How to Proceed: Arranging
|2. Preparing to Process|
|5. Housing and Preserving|
|6. Finishing the Job|
After survey, analysis, and background research, it is time to consider the collection’s arrangement: is there a discernible order? is the order meaningful? does it facilitate or inhibit access? A good arrangement groups together like materials so researchers do not have to look in several places for closely related things. The arrangement can also reflect the way in which the materials were used by the creator, thus making the original order important to preserve. Making decisions about arrangement is the crucial first step in structuring a collection and creating access to it.
In this manual, we have separated the topics arrangement and description, but you will find as you process that the two functions are very much intertwined. To begin organizing a collection, try to picture the finding aid that you plan to write. Doing this forces you to make some tentative decisions about grouping the papers into series and helps impose some initial order on the collection. Think also about the materials themselves and about future users.
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
When you surveyed your collection, you paid special attention to the order of the materials. A basic archival principle is "respect pour l'ordre primitif," which is French for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Maintaining the original order established by the creator of a collection preserves contextual information that may be important to researchers. The original order itself may also make an important statement about its creator. Using the original arrangement scheme, moreover, may save the processing staff valuable time and energy. Retaining the basic arrangement as received, when possible, is part of the archivist's responsibility to preserve historical documents in as close to original form as possible. Keep in mind that respect pour l'ordre primitif does not preclude tidying up the materials or adding a supporting superstructure to aid in description and cataloging.
If no discernible order exists, or if it is apparent that hands other than the creator's have forged an order that is counterproductive to using and understanding the collection, or if the original order makes the collection difficult to use, then you must impose a workable arrangement on the collection.
The Break Down
Archival papers and records are usually accessioned in groups called collections. Collections usually divide into logical units of some sort. When arranging a collection, we want to establish a framework that will enable the researcher to see the various parts of a collection without losing sight of the whole. The parts are usually established as series, which may be further divided into subseries. Keep in mind, there is no rule that says you must have series. There are times, particularly with small collections consisting chiefly (but not necessarily exclusively) of materials of one type or format, you can simply list the files.
As you investigate the contents of your collection, think ahead to the finding aid you will write. The chief reason for doing this is that each series and subseries offers you an opportunity to describe. Good description leads to good cataloging. The combination of good description and good cataloging are the means through which researchers find the materials pertinent to their research. Careful consideration of what blocks of materials lend themselves to clear description can be of great assistance in determining how to divide the collection.
A brief discussion of several general arrangement possibilities follows. Remember that while many collections will fit into a "standard" arrangement, there will always be exceptions and that even the tamest collection generally contains some materials that just will not fit neatly into your scheme. There is no one best arrangement scheme--every collection is different in its own way--but generally speaking, intellectual arrangements trump format arrangements because the former conveys more information about what is going on in the collection. Oftentimes you will find that your collection requires a hybrid arrangement that groups material by type, format, activity, and function. Do not try to fight the flow of the materials. Challenges like these just come with the territory. And remember, you can always resolve complex and/or unusual arrangements in description.
Series and Subseries
Most collections of papers or record groups can be adequately handled by series, with or without subseries. A series is a body of files or documents kept together because of some connection arising out of their creation or use. A series might be a body of records arranged under a single filing system, or kept together as a unit because it relates to a particular function or has a particular physical form. Identifying the series will be straightforward in a well-kept collection, where files arranged as a single unit constitute a series. In other cases, series must be constructed on the basis of other unifying characteristics--their genre or form or their relationship to some subject or activity. Thus, series and subseries may be type or format-based or they may be based on the separate activities or functions of the creator of the papers, or they may be a hybrid of all of these. Remember that complex arrangements can always be explained in the description.
Although series can be many and varied, a certain amount of restraint, largely guided by common sense, should be applied. Each different format of material does not necessarily need its own series. If you have audiotapes, for example, they might form their own series or become part of a series when they fit intellectually with other materials or they might wind up in an “other materials” series with other materials that don't relate to anything else.
