The Art of Cataloguing

One of the central duties of an archivist is of course to facilitate access and this is largely acheived through a catalogue. This allows users to search and see exactly what material is held by a repository as well as providing some background detail or context about the person or organisation to whom the papers belong. The catalogue is structured rather like a family tree which should reflect the relationships between the documents. As a central element of the Archivist's role, I have been keen to get some experience of cataloguing and the different methods of achieving it. Therefore, during the last few months I have started cataloguing a small collection of material which is known as the Edwin Chirgwin Archive.

Edwin Chirgwin was a Cornishman born in 1892 in Newlyn and passed away in 1960. Throughout his life he was an ardent supporter of Cornish history, culture and language, writing poetry, stories, historical essays and giving lectures on these topics which so fascinated him. In 1932 he became a Bard of the Gorsedd of Cornwall and adopted the bardic name of Map Melyn (Son of the Mill).

The collection we have includes lecture notes and essays on the ethnographical make up of the Cornish people, the stone monuments of Cornwall, including Trethevy Cromlech and Boscawen-Un, as well as observations on churches and other historical subjects and folklore from within the County. There is also a significant amount of his poetry, but also stories written in the cornish dialect about local people and events that took place, although it is not always clear whether these are fictional accounts or true stories. There is a suggestion that at least some really happened as Chirgwin includes notes alluding to the fact that some characters at the time of writing were still alive.

Progress has been good with each item now entered onto the CALM database with a temporary running number. The next part of the process was to decide how the catalogue would be structured which is not without its issues when considering personal papers. If, for instance, you were dealing with an organisation, a provenance based structure reflecting the management hierarchy may be employed. This would begin with the organisation as a whole at the top e.g. Sweet Chocolate Company (known as the fonds or collection) and beneath that may be the Company Board and beneath that the various departments within the firm such as HR, finance department, marketing department etc. In some companies however, structures may have changed or may remain unknown. In that case a more functional structure may be adopted. This means rather than using the creating department as you would for a provenance based structure, you may use headings such as governance, sales and operations to arrange the collection. When applying this conundrum to personal papers the provenence is the creator which forms the fonds itself, therefore the supporting structure may well consist of functional groupings according to the persons different responsibilities or roles. The important thing is that the structure should best represent the person rather than an imposed order which has no meaning in context to the person.
With the Chirgwin papers it was unclear as to the source of the stories, many in Cornish dialect. Some referred to actual people, but it was not clear whether all the stories were true, old tales handed down from previous generations or entirely fictional. This meant our arrangement had to be carefully considered so as not to invent a new function for Chirgwin as a short story writer. Instead, we termed the material 'Accounts in Cornish Dialect' in an effort to avoid this, but also to encompass the possible variations as to the source of the stories. Another interesting issue for cataloguing was the fact that there was material in the Cornish language, and so to avoid making assumptions only minimal descriptions could be recorded. There was one record, a scrapbook, which did not appear to have any correlation with the rest of the material. After some deliberation as to where in the structure it should go we finally opted for it to remain separate under its format heading of scrapbook. Hence the final tree now has the following sub fonds: poetry, lectures, accounts in Cornish dialect, essays, translations and scrapbook. Although using format is not a recommended approach the item in question did not fit comfortably amongst the other groupings.

Many of the collections held at the Archive and Special Collections Department are fairly large and so it would be unlikely I would finish them before leaving in August. To be able to do a relatively small collection like this one has been really useful as it has enabled me to experience the full process from start to finish and to see the different considerations and issues that can arise.

Appraisal and the digital avalanche

Preservation of digital records has become one of the chief concerns for Archives everywhere and so it has been with interest that I began to look at this topic during my recent archive course module. One of the issues that has arisen is of course how to deal with the mass of digital material available which made me re-examine appraisal and the archival mission.

