Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts Book Review
- Miller, Fredric M. Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts, Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1990.
Fredric Miller's Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts is a manual for explaining archival processing. Miller intended the manual to describe processing rather than prescribe policies and practices for individual repositories. He intended it to be useful for novices. He begins the manual by noting that archives are not libraries, and that the two types of institutions differ in several ways. The physical makeup of archives generally consists of records rather than books. Records are created gradually, in a rather unintentional manner (compared to books), and have no common classification scheme. Although there are parallels between an archivist's tools of arrangement and description and a librarian's tools of arrangement and description, the two differ fundamentally. Archivists arrange records according to provenance (external order according to creator) and strive to maintain the original order (internal order) of the records.
In processing, archivists must determine the origins and structure of records. They must understand what types of activities the records document, determine the types of informational content they contain, assess their physical characteristics, and explain their relationship to other records in the repositiory.
Although this manual covers both archives and manuscripts, one must understand that there are fundamental differences between these two. Records generally come from one source, while manuscripts come from many sources. A manuscript collection contains artificial collections and individual documents. Archives are generally described on a collection level, while manuscripts are not. Archives are generally larger in volume than manuscript collections. Archives are usually self indexing according to provenance, whereas many manuscript collections are not. There are similarities, however. Both types of repositories contain some records, have common types of usage, and need integrated systems.
Miller contends that four principles govern processing: provenance, original order, collection description, and levels of control. Miller provides a helpful timeline of the creation of these principles and their application to archives and manuscripts. He notes that the concept of levels of control is an American contribution to archival science. When Miller speaks of levels of control, he is referring to the concept, popularized by Oliver Wendell Holmes, that records can be devided into several levels for description. Generally, the levels are called record group, series, files, and folders. He also points out that the concept of provenance is generally identified with the record creator. This concept is helpful because it discourages archivists from using arbitrary subject arrangements, and it makes organization of records easier.
Miller discusses accessioning by pointing out that it often begins by correctly identifying the provenance of records. The archivist should be involved in the boxing and labeling of records prior to their being transported to an archives. The archivist is responsible for ensuring the integrity of records in their travel. He or she should use transfer forms and accession forms to document this process. The archvist should prepare a general description of contents and list any separated materials on a separation sheet. The archivist should also examine the contents for record groups and series, weeding, restrictions, and odd or difficult to preserve formats. A preliminary listing, which often consists of a box listing, should be prepared. This step is often more difficult for manuscripts than archives.
Miller urges that in establishing priorities for how to proceed in arranging and describing collections, the archivist should consider the "mission, resources, and clientele of the repository." The archivist should also assess the facilities to make sure that they are adequate for processing collections. Additionally, he or she should take the lead in administering processing by setting forth a plan for the processing of set of records or manuscripts that the staff processes. Miller discusses the various levels of control one uses in arranging records within a repository. He notes that there are very real differences between arrangement by provenance and by filing structure. The former should represent the intellectual arrangement of records, while the latter often represents the physical arrangement of records. He notes that repositories often have physical divisions of records into such categories as archives and manuscripts. Withing each of these categories, the archivist intellectually arranges the records according to provenance, physically arranges the records according to the filing structure (often developing lists of functional records series to assist in this task), and arranges the physical file units in accordance with original order.
Miller concludes his work by discussing the various types of information, tools, and standards that are used to create properly describe archival collections. These sections are probably the most dated sections of the book, because the advent of standards such as DACS and EAD has somewhat supplanted discussions of APPM and USMARC AMC. This is probably the reason that the SAA replaced Miller's book, as good as it is, with Kathleen Roe's work of the same title.
