making decisions about arranging collections. Even so, because of the nature of the project, we need our teams to work independently. As such, the processing plan is a very important part of our work flow. It is completed prior to the processors’ arrival, provides them a place to start, and guides them in their decision making as they begin to divide collections into series and subseries.

I spent from one to four hours with each collection, its accession file (if there was one), and collecting biographical information about its creator(s). Taking this information (and lots of photocopies) away with me, I created processing packets. Each collection’s packet contains the processing plan, a preliminary biographical/historical note (written by Holly or me), copies of useful documentation from the accession file, a copy of the PACSCL survey record, and copies of any historical/biographical information we found about the creator(s). The processing plan itself identifies basic information about the collection, including its date range, linear footage and container count, and a basic list of supplies needed for processing. More importantly, the plan offers a list of proposed series and subseries as well as specific processing instructions for collections that are especially unique or potentially problematic. For example, at the Independence Seaport Museum, numerous collections contain large numbers (1000s, actually) of rolled ship’s plans, which will present significant problems in terms of time–the students will not have time to unroll the plans in order to identify them nor will they have time to figure out how to effectively deal with them. As such, Matt Herbison, the Director of the Library at the Seaport Museum, and I took some time one afternoon to figure out the best way to handle those collections that would enable both greater intellectual and physical access. The systems we came up with are outlined in the processing plans for those collections for the students to replicate.

Our teams are instructed to completely read all the materials in the processing packet prior to processing. In doing so, the teams quickly become acquainted with the collection and its creators and are made aware of the various types of records to look for and how to group them. Additionally, through the packets students gain a sense of the historical context in which the records were created—information that they do not have enough time to uncover on their own and that we believe to be essential in understanding archives and their value.

Since the students will ultimately devote a lot more time to the collections than we can, we do allow them to adapt the processing plan as they see fit. If they feel additional or different series are necessary to maximize the collection’s accessibility, they may make those decisions on their own.

At all the repositories I have visited thus far (there are a few more stops along the way) I have gotten quite an in depth “sneak peek” at what’s in store. Based on my experience over the past couple of weeks, we have some exciting collections coming up that are sure to be both interesting and challenging from the perspectives of history AND minimal processing — so stay tuned!

Here are some teaser snapshots of what’s to come:

CCHS - Albert Cook Meyers William Penn collection 1

Posted in Chester County Historical Society, Free Library of Philadelphia, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Independence Seaport Museum, Library Company of Philadelphia, Minimal Processing, Presbyterian Historical Society, Project Archivist | No Responses »

Jean Scobie Davis papers at Bryn Mawr College

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

This week Forrest and I completed our third collection at Bryn Mawr College’s Special Collections, the Jean Scobie Davis papers. This collection chronicled the life of Jean Scobie Davis (1892-1985), who graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1914 and later received her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin. Davis was a professor and taught at such colleges as Vassar, Pierce, and the American Women’s College in Beirut. She also held a lifelong interest in prison reform, serving on the Board of Visitors of the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills. Davis studied and researched the development of professional social work in Atlanta, and was heavily involved in studying women’s prisons and reformatories for teenagers.

When we first opened the 10 cartons holding this collection, we knew it would need a bit of attention. While parts of the collection were carefully arranged, other parts were completely disorganized and in great need of foldering and description. We spent quite a bit of time sorting through materials and identifying additional series, but at the same time, attempting to process the collection at our MPLP standard: 2 hours per linear foot. Once we completed, we had seven defined series and a collection that would be truly accessible.

What was fascinating about this collection was the diversity and range of the materials. Within the collection were tintypes in cases, handwritten notes, bound diaries, loose journal pages, scrapbooks, institutional reports from prisons and disciplinary facilities, and letters.

I feel that the Jean Scobie Davis papers is an outstanding collection for researchers studying women’s history and social issues. Davis’ diaries document the struggles of women as scholars, and in academia, as well as her own personal experiences and reflections as a woman. This collection also holds material rich in the history and development of prison reform in the United States. The Westfield State Farm material contains reports, minutes, and accounts of life for not only inmates, but employees and staff inside a mid-century prison.

