Gaining Intellectual Control over Technical Reports and Grey Literature Collections

1. Gaining Intellectual Control over Technical Reports and Grey Literature Collections ASEE 2011 Adriana Popescu Princeton University

2. Technical Reports and Grey Literature Collections • All academic libraries have them • First targeted for space saving • Thank you TRAIL! • How do we save the rest worth keeping?

3. Learning from the Masters Special Collections Technical Reports Collections Unique, rare and valuable materials that require special handling Processed using archival standards Processed = productively used for research Require special attention and management Age well, become more valuable as time goes by

4. How to speak Archival • Processing = arranging, describing and preserving the material • Minimally, fully, unprocessed • Describing = contextual information, physical characteristics, intellectual content

5. The Project – bringing School of Engineering reports to light • Meet, talk to archivists • Develop processing plan (arrangement and description, no preservation needed) • Borrow tools (free) • Hire student help • Get to work

6. Distinct collections created around the issuing body: lab, department, research center Planned outcomes Collection is described by an OPAC record – MARC records are generated from AT Finding aid created using Archivists’ Toolkit (AT) Separate repository of finding aids for Engineering Library Finding aid lists each report affiliated with a collection Finding aid created for each collection using Encoded Archival Description (EAD) standard

7. Archivists’ Toolkit • Open source relational database for archival data management • Client application installed on library computers (used for data entry by student and librarian) • Linked to repository on existing MYSQL database on Windows server (same database used by Special Collections and Archives departments)

8. The Archivists’ Toolkit

9. Metadata Collection record Item record Call number Repository Title Date(s) Extent (size) Creator (Issuing body) Scope content (description) Subjects Access Language Author Report title Date Report number

10. How it happened • Over the summer months of 2007 and 2008 (July and August) one full-time student was hired • Tasks: • Identify the distinct issuing bodies (labs, centers, programs) for each technical reports series • Build collections around the issuing bodies (Creator) • Arrange the contents of each collection (file the reports in a specific collection in order of publication) • Once the collections have been identified, the Engineering Librarian would write a collection description and create a Collection Record using Archivists’ Toolkit • Create Item Records for each report associated with a specific collection using Archivists’ Toolkit

11. Reaching the top (or the end) • 30 technical reports collections processed • 11 collections went online in 2007, 19 processed in 2008 • Price tag: $5760 (student wages for 4 months) • Increased number of direct and/or ILL requests for reports • Access data correlates with the increase in requests received • Service to research community – treasures such as Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) reports are now accessible to researchers

12. Online access numbers for engineering finding aids

13. You can get a gold star too! • Tap in and use existing institutional resources and expertise • Use expertise of archivist colleagues to conceptualize the intellectual arrangement and set up the processing workflow • Use existing infrastructure such as AT and the library’s finding aid repository • Use the institutional IT support • Call me and I am happy to answer questions!