Anatomy of a Towson University Collection

Guide

Towson University, Special Collections and

Archives

Collection Guides include a lot of information.

Click through this presentation to understand what information is included in a collection guide,

and why it is important.

The Collection Number is a numeric code for the record group of a collection.

Record groups define the creators of the records and are aligned to University administrative hierarchies.

This section will tell you if a record group replaces multiple acquisitions. This record group consists of three sets of records donated from the same creator, with the same overall organization of information.

This tells you what date the collection guide was completed.

It’s super important to have the repository name, university, and contact information on a collection guide. Make it easy for online users to find the physical collection.

A collection title will include the provenance of a record group (where the records come from).

These dates explain the coverage of the records: the earliest date and the latest date.

The creator of the records must be included in a collection guide. Knowledge of the creator will provide context for the information in the records and the organization of the documents.

Provide a size or extent of the collection so a researcher knows how much material they may have to go through, and an administrator knows how much storage is needed. A linear foot is about 12 inches.

The abstract allows researchers to quickly determine whether a collection is relevant to their research.

If a researcher finds a collection relevant, they may be interested in similar collections. That’s why related material is included.

Conditions on access and use elaborate on reasons the collection may or may not be available to researchers.

Sometimes documents are restricted to protect security or identity, copyright, or the physical document, which might be too fragile to handle.

Historical sketches and biographies provide important context to researchers studying the documents.

Scope and contents notes allow the researcher to find out what materials are in the collection and what subjects or topics can be found.

Series descriptions allow researchers to narrow their search. If they are only interested in annual reports, they may not want series that only have minutes and agendas. This reduces the number of irrelevant papers researchers have to sift through.

The box and folder list allows researchers to narrow their search even more. If they are only interested in the Annual Report of 1973-1974, in this example, they only need to search one folder in Box 1, Folder 1. That cuts out a lot of irrelevant searching!

Notes allow you to credit the person who worked on processing the collection.

Notes allow a processor to explain why they discarded records.

Notes explain any treatments the documents received to preserve them for future use.

A citation note is always handy to help out researchers writing papers, who need to credit their primary sources.

That’s about it!

You’ll find lots of information, but all of it is important for archives staff, and especially for the researcher.

Ready to create your own collection guide?