Posted in All Posts, Bryn Mawr College, Collection Processors, Leslie O'Neill, Minimal Processing | 1 Response »

Olivia Stokes Hatch papers at Bryn Mawr College

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

This past week Forrest and I started and completed the Olivia Stokes Hatch papers in the Special Collections at Bryn Mawr College. Dating from 1859 to 1993, the collection measured approximately 12 linear feet and was in ideal condition for minimal processing: material was accurately foldered and arranged by series, and needed very little hands on processing. With the exception of the foldering of a few items, the collection was essentially ready to be entered into Archivists’ Toolkit. The bulk of our time was spent actually reading off and inputting 408 folder labels into AT. The collection is comprised almost entirely of correspondence and had it not been well processed before we arrived, it would not have been a good candidate for minimal processing. However, letters had already been removed from envelopes, and then arranged by sender and date, which saved us valuable time.

We divided the collection into three series: Olivia Stokes Hatch; Anna V.S. Mitchell; and Collected Correspondence. The first series, Olivia Stokes Hatch, included biographical information, material she collected, correspondence, family material, and photographs.

Olivia Stokes Hatch was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1908, and attended Bryn Mawr College from 1925 to 1930. Prior to her marriage she was very active with the American Red Cross and American Conferences of Social Work. In 1939, Olivia Phelps Stokes married John Davis Hatch, Jr. an art collector, consultant, and museum director. They had four children: John Davis Hatch III, Daniel Lindley Hatch, James Stokes Hatch, and Sarah Stokes Hatch. Much of the correspondence in the collection is between Olivia, her husband, her mother Caroline Mitchell Phelps Stokes and her father Anson Phelps Stokes.

The second series, Anna V.S. Mitchell, is comprised also largely of correspondence, as well as diaries, and essay. Much of the correspondence is regarding her work during World War I and domestic fundraising efforts on behalf of Russian refugees in Constantinople. Her diaries date from 1896 to 1925, and provide an intimate and firsthand account of her work and experiences in World War I.

The final series, Collected Correspondence, is more correspondence! This correspondence is mostly between friends and relatives of the Mitchell and Stokes families.

This collection is an excellent resource for those researching family dynamics and relationships in the early to mid 20th century. The collection also provides an intimate look into the relief work of women during World War I through correspondence and diaries created by those involved directly. The work of women in the American Red Cross is also well documented through correspondence within the collection.

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Posted in All Posts, Bryn Mawr College, Collection Processors, Leslie O'Neill, Minimal Processing | No Responses »

End of Year Report: 2009

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections” Project
July to December 2009
Well, the first six months of the “Hidden Collections” Project have come and gone and it has been a whirlwind! The entire project team was assembled, manuals and standards were created, student processors were trained, 18 collections were processed at the rate of 2.84 hours per linear foot, and we learned that minimal processing works for almost all collections, not just late 20th century institutional records!

The project team consists of Project Archivist, Courtney Smerz; Student Processors Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig and Forrest Wright; and me, the Project Manager. We worked with a wide variety of collections which span the 18th to 20th centuries and cover, at the broadest level, the topics of Quakerism, colleges and universities, and medicine. These collections include institutional, family, and personal papers.

As proposed in More Product, Less Process by Greene and Meissner, institutional records do work best. On average, these collections, largely at Drexel University, were processed at an average of 2.18 hours per linear foot. Personal papers, at Drexel University College of Medicine and Haverford College, were the next easiest, and these were processed at an average of 2.25 hours per linear foot. Family papers are, by far, the hardest, taking significantly more time per collection. Our average for processing family records is 4 hours per linear foot (which is still in the minimal processing range, as suggested by MPLP). The issues that make family papers difficult, to name just a few, are the number of family members contributing to the collection, the time span of the collection which often crosses several generations, and the fact that a good deal of the correspondence is not actually addressed or signed with a person’s name. Quite frequently, letters are sent to “Dear son,” or signed “Your loving mother.” When working with one person’s records, this is not quite as daunting as when you have 4 or 5 potentials for the “mother” and an endless number of possible “sons.” The 19th and 20th century Quakers, the main source of our family collections in this first semester, have a few truly delightful quirks which made processing their collections just a tiny bit trickier. For example, they consistently name their children after relatives … so it is entirely possible to have several Jane Rhoads in one collection. Moreover, in these collections, once they married, in-laws became “mother,” “father,” “sister,” and “brother,” making even the most general identification of senders and recipients virtually impossible in the minimal processing world.