The following list shows some standard type/format-based series (along with a few of the many types of items that may be appropriately placed in these series):
- correspondence (letters; telegrams; valentines, greeting cards, postcards with substantial messages);
- writings (by the creator of the papers);
- writings by others;
- organizational records (minutes, proceedings, bylaws);
- financial material (bills and receipts, bank statements, account books);
- legal material (indentures, contracts, deeds, wills, case files);
- subject files (materials grouped around distinct areas of interest to the creator);
- research notes;
- clippings (directly relating to the creator or vital to the creator's interests);
- printed material (pamphlets, circulars, broadsides);
- other materials (certificates, awards, items from other standard series when there are only a few items of a given type);
- pictures (photographic prints, negatives, drawings, paintings);
- audiodiscs and tapes;
- electronic media;
- museum items.
This list does not exhaust the possibilities by any means. A series called “Correspondence and Related Materials” is often the best solution for materials of many types that are best kept in a chronological run. You may have a series of general correspondence and several series of correspondence relating to specific topics. A collection that chiefly contains drawings would call for a drawings series; a collection with a great number of maps would require a maps series.
A couple of actual examples will illustrate how it is done. In the first, the series are mostly format-based:
Edwin Yoder Papers (#4963) 1. Correspondence 1.1. Early Years, 1946-1958 1.2. Charlotte News, 1958-1960 1.3. Greensboro Daily News, 1961-1975 1.4. Washington Star, 1975-1981 1.5. Washington Post Writers Group, 1981-1996 1.6. 1997-1998 1.7. Undated 2. Writings and Related Materials 2.1. Articles and Essays 2.2. Books and Related Materials 2.3. Book Reviews 2.4. Columns and Editorials 2.5. Diaries and Journals 2.6. Speeches 3. Writings by Others 4. Professional Papers 4.1. Subject Files 4.2. Conferences and Professional Associations 4.3. Teaching 5. Other Materials 5.1. School Materials 5.2. Biographical and Genealogical Information 5.3. Financial Records 5.4. Miscellaneous
In the second, different formats are collected under the cities where the collection creator lived, worked, and participated in civic life:
Don Shoemaker Papers (#4968) 1. Asheville, N.C. 1.1. Correspondence 1.2. Writings 1.3. Clippings and Other Printed Material 2. Nashville, Tenn. 2.1. Correspondence 2.2. Writings 2.3. Clippings and Other Printed Material 3. Miami, Fla. 3.1. Correspondence 3.2. Writings 3.3. Clippings and Other Printed Material
In the example below from University Archives, the series are based on the functions or activities of the department that created the records. Although university records come to us in a variety of formats, we generally do not use strict type/format arrangements for them. We do sometimes segregate formats such as audiotapes or videotapes if the records contain a large number of them. Other files are usually arranged in series that are based on the functions (or areas of responsibility) of the office or department that created them. A group of records might be arranged in a single series or in multiple series depending on their volume and on the number and complexity of the functions to which they relate.
Ackland Art Museum Records (#40064). 1.Administrative Files 2.Collections 3.Programs and Services
Another University Archives example shows a hybrid arrangement, with some series and subseries based on function and some on format.
WUNC Records (#40278) 1. Administrative Files 1.1 Development and Publicity 1.2 Licensing 1.3 Facilities 1.4 Financial 2. Programming 2.1 Human Affairs 2.2 Listener Mail 2.3 Special Events 2.4 Station Logs 2.5 Audio Recordings
Again, at each level you have an opportunity to describe. Write a description of each series and each subseries, if needed. You will not necessarily, however, write a description for every level. If a series-level description would add nothing to the subseries descriptions, then leave it out. In the finding aid for the Edwin Yoder Papers, for example, a series description for Series 1, Correspondence, explains how the series is organized. No such explanation is needed for Series 2, Writings, and there is no overall series description for it. In other collections, you might establish a series and subseries for which it is more appropriate to provide an overall description of the series and list the contents of the subseries without additional description.
Sequence of Series
It would be grand to have hard and fast rules governing the sequence in which series and subseries appear. Because collections contain such a wide variety of materials and because types of materials are of varying degrees of significance within collections, no predetermined order will be satisfactory in all cases.
