Cataloguing

Before beginning your catalogue, you need to have a think about how your collection will be arranged. There are some important guiding principles to consider:

Original order

When arranging your archives, maintain the original order of the material where possible. This is an important archival principle as it shows the researcher how the material was used and preserves important links.

Example: The Dramatic Society might have photographs of all their performances in a box and the posters for all their performances in another box, alternatively they might have the material arranged by performance – all photos and posters for one performance in one folder and all photos and posters for another performance in a separate folder. When arranging your collection, you would preserve whichever order the Society itself used.

If there is no discernible order, then arrange the material in a way that is useful for your intended audience for example by function or types of record such as photographs or audio recordings.

Provenance

A collection’s provenance is the story of where it came from – who created it and why. It provides important context to a collection as well as reassurance that it is authentic and trustworthy as a source. Keep material with the same provenance together.

Example: The Dramatic Society archive has a collection of performance programmes but also a folder of documents collated by the Society’s Director which includes programmes, correspondence and photographs. You would keep the papers in the Director’s folder together and record their provenance rather than splitting the contents up.

Intellectual v Physical Arrangement

Your catalogue does not have to mirror the physical arrangement of a collection. For preservation and storage requirements you may have someone’s personal papers split across a number of  physical locations while having only one entry for it in the catalogue.

If your community archive is looking after more than one collection (or fonds), each needs to be arranged separately.

Archive catalogues are hierarchical – that is there is a top-level description with lower-level descriptions underneath. The levels are as follows:

Collection Level: Also known as the “fonds”. This the top-level entry in your catalogue. It will include a broad overall description of the origins and contents of the entire collection.

Series Level: This is the next level down and will consist of the section headings you decided to split your collection into for example: Administrative records; correspondence; performances; photographs.

File Level: This is the next level down and where you begin to describe actual physical bundles of records or “files”.

Item Level: This is the lowest level of description in an archive catalogue and would describe an individual item. It is rare to describe everything in your collection to item level, you might use it if there is only one item in a file for example. You can increase your item level descriptions over time when you have the resources to do so.

You do not need to include all levels all the time – you can go straight from a series to an item. You can also add in sub-series and sub-files, if necessary, but it is easiest to keep to four levels if you can.

There are a number of tools you can use to create your catalogue. The most straightforward way is to use Microsoft Excel as you can easily move rows around to organise your entries in accordance with your catalogue structure.

You may wish to invest in cataloguing software such as CALM or ArchivesSpace. Omeka and eHive are online tools with eHive being free to use up to a certain number of entries.

For a more in-depth discussion of the different cataloguing tools available see section on Sharing Your Collections.

Professional archive catalogues adhere to ISAD(G) – the International Standard for Archival Description (General). This standard dictates what information should be included in a catalogue. This information is included under a number of different headings or “fields”.

MANDATORY FIELDS

The following six fields should be included in your catalogue:

Reference Number

A unique identifier that can be used to locate specific files and items in your collection. A consecutive number is added on to the collection identifier for each subsequent series, file and item:

Collection:          DSA

Series:                  DSA/1

File:                       DSA/1/1

Item:                    DSA/1/1/1

Traditionally item reference numbers would be written on the outside of the boxes to denote the contents and boxes would be arranged in order of reference number. However, this can be time consuming and does not allow easily for additions or re-numbering should it be required. Moreover, your space may not allow for reference numbers to be stored sequentially. A simpler approach is to give your boxes consecutive numbers only and record the relevant box number in your catalogue or on a separate location spreadsheet for each catalogued series or item. When locating material you are then just looking for the right box number rather than individual reference numbers.

ARCHON code. This is a unique code which identifies your repository. It precedes your reference numbers e.g., GB###/DSA/1.  Apply for an ARCHON code on the National Archives website.

Title

Short title taken from the record itself e.g., “Minutes”. If an item does not have an existing title, an appropriate brief title should be created.

Level

Level of description as described above: Collection, series, file or item.

Creator

Name or the person or organisation that created the material.

Date of Creation

Date or approximate date the material was created.

Extent

Description of how much material there is and in what format e.g., 2 folders; 1 WAV file.

ADDITIONAL FIELDS

You should consider also including the following fields even though they are not mandatory:

Scope and Content

This is a field for you to include free text descriptions for each of your catalogue entries. Use this to tell researchers about the content and note anything of particular interest.

Access

Note here any restrictions on access for example if a donor has requested material is closed for a certain period or if the records contain personal information.

Location

Use this field to record the physical or digital location of a record.

Related Material

Use this field to cross reference entries with similar material elsewhere in the catalogue.

INDEXING

Once you have your basic catalogue you can start to add indexes. These are keywords and tags that researchers can use to filter your catalogue and pull together items from across your collection that relate to a particular subject, person, place or genre/type of record such as photographs or press cuttings.

You may also wish to consider compiling mini biographies of significant individuals or potted histories of places which may be relevant to your collection. These are known as “Authority Records” and provide researchers with additional context and information.

Public v. Private Catalogues. It is common to have two versions of your catalogue – a public and a private version. Remove any location information and private notes about the material from the public version. See Sharing Your Collections for more information on making your catalogue publicly available.