One of the contentious issues to arise and for which the profession has faced accusations of elitism during the last forty years, is its apparent failure to fully represent society . It was in 1970 that Howard Zinn addressed the Society of American Archivists and heavily critised current trends which saw the rich and powerful of society represented whilst the 'poor and impotent...[were condemned to]...archival obscurity'.(1) This was supported by other professionals including the President of the SAA, F. Gerald Ham. Ham stated the most important duty of the Archivist is to '...make an informed selection of information that will provide the future with a representative record of human experience in our time.'(2) He went on to question the very existence of the profession if '...we are not helping people understand the world they live in, and if this is not what archives is all about, then I do not know what it is we are doing that is all that important.'(3)

Writing in 2001 Johnston reported an improved situation in America but remained somewhat scathing of the situation in the UK. He suggested representation remained an issue which he attributed to the lack of debate in this country surrounding those actions which should encompas the archival mission, and went on to voice Ham's belief that for some in the profession the archival role remained a purely custodial one, as proposed by Jenkinson, and discussed in 'Appraisal To be or not to be', [Jan 24th]. (4) Whilst issues around representation have improved, appraisal has remained a necessary practice to prevent repositories becoming overun with material, a fact which is now further exacerbated by the digital issue.

So, with records threatening to swamp our repositories and with the lack of resources to inspect each file individually  in order that we may reflect fully the society we live in, how do we select archives and ensure adequate coverage is achieved.

Recently, I came across an article which put forward a fairly radical theory to address this very problem. It was by Robert Neumayer and Andreas Rauber of Vienna University of Technology, and was presented as a provocative position paper which certainly achieved its end, raising a number of interesting points and concerns. In essence it proposed that every nth record should be kept, a number dependant on the size of repository, and the rest discarded. The authors claim this would address representation by removing the Archivist's judgement of what should be selected for preservation, and in so doing, eradicate appraisal's natural inclination to favour dominant societal values.(5)

 In essence this returns to the Jenkinsonian premise of archival survival being guided by chance.  Whilst it seems to deal with the problem of mass, essentially it removes any responsibility of the Archivist in his/her role to represent society and make informed decisions about appraisal. It is this which the author's suggest will facilitate representation, however such a system can only be applied to the records which make it to the repository for selection which in no way ensures fair and equal representation.The profession has long struggled with how appraisal should be carried out and continues to search for the holy grail of standards or rules to guide the process. This is an attractive theory from this perspective, but also a troubling one. The Authors suggest random selection would deliver a high level of privacy protection, yet this is largely thanks to the imcomplete nature of the information. There is also that nagging doubt that whilst you may be preserving a rather nondescript invoice in the right hand, there is that ever present danger that in the left you throw away the Magna Carta of the future.


(1) Ian Johnston, 'Whose history is it anyway?',  Journal of the Society of Archivists, Vol. 22, No. 2 2001, p213.
(2) F. Gerald Ham, 'The Archival Edge', The American Archivist, January 1975, p1.
(3) Ham, p13.
(4) Ham,  'The Archival Edge', quoted in Johnston, 'Whose history is it anyway?',p216.
(5) Robert Neumayer and Andreas Rauber, 'Why Appraisal is not Utterly Useless and why it's not the Way to Go either.'http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu/publications/appraisal_final.pdf [Accessed 18/2/2013]

Appraisal: To be or not to be that is the question?

Previously, I mentioned a large amount of material from Falmouth University Marketing Department which had arrived following a clear out of old records (8th October, A Surprise). The quantity involved is substantial and so since then we have gradually been going through repackaging the items and listing them, but before any of this could be completed there is an important process for the material to go through, Appraisal.

Appraisal is the process of identifying '...the documents to be continuously preserved for an unlimited period of time.' (1) That is, a selection of records considered to be of value for long term preservation. It is then the action on which the development of an archive or collection is fundamentally reliant, so it is perhaps unsurprising that it has been described as the archivist's 'first responsibility'. (2) Yet, there are no hard and fast rules as to how to carry out appraisal. There is no step by step guide, rather it is something Archivists learn through practice and familiarity with records and their collections. With this in mind, it was a challenging task to be faced with the mountain of records and the decision as to what should be kept and what should be destroyed.

