Open Forum

Hello All!

I am a trained museum professional but have a minimal background in archiving, mostly learned on the job and through professional development post schooling. I would like to get the take of more experienced archivists with a decision I am trying to make about processing a new collection. Below is a fairly detailed description of the situation to give as much context as possible, but essentially by question is: should original order be maintained if that order was paper size? What are my blind spots or the potential pitfalls if a choose not/to maintain it?

Context:

A local cemetery that used to be managed by a church was passed to the city a few decades ago. Last year, the church was clearing out their archives and transferred all of their old management records related to that cemetery to us. The collection primarily includes ledgers, burial cards, and burial permits c. 1900-1940. The cards and permits literally came to us in boxes labeled "no order" but I have been trying to determine if there is any semblance of an original order to try to maintain or recreate.

We started with the burial cards and determined after looking through several stacks that it appeared to mostly be in alphabetical order, or had been at one time. It wasn't until we had already sorted the majority and were getting to the last few stacks, where more order had been maintained, that we realized it was ACTUALLY in alphabetical order by plot purchaser rather than by name of deceased (for 90% of the cards the last name was the same in both cases). I am hesitant to go back and rearrange by purchaser and undo the work we've already done, but I also feel like it would be unhelpful for the majority of researchers who would be tracking the deceased. My plan is to simply make a note in the finding aid etc. so we know that was the original order. I am willing to hear insights on this but my main issue is actually with the permits and other loose papers.

Those papers seem to have been grouped by like paper size which results in many of the papers being sorted by location of transfer or permit type but only vaguely – e.g. Michigan and Tennessee transfer papers were the same rough size as Indiana burial permits so they are all lumped together while Illinois, California and local welfare fund request paperwork is in another pile. For the smallest paper size group, which is the majority of the collection, there appears to be grouping by alphabet by first initial (so a lot of "T"s are mostly together, a lot of "V"s, etc. by not in order within the letter, that I can see) so that does point to alphabetization as an appropriate organizational approach. I can see the benefit of efficiency of space to organize by paper size but it seems so unhelpful for that vast majority of possible research needs. It's also possible the grouping by size was done later when the files were stored and no longer in use by the church so I don't know how imperative it is to maintain the order in that way. One potentially useful group to keep together is reinterment papers from other local cemeteries in the area that happen to be a unique size and therefore grouped together, but I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be better to group all the paperwork related to a specific individual together. At the very least, I feel like it would be helpful to arrange the smaller papers so they are truly alphabetical rather than simply grouped by letter, but I'm not sure if I'm missing an archival pitfall there that I am unaware of. Has anyone else dealt with a collection that was arranged this way? What did you do and are you happy with the results? Feel free to reach out to me if you'd rather talk than write a response.

Thank you for your time and insight. Have a good new year, everyone.

Sincerely,

Michelle Nash
Curator of Collections
Elkhart County Historical Museum

"Museum collection storage is both a physical space and an ongoing process."- NPS

Hello All!

I am a trained museum professional but have a minimal background in archiving, mostly learned on the job and through professional development post schooling. I would like to get the take of more experienced archivists with a decision I am trying to make about processing a new collection. Below is a fairly detailed description of the situation to give as much context as possible, but essentially by question is: should original order be maintained if that order was paper size? What are my blind spots or the potential pitfalls if a choose not/to maintain it?

Context:

A local cemetery that used to be managed by a church was passed to the city a few decades ago. Last year, the church was clearing out their archives and transferred all of their old management records related to that cemetery to us. The collection primarily includes ledgers, burial cards, and burial permits c. 1900-1940. The cards and permits literally came to us in boxes labeled "no order" but I have been trying to determine if there is any semblance of an original order to try to maintain or recreate.

We started with the burial cards and determined after looking through several stacks that it appeared to mostly be in alphabetical order, or had been at one time. It wasn't until we had already sorted the majority and were getting to the last few stacks, where more order had been maintained, that we realized it was ACTUALLY in alphabetical order by plot purchaser rather than by name of deceased (for 90% of the cards the last name was the same in both cases). I am hesitant to go back and rearrange by purchaser and undo the work we've already done, but I also feel like it would be unhelpful for the majority of researchers who would be tracking the deceased. My plan is to simply make a note in the finding aid etc. so we know that was the original order. I am willing to hear insights on this but my main issue is actually with the permits and other loose papers.

