How to Proceed

A Procedures Manual for the Southern Historical Collection and General Manuscripts University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Revision History

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

• Who We Are
• What We Do
• Basic Premises
• Overview of Processing
• How to Use This Manual

Preparing to Process

• Preliminary Research and Survey
  • Where to Begin
    • Administrative History
    • Historical Context
  • Relative Research Value, Priority Level, and Processing Level
  • The Survey
    • On the Lookout
    • Taking Note
• Writing a Processing Plan

Arranging

• Basic Premises
• If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
• The Break Down
• Series and Subseries
• Files
• Alphabetical order
• Chronological order
• Other orders
• Separated material
• Some arrangement concepts explored
  • Identifying and/or constructing groupings by types or format
  • Identifying and/or constructing groupings by activity or function
  • Granularity
  • Control
• Additions

Describing

• The "Typical" Finding Aid
  • Header and Contact Information
  • Collection Overview
    • Title
    • Creator
    • Extent
    • Repository
  • Administrative Information
    • Access Restrictions
    • Usage Restrictions
    • Provenance/Acquisitions Information
    • Processing Note
    • Items Separated
    • Related Collections
  • Biographical or Historical Note
  • Scope and Content Note
  • List of Series
  • Series Descriptions
    • When There Are No Series
    • Abstract and Subject Headings
• Finishing the Finding Aid

Housing and Preserving

• Preservation and You
  • Consciousness Raising
  • Preservation/Conservation
• Procedures
  • Outside Assistance
  • Removing Items for Conservation Treatment
  • What You Can Do
    • Unfolding/Unrolling/Humidification/Flattening
    • Removing Fasteners
    • Handling Highly Acidic Materials
    • Housing and Labeling
    • Boxes
    • Folders
    • Boxes and Folders for Additions
    • Items Separated

Finishing the Job

• Location Table
• Feng Shui Your Workspace; Or, Getting Rid of the Detritus
• Transfers