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Re: College Archives Collection Policy



You may want to consider what is most important right now -- getting the
college archives started off (I presume this is a new or relatively new
activity for your college) on solid footing.  The support of the people who
have appointed you will be essential if progress is to be made.  And given
the small amount of space available, your archives wouldn't be able to
accommodate a large volume of materials at present, or probably anytime
soon, so it makes sense to concentrate on the most essential documents of
your institution, i.e., the "records pertaining to the founding and
administration of the college (ie. policy manuals, board of trustee minutes,
committee meetings, etc.)" that you mentioned.

As far as writing policy and procedures, I would suggest you keep them neat
and clean; stick to the basics, and don't get too specific.  Try to get the
people who will approve them to agree to review them in a year or two and
consider revisions then.  That would be the time to discuss whether it would
be appropriate to broaden and deepen your collecting scope.  And that
discussion will be strengthened based upon the presumption that you will be
able to demonstrate a record of  "good stewardship" during the next 12 to 24
months.

Good luck.

Catherine Bruck
University Archivist
Illinois Institute of Technology
Paul V. Galvin Library
35 W. 33rd St.
Chicago, IL  60616
312/567-6840
312/567-5318 (FAX)
bruck@iit.edu
http://archives.iit.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: Archives & Archivists [mailto:ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU]On
Behalf Of Martin Firestein
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 9:33 AM
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Subject: College Archives Collection Policy


Hello to everyone on the list:

I recently began formulating a policy and procedural manual for the college
archives that I work at.  (I'm the only archivist there, by the way)  My
employers have previously told me several times that they do NOT want the
archives collecting any of the following materials:

student papers (student writings [ie yearbooks, newspapers, etc] are ok)

faculty manuscripts, lecture notes, etc.

Likewise, my employers have repeatedly emphasized that they are not
interested in having a records management program because they feel that it
would make them responsible for all the records in the college, and they
don't want any part of that.

I recently got a hold of a copy of Bill Maher's "Management of College and
University Archives", and the text emphasized the importance of student and
faculty papers, as well as a records management program, to any and all
college or university archives.

My questions to the members of the list are thus:

1. Is it vital for all college and university archives to collect the above
mentioned papers and to have a recors management program?

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, how do I convince my employers of
the importance of collecting such records?  Right now, all they want me to
collect are records pertaining to the founding and administration of the
college (ie. policy manuals, board of trustee minutes, committee meetings,
etc.).

3. Considering the actual archives itself is rather small (think of an
oversized closet), is it perhaps reasonable for them to only want to
collect documents pertaining to the founding and administration of the
college at this point?

Any help will be appreciated.  I think it would be great for any responses
to my inquiry to be posted here on the list so everyone could learn from
them.

Thanks a lot.

-Martin Firestein

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