We also discovered that there are some downsides to minimal processing, particularly in the description of collections. Moving through a collection at the rate this project demands means that absorbing content is really difficult. For the first semester, I created processing plans (Courtney is taking over for the rest of the project) for the collections on our list and wrote biographical/historical notes. I think minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot without the processing plans and rough notes would be absolutely impossible–sometimes the physical processing cannot be done in that time frame.

At this point in the project, I am not sure that I would recommend minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot–it is just too fast. 4 hours per linear foot, I think, would be a completely different story. Minimal processing, of which I am a fan, really does work and more importantly, it makes the collection available to the researchers long before it could be if we demanded full processing. Although I have not had the luxury of trying minimal processing at 4 hours per linear foot, I am convinced those additional two hours would result in more content and more thorough and accurate biography/history notes and scope and contents notes. My biggest fear with our notes is that we don’t know enough to let the researchers know that the collection contains the material they are seeking. Time will tell once researcher discover these previously hidden, and now “unhidden” collections!

Following, a list of collections processed, the project timeline from June to December, and looking forward:

Collections Processed
18 Collections
255.5 linear feet at an average of 2.84 hours per linear foot

Drexel University

College of Engineering Records

Evening College Records

Library Records

Drexel University College of Medicine

American Women’s Hospital Service Records

Anny Elston Papers

Bertha Van Hoosen Papers

Bradford Collection

Knerr/Hering Collection

Haverford College

Bowles Family Correspondence

Douglas and Dorothy Steere Papers

Harold Chance Papers

Hilles Family Papers

James Wood Family Papers

John Davison Papers

Nicholson and Taylor Family Papers

Reinhardt, Hawley and Hewes Family Papers

Sarah Wistar Rhoads Family Papers

Vaux Family Papers

Project Time line: July to December 2009

July 8, 2009: Holly Mengel starts work as Project Manager

September 28, 2009: Courtney Smerz starts work as Project Archivist

October 2, 2009: Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig and Forrest Wright are hired as Student Processors

October 13-15, 2009: Processing Boot Camp

October 19, 2009: Laurie Rizzo and Eric Rosenzweig start processing collections at Drexel University and Drexel University College of Medicine

October 20, 2009: Leslie O’Neill and Forrest Wright start processing collections at Haverford College

November 10, 2009: Refresher training

December 11, 2009: Finish processing at Drexel University and Drexel University College of Medicine

December 15, 2009: Laurie Rizzo and Eric Rosenzweig start processing at the Wagner Free Institute of Science

December 23, 2009: Finish processing at Haverford College

Looking forward:

Currently processing at the Wagner Free Institute of Science (due for completion on January 19).

Begin processing at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (tentative start date: January 20).

Currently processing at Bryn Mawr College (due for completion on February 18).

Posted in All Posts, Drexel University, Drexel University College of Medicine, Haverford College, Minimal Processing, Project Manager, Training | No Responses »

The family paper saga continues: Reinhardt, Hawley and Hewes at Haverford

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Family papers, as you may know from previous (and I am sure, coming) posts, are tricky to minimally process in the project’s 2 hours per linear foot goal. I will say that, as far as family papers go, the Reinhardt, Hawley and Hewes family papers are as good as it gets thanks to the donor, Ann P. McCormack, who, prior to donating to Haverford, used the collection to write a genealogical history of the her family. As a result, she identified almost every item in the collection and grouped all like materials together. This collection was actually processed in just over two hours per linear foot (2.4 hours per linear foot to be exact).