Some guidelines can be established, however. Chief among these is to sequence series in order of research value. Displaying a collection's strengths assists researchers in determining a collection's potential value to their work. You will find that in a great number of collections the correspondence series contains the most valuable research materials. In these cases, the correspondence series comes first, followed by other series in descending order of importance. Sometimes, however, another series will take precedence over correspondence. In the Walker Percy Papers (#4294), Series 1. Novels and Series 2. Other Works come before correspondence.
In many University Archives record groups, the first series is called Administrative Files or General Files. These files pertain to the overall administration or operation of the department that created the records; they include administrative correspondence, annual reports, budget documents, and self-studies, among other materials. The other series are based on specific function or activities of the department, such as Collections or Programs.
For series and subseries not determined by type of material or format, choose an order that clearly displays the collection's contents. If there is a series that is obviously more significant within the collection than others, place it up front. If no one series stands out, a quite satisfactory arrangement is to order the series alphabetically by series title. The sequence of series in a collection of organizational records usually follows that of the files as maintained by the organization. The sequence of organizational materials may also be related to the organization's structure. Alphabetical and/or chronological series ordering may come into play with organizational materials, depending on the actual materials present.
You can explain the overall arrangement scheme, including the sequencing of series, in the scope and content section of the finding aid. There are many reasons for maintaining (or even creating) somewhat odd arrangement schemes. If this happens in your collection, you owe researchers an explanation. However, remember that the more logical your series ordering, the easier your collection will be for you to describe and for researchers to use.
File is the next level of intellectual grouping beneath series or subseries. Files can also exist on their own, not nested beneath series or subseries. In the example below “Letters from Jackie Dean, 1996-2000” and “Letters from Nancy Kaiser, 1997-2001” are files in the Correspondence series.
Series 1. Correspondence Letters from Jackie Dean, 1996-2000 (Folders 1-2) Letters from Nancy Kaiser, 1997-2001 (Folders 3-5)
Once you have identified the intellectual order, you must decide how the files will be ordered within each series and how the items in each folder will be arranged (if they are to be arranged at all). The most important considerations in an arrangement scheme are the collection's original order and the ease of intellectual access to information in the collection. If the materials are in relatively good order when they come in, there may be no need for further arrangement below the series level. In some cases, however, the anticipated improvement in access justifies the cost in time taken to arrange within series.
In theory, arrangement methods can be applied at any level, though we rarely arrange at the item level. Combinations of arrangement schemes may also be used. For example, within the same collection, a series of subject files may be arranged alphabetically by topic while a series of correspondence may be arranged in chronological order. As always, the overriding principle is that the arrangement must logically fit the materials. Think about how the materials will be used and proceed from there.
Subject files are commonly arranged alphabetically by topic. A writings series may also be alphabetically arranged by title (or it might be arranged by type of writing, then alphabetically by title).
While most correspondence is filed chronologically, letters in a literary collection may be best arranged alphabetically by correspondent last name because literary research typically emphasizes who over when. Most literary researchers would prefer an alphabetical listing of correspondents that they can scan for names of interest to searching through chronological files to determine who wrote what to whom.
Correspondence, invoices, annual reports, reminiscences, and other types of material are often arranged by date. Because historians are often concerned with a process of events in the life or an individual or corporate body, most non-literary manuscript series are arranged in this way.
Files that arrive in reverse chronological order are normally left that way. When you are imposing chronological order, however, follow the more normal order from earliest to latest date. Undated items should follow all dated items. If an item can only be placed in a year, it should follow more completely dated items for that year. The same procedure should be used for months within years.
Items having multiple dates (usually financial or legal items) should be filed by the latest date.
Help with dating undated items sometimes comes from clues found on envelopes, on enclosures, or in the item's content (e.g., the mention of a datable historical event in a letter). Before pursuing any but the quickest dating investigations, however, you must consider your collection's research value and review discussions you may have had with your supervising archivist about the level of control to be attained. Protracted research may not be warranted.
