PROCESSING SPECIAL COLLECTIONSBlurring Boundaries, Backlogs and Intra-Institutional Cooperation,

or

What Do We Do with All This Stuff?

BREAKING THE SILENCE OF THE LAMS

LAMs = Libraries, Archives & Museums 2000s was the decade of calling for

CONVERGENCE

We are all cultural heritage organizations Users make no distinction / don’t understand

differences between us Whole conferences devoted to this!

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS =

HIDDEN COLLECTIONS

WHAT LIBRARIES & ARCHIVES SHARE

Backlogs! ARL Special Collections Task Force (2001-

2006) charged with enhancing access to and “surfacing hidden collections”

2005: Greene & Meissner, “More Product, Less Process” is published in American Archivist

Collection-level cataloging & minimal processing seen as the solution

DOES MINIMAL PROCESSING WORK?

2010 OCLC Research Report:

Taking Our Pulse: The OCLC Research Survey of Special Collections and Archives

says…

“While many backlogs have decreased, almost as many continue to grow”

“Use of all types of material has increased across the board”

“75% of general library budgets have been reduced”

ONE INSTITUTION’S STORY

Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at NYU

6 full-time staff: 1 head1 librarian1 collections associate2 archivists1 curator (archivist)

many project archivists & students

THE COLLECTION

Documents the history of radical politics:Socialism

CommunismAnarchism

Utopian experimentsThe cultural left

The New leftThe struggle for civil rights & civil liberties

o Official repository for the NYC Central Labor Council’s member unions

MY TASKS

Tamiment Newspaper Collection

1,500 newspapers15% cataloged

UNTIL THEY’RE CATALOGED…

We have this:

MY TASKS

Tamiment Library Pamphlet Collection

CATALOGING OR ARCHIVAL ARRANGEMENT?

Library catalog aims to be a reference source in itself

Finding aids establish context, leave the “Aha!” moment to researchers

What to choose for materials with blurred boundaries?

PRINTED EPHEMERA

o Definitions murky; can include pamphlets and underground newspapers

o Problems of cataloging

o Tamiment is creating artificial collections of “Printed Ephemera” for organizations, individuals, topics

WHY BOTHER CATALOGING UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPERS?

Problem of archival arrangement

Serials cataloging establishes relationships between serials using MARC linking fields (76x-78x), “absorbed by,” “continues,” etc.

Finding aids only establish context

No subject access

WHY BOTHER CATALOGING UNDERGROUND NEWSPAPERS?

Item-level cataloging as

LITERARY LEGITIMATION

o Compare to zines today

DOES SOME ACCESS ALWAYS TRUMP NO ACCESS?

Are there other concerns?

What are we leaving for the future?

Does convergence between libraries and archives mean we blend our philosophies of access?