
Session five: Processing, or establishing control
Thursday, February 25
Readings
- Required reading – annotation and discussion:
- Mark Greene’s and Dennis Meissner’s “More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archives Processing“
- Jessica Phillips’ “A Defense of Preservation in the Age of MPLP“
- UCLA’s “Guidelines for Efficient Archival Processing”
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The Goal
- 5. Process Collections at an Appropriate Level
- 6. Efficient Processing Approaches
- Optional – foundational reading:
- Erin Faulder’s and Laura Jackson’s: “Digital Processing: Exploring the Enigma“
Assignments due
- none
Review
Session six: Preservation
Thursday, March 4
Readings
- Required reading – annotation and discussion:
- Rainer Jedlitschka’s “‘Together We Are Strong’: Emergency Associations for the Protection of Germany’s Cultural Heritage“
- Lisa Darms’ “The Archival Object: A Memoir of Disintegration“
- Optional – foundational reading:
- Northeast Document Conservation Center’s “Preservation 101“
- Optional – further reading:
- Mark Greene’s and Dennis Meissner’s “More application while less appreciation: The adopters and antagonists of MPLP“
Assignments
Review
Session seven: Arrangement
Thursday, March 11
Readings
- Required reading – annotation and discussion:
- Optional – foundational reading:
- Jennifer Meehan’s “Making the Leap from Parts to Whole: Evidence and Inference in Archival Arrangement and Description“
- Jane Zhang’s “Original Order in Digital Archives“
- Optional – further reading
Assignments due
- none
Review
- Session seven slides
- Video collection inventory (excel spreadsheet)
- Video collection inventory (PDF)
Session eight: Description principles and standards
Thursday, March 18
Readings
- Required reading – annotation and discussion:
- The Queer Metadata Collective’s “Best Practices for Queer Metadata” (selections)
- Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia’s “Anti-Racist Description Resources” (selections)
- Optional – foundational reading:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)
- Jennifer Douglas’ “Toward More Honest Description“
- Gregory Wiedeman’s “The Historical Hazards of Finding Aids“
- Optional – further reading:
- Kirsten Wright’s “Archival interventions and the language we use“
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s “Guide to Conscious Editing at Wilson Special Collections Library“
Assignments
Review
- Session eight slides
- Session eight practicum slides
- Queens College SCA ArchivesSpace Guide (especially section on Subjects)
- Queens College SCA Style Guide
Session nine: Metadata and digital description
Thursday, March 25
Readings
- Required reading – annotation and discussion:
- Donald Force’s and Randy Smith’s “Context Lost: Digital Surrogates, Their Physical Counterparts, and the Metadata that is Keeping Them Apart“
- Kathryn Manis’ and Patricia Wilde’s “Locating yourself in the historical record: challenges of provenance and metadata in the Library of Congress’ digital materials“
- Optional – foundational reading:
- Jane Zhang’s and Dayne Mauney’s “When Archival Description Meets Digital Object Metadata: A Typological Study of Digital Archival Representation“
- Kathleen Fear’s “User Understanding of Metadata in Digital Image Collections: Or, What Exactly Do You Mean by “Coverage”?“
- PBCore Handbook (selections)
- Dublin Core DCMI Metadata Terms (especially the elements)
- Optional – further reading:
Assignments
NO CLASS — SPRING BREAK
Thursday, April 1
NO CLASS — SPRING BREAK
Thursday, April 8