Archivists destroying material may seem an anathema of the purpose of the profession and yet the sheer quantity of records in existence today has made this decision necessary, indeed vital. It is a conundrum which has led the profession to struggle with this '..schizophrenic dilemma which we feel would not face us in the ideal world.' (3) This has been further exacerbated by the conflicting and deeply ingrained attitudes of past archival theorists; one of the first and leading theorists in the UK being Sir Hilary Jenkinson.

In 1922, Jenkinson's A Manual of Archive Administration was published exploring the issues around the management of a war archive following the First World War. In this work Jenkinson sought to explore the nature and characteristics of archives and subsequently the role of the archivist. He defined an archive as a document which

'...was drawn up or used in the course of an administrative or executive transaction (whether public or private) of which itself formed a part; and subsequently preserved in their own custody for their own information by the person or persons responsible for that transaction and their legitimate successors' (4)

This definition evolved from two important characteristics Jenkinson considered vital to the very nature of an archive: impartiality and authenticity. Authenticity was derived from the maintenance of an official custodial chain. Impartiality was, however, to place the onus of selection with the creator of the records and deny the Archivist any influence over selection of records or institutional policy. This would therefore maintain the neutrality of the Archivist so endowing the collection with the quality of impartiality and hence its value. The Archivist's role was confined to two main duties; the first was to protect these important archival qualities and the second to meet the needs of researchers and historians to the best of their ability. (5) Jenkinson firmly believed that the Archivist's role should be a passive one and it was this passivity which contributed towards the archival value of the records in their care.

Some years later, in America,  a man by the name of Theodore Schellenburg published his Modern Archives: Principles and Techniques (1956). Schellenburg recognised the mass of material was ever increasing and attempted to produce a system enabling selection of material in order to maintain the manageability of an archive. This he did through the application of value to the records; completely in opposition to Jenkinson. A record's primary value was related to its initial function and reason for production. In other words it had a use for its creator. The secondary value was its cultural and historical value to others and this was again broken down into two subsets: evidential and informational. Evidential value was the records ability as evidence of an organisations functions and structure, whereas informational value referred to the records content and how useful it would be for future historians and researchers. It was this secondary value which changed a record into an archive by necessitating its selection for long term preservation. (7) For Schellenburg the Archivist was an important participant in the process of selection, working with record creators to select and preserve those records deemed to embody secondary values.

With respect to Jenkinson, if I applied his theory to the University Records which the service has just received, then we would be bound to accept every document which the marketing department transferred. I would be unable to make any judgement as to whether a document was important enough to keep. Whilst this application of value systems is controversial it is inevitable. Postmodernism has shattered the idyll of an archive as a neutral record of the past. As Terry Cook succinctly stated 'We are What we Keep; We Keep What We Are'. (6) Any archive or archivist is a product of societal values and norms. If we follow Jenkinson's ideal, instead of keeping what we estimate to be 35-40 boxes of material, we would have to find storage for possibly 4-5 times that amount; much of which may be found in other repositories, for example large folders of newspaper articles or records from other companies such as marketing catalogues irrelevant to the institution's past.

So does this mean that available space is dictating what and how much is kept? I think every Archivist is aware of the amount of room available, after all space is finite; it will run out.However, even if we had space to save every record produced would we really choose to do so?

