Presentation given for Preservation Week 2014.

1. Introduction to Archival
Research
Nadia Dixson
Archivist, City of Somerville
ndixson@somervillema.gov

2. AN ARCHIVE IS NOT A LIBRARY

3. AN ARCHIVE IS NOT A LIBRARY
• An archival collection is made up of the things
people produce over the course of their lives.
• The formats and subject matter of a single
archival collection can vary greatly

4. ORDER OUT OF CHAOS
• Provenance1 is a fundamental principle of
archives, referring to the individual, family, or
organization that created or received the items
in a collection. The principle of
provenance or the respect des
fonds dictates that records of different origins
(provenance) be kept separate to preserve their
context.
▫ Society of American Archivists, Glossary or
Archival and Records Terminology

5. FINDING AIDS
• Because archival collections are different from
books, archivists use different tools to describe
archival collections.
• There may be entries for collections in a library
catalog, but they will not be as robust as a
finding aid

6. FINDING AID EXAMPLES
• Family
▫ Cunningham Family Papers
http://www.masshist.org/collection-
guides/view/fa0352?terms=family
• Individual
▫ Caroline Wells Healey Dall Papers
http://www.masshist.org/collection-
guides/view/fa0270?terms=family
• Organization
▫ Apollo Club (Boston, Mass.) Records
http://www.masshist.org/collection-
guides/view/fa0364

7. ANATOMY OF A FINDING AID
• Title – Derived from the provenance of the
collection
• Dates – Gives the years of the collection, in
terms of inclusive and bulk dates
• Extent-Volume of material in terms of space or
number of boxes.
• Scope and Content- Full text describing the
formats and subjects in the collection.

8. WHERE ARE THE FINDING AIDS?
• Unfortunately it isn’t as easy as googling
▫ Multiple resources drawing on the same pools of
information.
• Worldcat – Includes library material as well archival
material. https://www.worldcat.org/
• Digital Public Library of America – Contains only
digitized items, http://dp.la/
• Digital Commonwealth - A targeted collection of
digitized items from 130 Massachusetts institutions.
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/

9. ARCHIVEGRID
• Based on Worldcat data, but does a better job of
filtering non-archival material
• http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/

10. ARCHIVAL SEARCH IN THE FUTURE
• Linked Data and the Semantic Web
• Archives Hub-
• http://archiveshub.ac.uk/

11. Credits
• Image of Archive http://www.doaks.org/library-
archives
• SAA Glossary
http://www2.archivists.org/glossary/terms/p/p
rovenance