As stated before, if you will read other blog posts here, you will find that “quick” is not a term we have often used when describing the processing of family papers–and generally speaking, I don’t necessarily think that family papers are good candidates for minimal processing at this speed. Quite frequently, the physical arrangement of collection cannot even be completed in the two hours per linear foot. That said, processors not constrained to two hours per linear foot could probably use minimal processing on family papers and get really good results. In two hours, the collections look pretty good and are organized and usable. An archivist used to perfect processing might faint in horror at the letters still in envelopes, a lack of chronological order within folders, etc., but the bottom line is that the collection is available. As stated in a few earlier blog posts, what suffers in minimal processing, in my opinion, is the description of the collections: the bio/history notes and the scope and contents notes.

This processing of this collection produced yet another interesting insight into minimal processing. It seems that the better a collection is arranged prior to our processing, the less content we discover. I suppose that it makes sense–I did not have to read anything to discover where it should go in the intellectual or physical arrangement of the collection. That work was done by the donor and workers at Haverford who had already removed letters from envelopes. The saving grace for me in this instance, however, is that Ann P. McCormack’s book, The Reinhardts and Hawleys of Chester County, PA: Lives and Letters, Also Including Related Families of Meredith, Mendenhall, Pugh, etc. and the Hewes of Salem County, NJ, is available at the Haverford College Special Collections. Many of the documents in the collection are transcribed in the book, which made writing a bio note possible and will make any initial researching of the collection a lot easier.

Posted in All Posts, Haverford College, Minimal Processing, Project Manager | No Responses »

James Wood papers… perfect fit for “MPLP 2 hours”

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

The James Wood papers at Haverford College is a collection that is a perfect study for minimal processing. While at first glance, it may have looked a bit messy; it had already received the attention needed to accomplish processing in a very short amount of time. The collection was originally housed in about 5 cartons, and documents were foldered and accurately labeled. Identifying each series was not hard, we chose to divide the collection up into twelve subseries, and the processing could not have gone better.

James Wood was born in 1839 on a farm just north of Mt. Kisco, New York. He attended Haverford College, graduating in 1858, and later, received an honorary master’s degree, also from Haverford. Wood was involved in quite a range of activities, and had many interests. According to the American Bible Society’s biography of Wood, he was “interested in education, philanthropy, in the various branches of agriculture, in archaeology, history, Indian lore, anthropology, science, in prison reform and above all, in the Bible and religion.” This quote was represented almost exactly in the materials we found in the collection.

My favorite part of this collection was the “Agriculture” series. Wood kept meticulous records of his livestock and within this series were photographs, awards, and pamphlets, as well as Wood’s own writings on agriculture. Also of note, is his correspondence regarding “bulk sheep.”

New York State Agricultural Society Award

Included in the collection is work by Hugh Barbour, a biographer of Wood. Hugh Barbour wrote on Wood’s life in Mount Kisco, as well as his involvement in the Quaker movement at Braewold. Barbour presented these writings at the Earlham School of Religion (1994) and at the Quaker Historian and Archivists Meeting (1996). Barbour’s work is represented by letters and papers, and provides an excellent insight into the life this extraordinary man.

Posted in All Posts, Collection Processors, Haverford College, Leslie O'Neill, Minimal Processing | No Responses »

Douglas and Dorothy Steere … concluding thoughts

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Our very first collection at Haverford College was the Douglas and Dorothy Steere papers. Douglas and Dorothy Steere served the Society of Friends for a large part of their adult lives and their influence remains strong to today, as illustrated in the size and depth of their collection. Based on the initial PACSCL survey, we thought this would be ideal for minimal processing, and although it was large in physical size, much of the collection was thought to be already processed, and virtually ready for access. After further review, we discovered that while material was foldered and labeled, it was not always correct. Documents were often incorrectly marked or had been given inaccurate subject headings. The Steere collection also contained an immense amount of correspondence, some of which was already arranged by sender or date. However, we found that a large portion of the correspondence was in no order, and much time was spent sorting letters. Once organized, our correspondence for both Dorothy and Douglas accounted for close to 100 boxes!

Once processed, the collection is divided into two series: Douglas V. Steere and Dorothy M. Steere. The Douglas Steere series has been arranged into 12 subseries. We decided to arrange based on research value, as Douglas Steere is best known for his writings regarding the Quaker movement. Douglas was a prolific writer and we spent hours organizing and arranging his writings. He was also heavily involved and influenced by contemporary Quaker scholars, as reflected in his writings.

