Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections: The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative

1. Unearthing Philadelphia’s Hidden Collections:The PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative Rachel Onuf SAA Annual Meeting August 2009

2. PACSCL Consortial Survey Initiative • Assessed backlogged archival collections in 22 PACSCL institutions using a series of quantitative and qualitative measures. • Thirty-month project funded by the Mellon Foundation, who previously funded surveys at Historical Society of Pennsylvania (direct antecedent to this project), Columbia University, and University of Virginia. • Proposal submitted to Mellon in 2004 and funding was received in 2005. • Official start of work was in May 2006 - surveying of collections began in September 2006. • Three project staff, plus staff at participating institutions and an advisory committee.

3. Philadelphia Area Consortiumof Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) • Founded in 1985. • 33 members currently • Academic archives and special collections, historical societies, museums, and non-profit institutional archives. • Range from small shops within larger organizations to large independent repositories. • Past projects include collaborative exhibits, coordinated cataloging and OPAC work, EAD. • More information on website at http://www.pacscl.org

4. Academy of Natural Sciences American Philosophical Society Athenaeum of Philadelphia Bryn Mawr College Chemical Heritage Foundation College of Physicians of Philadelphia Free Library of Philadelphia Haverford College The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Independence Seaport Museum Library Company of Philadelphia Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Philadelphia Museum of Art Presbyterian Historical Society Rosenbach Museum & Library Swarthmore College Temple University Union League of Philadelphia University of Delaware University of Pennsylvania Villanova University Wagner Free Institute of Science Participating institutions

5. Project description • Defining terms: • Backlog: Unprocessed, under-processed or under-described material. • Under-processed: collections that are partially processed or done to an earlier standard that staff members no longer consider adequate. • Under-described: collections that are partially described or done to an earlier standard that staff members no longer consider adequate. • Archival: Managed according to archival principles – usually by provenance rather than subject; described at the collection, series and folder level rather than as individually cataloged items. • Collections: Range of formats, from manuscripts to photographs to architectural drawings to audiovisual materials.

6. Project description • Defining terms (continued): • Quantitative: Numerical ratings (1-5) for physical condition, quality of housing, physical access, intellectual access, documentation quality and interest. • Qualitative: Narrative descriptions of quantifiable and unquantifiable properties.

7. Prior to surveying • Training and discussions with local staff. • What to survey? • Preparation of basic collection records. • At minimum, needed title/main entry and some indication of location and extent. • Background research.

8. During surveying • Working in teams of two or more, looked through boxes, volumes and other collection materials to determine physical arrangement and condition. • Looked through enough to get a good sense of the content of the collection (subject matter, themes, depth of coverage, document genres, etc.). • Reviewed and assessed the existing intellectual access tools, such as collection/donor/control folders, inventories, catalog records/cards, and finding aids, in terms of how well they provide access to the collection. • Verified and revised titles, dates, extents and other components of archival description as needed.

9. Ratings • Discussed and achieved consensus to assign ratings to different physical and intellectual characteristics of collections. • Condition of material • Quality of housing • Physical access • Intellectual access • Documentation quality + interest = research value rating. • Documented rationale in the General Note.

10. After surveying • Refined abstracts. • Added name and subject headings. • Applied PACSCL’s 37 identified “themes of interest.” • Indicated related collections (PACSCL and non-PACSCL) as appropriate. • Followed up with staff.

11. The survey database • Access • Security • Design • Metadata and content standards • Getting data out of the database • Public interface

13. Access • Via FileMaker Pro client or web browser • Project participants have access to assessment data about each other’s collections. • Information in a small number of local fields is available only to the holding repository.

14. Security • Must log in to use database. • Each institution has two database accounts that can be shared within the institution; additional accounts can be requested. • Multiple levels of privileges – read-only, editing pre- and post-surveying, authority file access. • Local information can only be viewed by people logged in under the institution’s account. • Survey data could only be changed by project staff.

15. Design • Multiple tables • Repository data • Collection data • Authority data • Search and display layouts could be partially customized according to institutional preferences

16. Content standards and controlled vocabularies • Archival description follows Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS). • Name headings are from the Library of Congress Name Authority File when possible; from local authority files or created according to DACS/AACR2 otherwise. • Topical and geographic headings are from Library of Congress Subject Headings. (Used other controlled vocabularies for subjects when appropriate to the holding institution.) • Genre and occupation headings are a subset of Art and Architecture Thesaurus. • Theme list developed with PACSCL participant input.

17. Metadata standards and output • Collection-level description fields have been designed to map to MARC. • Crosswalks from MARC to other metadata standards facilitate use of information toward the creation of other metadata outputs.

18. Export • Built-in FileMaker options for exporting full records for use in other applications. • Institutions with existing collections management databases could integrate survey data by exporting full records as tab-delimited text, Excel spreadsheet or other file formats built into FileMaker. • Capabilities for exporting MARC, EAD, HTML and PDF. • Export into Archivists’ Toolkit (to come)

19. Public Interface • Available on the project website, and participating institutions have also linked to it. • Provides a point of access in addition to other methods selected by individual institutions and is the only place for researchers to search across collections surveyed for this project. • Only finalized records designated as “public” in the survey database are included. • Institution can designate all, some or none of its records for inclusion.

21. Surveying facts and figures • 2,099 collections • 19,400 linear feet • Surveyors averaged 45 minutes per collection • Surveyors averaged 12 LFPH (linear ft. per hour)

22. Surveying facts and figures • 621 collections greater than 5 LF • 568 collections between 1 and 5 LF • 910 collections less than 1 LF

23. Surveying facts and figures • Average ratings • Condition 3.53 • Housing 3.45 • Physical Access 3.55 • Intellectual Access 1.66 • Interest 2.55 plus Documentation Quality 2.43 = Research Value (RVR) of 4.98

24. Surveying facts and figures • 20% (67% of total LF) received RVR between 7 and 10 with 32 (3,280 LF) receiving a 10 • 55% (30% of total LF) received RVR of 4, 5, or 6 • 22% (2.5% of total LF) received RVR of 2 or 3

25. Surveying facts and figures • Less than 10% had a publicly available catalog record • Less than 7% had a finding aid “Hidden” collections, for all intents and purposes.

26. Benefits to PACSCL and participating institutions • Gained additional information on the condition and content of specific collections. • Created information that can be used for both collection management and intellectual access purposes. • Developed a central repository of PACSCL collection and assessment data that can be used to inform the development of institutional and consortial priorities and funding proposals.

27. Still more benefits! • CLIR-funded “Hidden Collections” project underway. • PACSCL-wide EAD repository, hosted by University of Pennsylvania.

28. To learn more • Project website: http://www.pacsclsurvey.org