When arranging incoming and outgoing letters that have the same date, place the incoming letters before the outgoing ones. If you have a large amount of correspondence with the same date and your collection is extremely valuable, consider arranging each day`s items alphabetically by correspondent. Enclosures should be retained with correspondence, even if the dates do not match. Watch out, however, for spurious enclosures (e.g., the document is dated 15 December 1946 and the "enclosure" is dated 6 August 1977).
A note on the filing of partially dated items: An item dated [187?] should be filed following other items dated 1870-1879, but before all items dated 1880. Similarly, an item dated [1871?] should be filed after all other items dated 1871, but before all items dated 1872.
On occasion you will find alternate forms of original items, such as transcripts or photocopies, in your collection. The date of the alternate form is the date the alternate form was created, not the date of the original item. You may file these alternate forms with the original, or where the original would be filed, but the date of the alternate form should never change the earliest date of the collection date span.
A geographical arrangement scheme may be useful for items such as travel files, data files, fund-raising material, and some subject files. For instance, a file might be arranged by state and further subdivided by county and city. If you have unidentified folders, make sure that the names you choose are appropriate to the period (e.g., a complete listing by state, territories, and possessions in the 1940s would list Hawaii as a territory).
Sometimes files or items arrive with a pre-existing numbering scheme. If this scheme is still viable, it should be maintained, but be sure to include an explanation of the creator-generated arrangement in the appropriate descriptive passage.
In the course of arranging the materials, you may find that there are some items that cannot be physically stored where they intellectually belong for preservation reasons. Size, format, and condition often call for separate storage. Materials that are not stored in the main run of collections are called items separated. Instructions for handling these materials can be found in Items Separated.
Another category of material which may need to be stored separately is restricted materials. When you prepared your processing plan, you should have consulted the accession record and the control file to determine whether any restrictions apply to all or part of your collection. We aim at promoting free and equal access to the collections we hold, but access by researchers to materials may be restricted for several reasons. We sometimes accept materials with strings attached. Donors may impose restrictions due to the personal nature of the papers they give or they may seek to limit use of materials, particularly writings, that they or others represented in their papers have produced. If only part of your collection is restricted, it will need to be stored in separate folders and/or boxes so that Research and Instructional Services staff can alert patrons to the limits of the restriction or withhold the materials altogether, depending on the nature of the restriction. Instructions for segregating and labeling restricted materials can be found throughout Items Separated.
Some arrangement concepts explored
You can judge whether or not an arrangement is satisfactory by thinking ahead to the finding aid you will write. Will arranging one way or another (or a mix of two or more different ways) allow you to describe the collection in a meaningful way or does it risk lumping together diverse elements that will be difficult to describe and catalog (and understand)? Remember that you are trying to accommodate the materials that make up the collection in an arrangement that clearly displays its components and also weaves those components together into a cohesive whole. Your arrangement also should promote ease of access and retrieval.
Identifying and/or constructing groupings by types or format
Type/format arrangements dictate that materials of the same type or in like formats be grouped together. Most often, these groups are established as series or subseries. The distinction between type and format can be blurry because both can include multiple formats. In a type arrangement, the content is likely to be more important than the format of the material. For example, in a correspondence series, the content is more important than whether the correspondence is loose papers or bound in a volume or on a floppy disc. In a format arrangement, the format is likely to be as important as the content of the material. For example, in a pictures series, the documentation of cotton picking in the 19th century in visual form may be as important as the information the picture conveys about cotton picking.
- Some examples of type arrangements are series of correspondence, writings, and financial materials. A variety of formats may be found within each of these types.
- Some examples of format arrangements are series of pictures, scrapbooks, and audiovisual materials. A variety of subformats also may be found within each of these formats.
Type/format arrangements are often used when a collection of personal papers arrives in no discernible order; in many cases, arranging according to type or format of material is perfectly adequate to meet a collection's needs. Format arrangements are also used to highlight a format, such as pictures or audiovisual materials, that researchers might be interested in regardless of the collection from which they come.
Identifying and/or constructing groupings by activity or function
If arrangement based on type of material and/or format was always satisfactory, arranging would be a pretty dry matter. The naturally messy world of manuscripts, however, abhors such easy answers. The need to consider other arrangement possibilities when planning a collection's order livens things up considerably.
