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Re: HELP! Adventures in Starting a New Archive!



Wow oh wow!  I got stressed out just reading this.  It CAN be done, I know it.  Having the Archives officially approved as a dept./program is an absolute must in the community college environment.  From there you need a mission statement, then it's on to creating policies and creating some sort of "accession" or "transfer of records" form to keep a handle on who you are receiving stuff from, when you received it, etc., etc.  More later, when we meet!  Take heart!
>>> Matt Rauscher <mjrausc@ILSTU.EDU> 01/20/00 02:41PM >>>
Hello all!

I am in desperate need of help.  I am a grad student who has been hired by a
community college to setup their archive.  I have some experience working in
the field (IRAD Intern and work with another small archive) but feel a bit
overwhelmed by the expectations of the college.  Here are some of my
concerns:

1) They want a budget for the archive by early February (I have no idea on
this one.  Only three people have submitted their inactive materials so
far. Thus, i have no real grasp of how large of a project i am looking at
yet.)

2) The college is getting a new campus sometime at the end of this year and
by that time they would like the entire archive assembled (not necessarily
processed).  The problem is that they only have enough money to pay me for
10 hours a week and i will have no work area until the new campus opens (at
the moment i am sharing a desk with 4 other people).  Any time saving tips?

3) So far i have received a wide varietyu of materials ranging from cd's
and discs to christmas orniments with the colleges logo on them.  The school
had visions of this being a paperless archive (put all documents on cdrom)
but after discussing how much it would cost to update software every 5-8
years they backed down on this one.  Any suggestion on what to do with the
elecronic media i have already been given?

4) I talk to my supervisor on a daily basis about getting the Board to sign
off on the legitimacy of the archive but so far have not gotten a good
response to that.  They agreed to look into it but how can i convince them
that making the archive the an official body of the college is very
important to gaining cooperation from the departments?

Well i think thats about it for now...Help me if you can!

Thanks

Matt Rauscher
newbie archivist

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To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>