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Re: pamphlets, ephemera, etc.



Donna,

Here are some thoughts about our system. Hopefully you will find something useful here.

Background:
A major portion of our holdings consist of  artificial collections of brochures, manuals, posters and the like. These collections range from individual records to several lineal feet in volume. At this time, we have approximately 175 lineal feet of sales literature (catalogs, brochures, specification sheets and the like) and 475 lineal feet of manuals. All of this, plus tens of thousands of photographs, slides and negatives, 1,600 videos, 500 moves and numerous other records, are packed into a facility with critical space shortages and a staff of one.

Arrangement:
The filing system was designed by our managing director, who had no background at all in archives administration; instead, he simply copied the system that he and other collectors of such records use for their personal collections. His goal was to make it as efficient as possible, according to what he considered to be efficient, as he and others were administering the collections solely as volunteers on odd evenings and weekends and they needed to be able file and locate records as easily as possible. Original order was largely discarded, and collections that should have been kept together were usually broken up and scattered through the files. Unfortunately, as the collections have experienced substantial growth over the last three years, both the flaws of this system and the logic of conventional archives arrangement have become more obvious. It does work to an extent, but it so well entrenched that I have been unable to make anything other than minor corrections to it due to lack of time to do so and the managing director?s unyielding resistance to substantial alterations to something he takes pride in because of his considerable efforts in developing it.

The system that was implemented here is based on record type and subject. This scheme was followed exclusive of almost all other considerations. Records were grouped by type (equipment catalogs, brochures, specification sheets and the like in one group; operation, repair and parts manuals in another, annual reports and related records in a third, etc.) and then sorted by the name of the equipment manufacturer, type of equipment described and model of machine described.  Most records are filed by this arrangement in file cabinets and standard, off-the-shelf records boxes. Poster, wall calendars and the like are filed in flat file drawers. Annual reports and related business records were filed by company name and subject.

Since I started here, I?ve been trying with mixed results to reconstruct the major collections, at least on paper. The system as designed did not make allowances for the numerous records that do not fit it, such as records discussing multiple product lines or lines from multiple manufacturers. It was also subject to considerable variation, as it was originally administered solely by untrained volunteers who were often left to their own devices in applying it. I?ve refined the filing system to more accurately follow the intent of its designers by correcting these problems such as I can while working in at least some semblance to conventional practice. I?ve developed a sort of Dewey Decimal system for classifying equipment and rearranged nearly all the artificial collections to follow it. Two collections defy such classification, and special guidelines were drawn up for them.

A sizeable amount of these records are stored in records boxes. The original idea was to number all boxes sequentially, regardless of contents, in keeping with the Managing Director?s system of breaking up collections and original order. A given box could contain records from one collection or numerous small collections, and the box next to it could arbitrarily contain records related to them or something entirely different. The primary concern  was to fill each box to capacity in order to save space. That scheme quickly led to considerable confusion, as it made quick location of records from an individual collection or related records from a large collection far more difficult that need be. Even the completion of a box-level inventory of the collections last fall failed to resolve many of the access issues in these boxes.

A more conventional system of boxes numbered by collection number will be implemented as soon as time allows. Common numbering for boxes containing multiple artificial collections will be retained in restricted circumstances.

Describing and cataloging:
After trying without any appreciable results to develop an Access database on my own for cataloging the collections, I began describing them in Microsoft Word, using one document per artificial collection and following a set format for all such documents. I was initially instructed by the Managing Director to catalog the collections at the item level, but that was abandoned when he became alarmed at the huge amounts of time and work needed to produce minimal results. I changed to folder-level describing, which did bear some good fruit but became unworkable in some of our more  complex collections.

Last December, Bonnie Barber of Campus Crusade for Christ made her Access database available over the Access list to anyone who wanted to study and use it, and I spent the next four weeks building a working database for our collections, using hers as a model. It describes records at the folder level, provides comprehensive cross-referencing, and searches by up to four key words plus an optional year search at both the series and folder level. The search functions include pull-down lists for the most common search criteria (manufacturer and owner names, machine types and machine models). Work is proceeding on cataloging at the series level, and folder-level cataloging will be undertaken at a later date.

Best wishes,

Thomas Berry, Archivist
Historical Construction Equipment Association
16623 Liberty Hi Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Phone 419-352-5616
Fax 419-352-6086
tberry@wcnet.org
http://www.hcea.net
 
 
 

McCrea, Donna wrote:

Listmembers:

I'm interested in how other organizations arrange, describe, catalog and
otherwise provide access to pamphlets, brochures, posters, memorabilia and
ephemera.  Does anyone have a system they think works well?  Can anyone
recommend a source for good definitions of these types of material?  Does
anyone have all or part of this system available online?  (These are part of
an artificial "community" collection, not unified business or personal
records.)

I work for a public library and we collect information from organizations,
institutions and events throughout the community.  Many of our pamphlets
will be cataloged using MARC and placed on public (non-circulating) shelves.
We currently catalog some annual reports and newsletters and place them on
the public shelves while others go to this community collection.  We have
used vertical files in the past that have been freely available for public
browsing but some of the materials within them were rare or unique, so we
are trying to find a way to provide both access and security (aren't we
all).

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions and assistance.

Donna E. McCrea
Special Collections Librarian & Archivist
Pikes Peak Library District
Colorado Springs, Colorado
(719) 531-6333 x1217
dmccrea@mail.ppld.org

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