Activity/function arrangement is no respecter of type of material or format. It prefers that central ideas rather than physical attributes provide the rallying points for grouping papers in a collection. Type/format arrangement wants all letters together in a correspondence series. Activity/function arrangement wants the personal correspondence of United States Representative Ike Andrews filed separately from the correspondence he generated in his official capacity. A researcher interested in Ike's political career may be interested in his private life, but would have an easier time using Ike's papers if public and private aspects of his life were clearly defined by the arrangement scheme. Likewise, researchers looking at Jackson Mathews's correspondence about St. John Perse would be unhappy slogging through mounds of Mathews's correspondence about Paul Valéry. Those interested in Archie Davis's notes on the Civil War will find them more useful if they are grouped with other Civil War materials than if they are lumped together in a notes series that may also include items relating to the Wachovia National Bank and the United States Chamber of Commerce.
As a wise ex-SHC processor once said, "The rhyme of the papers themselves and the reasons of those who come to use them are always the key considerations in arrangement."
Granularity is a key concept in arrangement. The chief activities in arranging are grouping collection materials into logical units and deciding how granular those units should be. For example, a unit consisting of correspondence could be further arranged employing varying degrees of granularity. You might arrange by era, by decade, or by year, or by individual dates. For collections with low anticipated use, we're more likely to arrange materials in larger chunks. However, we need to be thoughtful about how we construct our groupings because larger groupings can mean that access to the materials is more difficult, with researchers having to wade through boxes of materials to find what they want.
The idea of granularity relates directly to the concept of "control" in processing. The more granular our arrangements are the more control we have over the materials in the collection.
The basic levels of control are described below. Keep in mind that you can have several different levels of control in one collection.
It's important to understand that what we're talking about here is intellectual rather than physical arrangement. Whatever the level of control, we always list the physical containers (boxes, folders, etc.). See examples below.
This is the least granular level of control. The materials are not further intellectually arranged into series or files.
In the abbreviated finding aid example below you'll notice that the collection has no intellectual arrangement beyond the collection level. The folder listing is a physical representation of the contents; it does not indicate that there has been any more intellectual arrangement beyond the collection level.
Collection Number: 6000 Collection Title: Roslyn P. Holdzkom Papers Size: 5.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items) Abstract: Roslyn P. Holdzkom was acknowledged by Walker Percy as a "pretty good archivist." The collection contains papers of Roslyn P. Holdzkom including correspondence, diaries, and materials relating to her work on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Contents List Folders 1-12 Papers
Within a collection, we may control materials at the series level. These groupings may be determined, for example, by subject, date, creator, function, or even format. There must always be more than one series.
The abbreviated finding aid below is an example of controlling at the series level. As with collection-level control, the folder listing is a physical representation of the contents; it does not indicate that there has been any more intellectual arrangement beyond the series level.
Collection Number: 6000 Collection Title: Roslyn P. Holdzkom Papers Size: 5.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items) Abstract: Roslyn P. Holdzkom was acknowledged by Walker Percy as a "pretty good archivist." The collection contains papers of Roslyn P. Holdzkom including correspondence, diaries, and materials relating to her work on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Contents List Series 1. Correspondence Folder 1-5 Correspondence Series 2. Diaries Folder 6-10 Diaries Series 3. Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard Folder 11-12 Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard
With either collections or series, we may control at the file level. File-level groupings, like series, may be determined by subject, date, creator, function, or even format. Files are typically more tightly focused than series. Note that "file" is an intellectual unit. One file can consist of one folder's worth of material or 40 boxes of folders. Do not confuse "file" and "folder." Folder is physical; file is intellectual.
You can see in the example below that the collection has been intellectually arranged below the series level.