With that comes the difficulty of managing an unwieldy amount of material. Excessive records means increased storage and increased resources which may result in the neglect of other archival matter of greater significance or rarity. There are very few, if any, archive services who although carrying out appraisal, do not have a backlog of material waiting to be catalogued. Imagine the situation if appraisal was considered unprofessional, even unethical and everything deposited was kept regardless. Schellenburg's secondary value is a pragmatic approach to what was becoming a real issue at the time, that is the quantity of material; however, the application of value is in direct conflict with the attributed characteristics of archival material and hence archival theory unless, as Duranti points out, use becomes the qualifying element. (8) This idea that archivists should try to predict future research topics and essentially react to the changing needs of historical scholarship has been heavily criticised within the profession ever since Jenkinson (9). It is then of little wonder that appraisal remains such a controversial and unsettled issue.

How would you choose which records should be kept?

1 Luciana Duranti,'The Concept of Appraisal and Archival Theory', American Archivist, 57 (Spring 1994)328-344 p329.
2 Helen Samuels and Richard Cox, 'The Archivist's First Responsibility: A Research Agenda to Improve the identification and retention of Records of Enduring Value,'American Archivist 51 (Winter-Spring 1988) quoted in Terry Cook, 'We Are What We Keep; We Keep What We Are': Archival Appraisal Past, Present and Future, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 32, 2, (October 2011) 173-189, p174.
3 Felix Hull, 'The Appraisal of documents - problems and pitfalls', Journal of the Society of Archivists, 6, 5, (1980) 287-290, p287.
4 Jenkinson, Hilary, A Manual of Archive Administration, (Oxford: Clarendon 1922) p11.
5 Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration, p15.
6 Terry Cook,'We Are What We Keep; We keep What We Are': Archival Appraisal Past, Present and Future, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 32, 2, (October 2011) 173-189.
7 Reto Tschan, 'A Comparison of Jenkinson and Schellenburg on Appraisal', The American Archivist, 65, (fall/winter 2002) p176-195.
8 Duranti,'The Concept of Appraisal and Archival Theory',p339.
9 Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration, p22. F. Gerald Ham, 'The Archival Edge', The American Archivist', Vol 38, No.1, (1975), pp5-13.

Tremough Estate Resource List

The Archive and Special Collections Service sometimes get enquiries asking about information on the history of the Tremough Campus. Until recently, due to the fact there is minimal information within the service collections, people have been directed to other local repositories, without any real knowledge of what resources may be there. Therefore, it was decided that a resource list should be compiled to show what sources exist and where they can be found.

Consequently, over the last couple of months, various local organisations and archives were contacted to find out what material they had relevant to the estate. This involved visits to The Royal Polytechnic Society History Group and Cornwall Records Office, as well as assistance from a number of other local organisations such as The Cornish Studies Library, Penryn Museum and The Royal Cornwall Museum. Newpaper articles, archaeological reports, books, images and maps were just some of the records found which helped to tell us something about the inhabitants of Tremough House. One such man was Benjamin Cloak, whose uncle was Benjamin Sampson, owner of Kennal Vale Gunpowder Company. When Sampson died, Cloak was the main beneficiary with the proviso that he would change his name to Sampson. Consequently, he became a very wealthy man and some time later bought Tremough.

(C) Archives & Special Collections Service

It would seem that Sampson was not the most financially able of individuals and relied heavily on his attorney, William Shilson; so much so that when Sampson died without an heir, Shilson inherited the estate. Unsurprisingly, the will was challenged and so Shilson did not take possession until 6 years after Sampson's death. Interestingly, Shilson already had ties to the Penryn area and Tremough having attended the Belle Vue Academy as a young man. (1) This academy opened at Tremough on the 21st January 1799 with the intention of educating 25 young gentlemen '...in the most useful branches of Classical and Mathematical Knowledge..' for the grand old sum of 25 guineas per annum. (2) By the time Shilson enrolled it had relocated within the town, but Tremough as an educational establishment is a theme which has reverberated throughout its history.