When we began the collection, we knew very little about Dorothy Steere. But upon completion, we had gotten to know her very well, and found that she and her work was very well represented in the now processed collection. Dorothy was an integral part of Douglas’s life and work, and that is reflected in both of them. I was especially struck by her involvement and work in the Civil Rights Movement, from the early 1950’s through 1970’s. Found in the collection is her correspondence with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from 1956-1958, and programs, pamphlets, and other illustrated depictions related to the movement.

This collection is beautifully represented through many different types of materials, such as letters, books, newspaper clippings, audio cassettes, albums, photographs, typed and handwritten notes, and journals. When we arrived at Haverford, the collection was virtually unusable, there was even a lovely box labeled “The Box of Despair,” (filled with utterly random and initially unidentifiable documents) and as we processed, we found several other boxes that were also rather, well, despairing. Our end result was a collection measuring 60 linear feet, comprised of 256 boxes, an extremely comprehensive finding aid down to the folder level, and a collection that is now completely accessible. This collection did require more time than our expected 2 hours per linear foot. However, I do not think it would have been possible to spend less time than we did.

See previous post on Douglas and Dorothy Steere!

Posted in All Posts, Collection Processors, Haverford College, Leslie O'Neill, Minimal Processing | No Responses »

Anny Elston–the Test Collection

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

I wrote manuals, I am writing manuals, I will be writing manuals! Last week, it suddenly became obvious to me that I needed to try out the manuals before continuing with my work. The Drexel University College of Medicine folk kindly offered the Anny Elston papers, a collection created by Anny Elston, a New York City doctor during the mid 20th century.

Not only was I excited to try out the manuals and discover their workability, I was also excited to get my hands on some papers. I strongly believe that archivists go into withdrawal if they do not get to breathe in a little dust and carefully maneuver through a folder of often brittle papers–at least I do!

So, I got busy–the collection is two linear feet and it appeared that someone had worked on it at some point. I began the actual processing, with a timer in hand, and applied all the minimal processing strategies laid out in the project’s manual which was largely guided by the work of Matthew Lyons and Cary Majewicz of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. And … minimal processing worked! The collection was physically processed and the container list was entered into the Archivists’ Toolkit in three hours and fifteen minutes. “Excellent,” I thought, “now I have forty-five minutes to write the bio and scope and content notes … plenty of time!” Okay, maybe not. Despite the fact that the collection contained a fair amount of biographical information (some of which was in German), it took me closer to two and a half hours to create these two notes.

While this was disappointing, I learned a lot–physically processing a collection in 2 hours per linear foot MAY be possible, and probably, quite frequently, IS possible. What does not seem possible is physically processing AND writing thorough descriptive notes in that time frame. With the number of linear feet to be processed (approximately 4600 linear feet) and the number of student processor hours allotted in the grant (8865 hours), it is going to be virtually impossible to do the project, even without adding a couple of extra hours per collections for description.

Thus, I decided that the project archivist and I would have to create really helpful processing plans and write up a rough bio. Then the students could quickly gain an idea of who or what the collection was about and what was in the collection. The students could begin physically processing the collection fairly quickly and therefore, take full advantage of the two hours per linear foot allotted to each collection. Their experience with the collection, combined with the supplied bio note and processing plan, could then be applied to enhancing the bio note and writing the scope and contents note–hopefully requiring significantly less time than it took me to write from scratch.

A quick note on Dr. Anny Elston, whose collection provided me all the above information and allowed me to get my papery fix: Dr. Anny Elston (1895-1975) was a German born and trained pediatrician who immigrated to the United States in 1941 due to the “Racial Laws” in Nazi Germany. Despite being a member of the Lutheran Church and considering herself a “racial Jew,” Elston was prohibited from practicing medicine in Germany. Upon her arrival in the United States, with her husband and later her children, she obtained her New York State Medical License in 1942 and practiced medicine in New York City until retiring in 1972. The Anny Elston papers include information regarding Dr. Elston’s medical credentials and continuing education, her medical practice in New York City, and patient records. The collection is quite amazing–it is not just the records of a New York City doctor, but also a story of adapting to a new country and contributing to the American medical community.