Collection Number: 6000 Collection Title: Roslyn P. Holdzkom Papers Size: 5.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 300 items) Abstract: Roslyn P. Holdzkom was acknowledged by Walker Percy as a "pretty good archivist." The collection contains papers of Roslyn P. Holdzkom including correspondence, diaries, and materials relating to her work on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Contents List Series 1. Correspondence Folders 1-2 Letters from Jackie Dean, 1996-2000 Folders 3-5 Letters from Nancy Kaiser, 1997-2001 Series 2. Diaries Folders 6-8 Childhood diaries Folders 9-10 Adult diaries (RESTRICTED until 2012) Series 3. Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard Folder 11 Correspondence relating to DACS Folder 12 Drafts of DACS
This is the most granular level of control wherein items are arranged into a logical order and described individually. What constitutes an item varies--the item may be a scrapbook or could be a photograph on a page in a scrapbook. We typically use item-level control for small, 19th century collections or for collections with particular items that we want to describe individually.
Collection Number: 6000 Collection Title: Roslyn P. Holdzkom Papers Size: 6.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 4,800 items) Abstract: Roslyn P. Holdzkom was acknowledged by Walker Percy as a "pretty good archivist." The collection contains papers of Roslyn P. Holdzkom including correspondence, diaries, and materials relating to her work on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Contents List Series 1. Correspondence Folder 1 Letter from Jackie Dean, 8 September 1996, Chapel Hill, N.C. Letter from Jackie Dean, 15 May 1998, Carrboro, N.C. Letter from Jackie Dean, 22 December 2000, Boston, Mass Letter from Nancy Kaiser, 22 November 1997, Chicago, Ill. Letter from Nancy Kaiser, 15 December 2001, Durham, N.C. Series 2. Diaries Folder 2 Diary, 1951 Folder 3 Diary, 1952 Folder 4 Diary, 1953 Folder 5 Diary, 1981 Folder 6 Diary, 1995 Series 3. Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard Folder 7 Letter from Michael Fox, 17 April 2001 Letter from Kris Kiesling, 17 April 2001 Letter from Bill Landis, 17 April 2001 Draft of DACS, 15 April 2001 Draft of DACS, 16 April 2001
Multiple control levels
It's possible, even expected, to use different levels of control in one finding aid as in the example below. The correspondence is controlled at the file level, the diaries at the item level, and the materials relating to DACS are controlled at the series level.
Collection Number: 6000 Collection Title: Roslyn P. Holdzkom Papers Size: 6.0 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 4,800 items) Abstract: Roslyn P. Holdzkom was acknowledged by Walker Percy as a "pretty good archivist." The collection contains papers of Roslyn P. Holdzkom including correspondence, diaries, and materials relating to her work on Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Contents List Series 1. Correspondence Folder 1-2 Letters from Jackie Dean, 1996-2000 Folder 3-5 Letters from Nancy Kaiser, 1997-2001 Series 2. Diaries Folder 2 Diary, 1951 Folder 3 Diary, 1952 Folder 4 Diary, 1953 Folder 5 Diary, 1981 Folder 6 Diary, 1995 Series 3. Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard Folder 7-12 Materials relating to Describing Archives: A Content Standard
We often receive material that is related to collections that are already here. Instead of making a new collection, we add this material to the existing collection, hence the name addition. When faced with an addition, the first decision that must be made is whether to incorporate the addition into the arrangement of the original deposit or to add the additional materials at the end of the original deposit’s arrangement in what we call a separately maintained addition.
In some cases, it may be very easy to drop materials into the appropriate places in the original deposit without changing the arrangement or description. However, before integrating materials consider how the collection has already been used. Some collections are heavily used by repeat researchers who may find confusing the intermingling of new material with old. Also, for some collections, it might make sense to highlight new material, even if it is just one letter. It is a good idea to consult with your supervising archivist for help with the decision to interfile or to create a separate addition. If you do interfile, be sure to put a note in the control file indicating what, where, and when new material was interfiled.
More frequently, you will opt for creating separately maintained additions; these can come in many styles. If the materials in the addition mimic the materials in the original deposit you can use the same arrangement in your addition. The materials do not have to correspond exactly. For example, in your original deposit, you might have Series 1. Correspondence; Series 2. Diaries; and Series 3. Pictures. It is fine for your addition to have a diaries series; a pictures series; and a new series of audio-visual materials. Of course materials in the addition may not have anything to do with the original deposit. In that case, it is completely fine to devise a new arrangement for them.