Those papers seem to have been grouped by like paper size which results in many of the papers being sorted by location of transfer or permit type but only vaguely – e.g. Michigan and Tennessee transfer papers were the same rough size as Indiana burial permits so they are all lumped together while Illinois, California and local welfare fund request paperwork is in another pile. For the smallest paper size group, which is the majority of the collection, there appears to be grouping by alphabet by first initial (so a lot of "T"s are mostly together, a lot of "V"s, etc. by not in order within the letter, that I can see) so that does point to alphabetization as an appropriate organizational approach. I can see the benefit of efficiency of space to organize by paper size but it seems so unhelpful for that vast majority of possible research needs. It's also possible the grouping by size was done later when the files were stored and no longer in use by the church so I don't know how imperative it is to maintain the order in that way. One potentially useful group to keep together is reinterment papers from other local cemeteries in the area that happen to be a unique size and therefore grouped together, but I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be better to group all the paperwork related to a specific individual together. At the very least, I feel like it would be helpful to arrange the smaller papers so they are truly alphabetical rather than simply grouped by letter, but I'm not sure if I'm missing an archival pitfall there that I am unaware of. Has anyone else dealt with a collection that was arranged this way? What did you do and are you happy with the results? Feel free to reach out to me if you'd rather talk than write a response.

Thank you for your time and insight. Have a good new year, everyone.

Sincerely,

Michelle Nash
Curator of Collections
Elkhart County Historical Museum

"Museum collection storage is both a physical space and an ongoing process."- NPS

Hello All!

I am a trained museum professional but have a minimal background in archiving, mostly learned on the job and through professional development post schooling. I would like to get the take of more experienced archivists with a decision I am trying to make about processing a new collection. Below is a fairly detailed description of the situation to give as much context as possible, but essentially by question is: should original order be maintained if that order was paper size? What are my blind spots or the potential pitfalls if a choose not/to maintain it?

Context:

A local cemetery that used to be managed by a church was passed to the city a few decades ago. Last year, the church was clearing out their archives and transferred all of their old management records related to that cemetery to us. The collection primarily includes ledgers, burial cards, and burial permits c. 1900-1940. The cards and permits literally came to us in boxes labeled "no order" but I have been trying to determine if there is any semblance of an original order to try to maintain or recreate.

We started with the burial cards and determined after looking through several stacks that it appeared to mostly be in alphabetical order, or had been at one time. It wasn't until we had already sorted the majority and were getting to the last few stacks, where more order had been maintained, that we realized it was ACTUALLY in alphabetical order by plot purchaser rather than by name of deceased (for 90% of the cards the last name was the same in both cases). I am hesitant to go back and rearrange by purchaser and undo the work we've already done, but I also feel like it would be unhelpful for the majority of researchers who would be tracking the deceased. My plan is to simply make a note in the finding aid etc. so we know that was the original order. I am willing to hear insights on this but my main issue is actually with the permits and other loose papers.

Those papers seem to have been grouped by like paper size which results in many of the papers being sorted by location of transfer or permit type but only vaguely – e.g. Michigan and Tennessee transfer papers were the same rough size as Indiana burial permits so they are all lumped together while Illinois, California and local welfare fund request paperwork is in another pile. For the smallest paper size group, which is the majority of the collection, there appears to be grouping by alphabet by first initial (so a lot of "T"s are mostly together, a lot of "V"s, etc. by not in order within the letter, that I can see) so that does point to alphabetization as an appropriate organizational approach. I can see the benefit of efficiency of space to organize by paper size but it seems so unhelpful for that vast majority of possible research needs. It's also possible the grouping by size was done later when the files were stored and no longer in use by the church so I don't know how imperative it is to maintain the order in that way. One potentially useful group to keep together is reinterment papers from other local cemeteries in the area that happen to be a unique size and therefore grouped together, but I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be better to group all the paperwork related to a specific individual together. At the very least, I feel like it would be helpful to arrange the smaller papers so they are truly alphabetical rather than simply grouped by letter, but I'm not sure if I'm missing an archival pitfall there that I am unaware of. Has anyone else dealt with a collection that was arranged this way? What did you do and are you happy with the results? Feel free to reach out to me if you'd rather talk than write a response.

Thank you for your time and insight. Have a good new year, everyone.

Sincerely,

Michelle Nash
Curator of Collections
Elkhart County Historical Museum

"Museum collection storage is both a physical space and an ongoing process."- NPS