Accidental Archivist

1
Accidental Archivist

• Carrie Christoffersen
• Senior Manager of Collections and Registration
• Newseum

2
Intro .

• About the Newseum
• About the collections
• About the Senior Manager of Collections and
  Registration

3
Why Keep an Archiveor artifacts?

• Preservation of History
• Institutional
• General
• Exhibit and loan potential

4
What should you Keep?

• General Ideas
• Photographs
• Documents
• Artifacts
• Obvious Items
• Related to major historic events
• Related to major events in your organization
• Related to award-winning events
• Related to major personalities

5
What should you Keep? continued

• Less Obvious Items
• Related to technological advancements
• Related to a major personalitywho isnt yet
• Related to work environment
• Un-necessary

6
How do you Develop a Collection?

• Declarations
• Mission Statement
• Scope of Collections Statement
• Collecting Plans

7
How do you Develop a Collection? continued

• Committee vs. Lone Wolf Approach
• Accession Policies

8
How do you record items? Accession procedures

• Deed of Gift
• Processing Checklist
• Number assigned, file started
• Condition Report
• Accession Memorandum
• Manually generated
• Database printout

9
Where do you keep everything?Storage and
controls

• Cabinets and boxes/folders/etc.
• Temperature and humidity
• Light levels
• Equipment

10
How do you find everything?

• Storage Areas labeling
• Ledgers
• Paper files
• Database file
• Inventory

11
Who has access? Security Issues

• Control
• Badge access to room
• List generated by me
• Locked cabinets
• Locked key box
• Emergency Preparedness
• Warning
• Contact
• Reaction

12
Recap

• Why Keep an Archive?
• What should you Keep?
• How do you Develop a Collection?
• How do you record items? Accession procedures
• Where do you keep everything? Storage/controls
• How do you find everything?
• Who has access to everything? Security Issues