William was a very active man involved with many local organisations and groups, particularly within horticultural circles. He had been a patron and president of The Royal Cornwall Infirmary, he was on the board of Lostwithiel and Fowey Railway, member of the St. Austell Cottage Garden Society, Perran-Wharf Horticultural Society, and Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society to name a few. It is unsurprising that it was during Shilson's ownership of Tremough that the estate gained its reputation for rhododendrons under the expertise of the gardener at the time, Richard Gill. Indeed, Rhododendrons from Tremough even found themselves donated and relocated to Kew Gardens. Unfortunately, Shilson died in 1875, only 5 years after he took over the estate leaving Ann, his wife, who remained at Tremough until her death in 1896. They are both buried in Mabe Parish Church graveyard.

Certainly, this exercise has shown the power of archives to contribute towards our perception and understanding of place. A knowledge of the history and development of a site and those who have lived and worked there facilitates the process of place making and our understanding of sense of place.

(1) Margaret Grose & Shiona King, Tremough, Penryn: The Historic Estate, (Truro, M.H. Grose & G.M. Grose, 2003)
(2)Classified ads . Sun (London, England), Wednesday, January 2, 1799; Issue 1959
British Newspapers 1600-1900,  http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/bncn/start.do?prodId=BNWS&userGroupName=falmouth [Accessed 20th Dec 2012]

The Joys of Data Protection

Archives are made and formed by people and consequently include personal information about those people. Whether a researcher requests details of an ancestor who attended Camborne School of Mines, minutes from a meeting, or wishes to look at University records it is very likely that at some point personal information will become evident. Therefore, any researcher intending to look at archive material is required to sign an agreement that they will take responsibility for appropriate use of any personal information found, in accordance with Data Protection principles. It was for this reason I was keen to refresh my knowledge of the legislation. Subsequently, I undertook and completed a course designed to introduce University staff to their responsibilities under the Act.

Data Protection is not just an issue for professionals and organisations. Every individual is inherently entitled to a number of subject rights, such as the right to request information held about them by an organisation. The course approached what can be a very complicated subject by looking at these rights and how the act protects and influences every individual. It then progressed to our professional positions and the responsible use of other people's information in performing that role.

For any information professional, knowledge of legislation relating to information rights is essential. With the Information Commissioner able to impose fines of up to £500,000, it is an imperative to maintain an Archivist's and Organisation's professional reputation and the welfare of those individuals whose information we hold. Whether a breach occurs due to accidental loss, theft or simply released in error, the ICO does not differentiate. Having had both our laptops in the Archive Service recently encrypted to meet legislative requirements, it is interesting that just two months ago an unencrypted device belonging to the police service was stolen. This resulted in the loss of sensitive personal information relating to over one thousand people and the imposition of a fine of £150,000.

More recently privacy laws have come to the fore with the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry to repeal the journalism exemption within the Data Protection Act, and in so doing, providing legislative power over the press. The debate as to the importance of a free press within a democracy and the effects of legislative control on society demonstrate how far reaching the Data Protection laws are; thereby affecting all.



Webster, Ben 'Newspaper bosses told to prove they can sort out press without a new law', The Times 1st Dec 2012
Information Commissioner's Office, 'Monetary penalty notices' http://www.ico.gov.uk/enforcement/fines.aspx  [Accessed 3/12/12]

Book Conservation for all!

Throughout the last week I have attended a couple of sessions run by interns from a private book conservation company in Cornwall. Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund it enabled people from a variety of organisations to find out how best to display and handle their rare book collections. Representatives from The Royal Cornwall Museum, Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, Cornwall Records Office, Liskeard and District Museum and various other local organisations learnt how to produce display stands, book shoes and boxes for books at a price easily achievable by the smallest of organisations.

The sessions started with an introduction to the technical terms relating to the different parts and structures of a book. For instance, did you know that the little tab at the top of the book which is quite often used to pull the book off the shelf (don't pull it by this, it does damage the book structure), is called the headband? This moved on to how different construction methods alter the way a book wears and consequently the different ways we can reduce or minimise that wear, particularly when on display. We produced a display support customised for a book's individual  requirements and practised wrapping books in acid free tissue paper; a bit of pre-Christmas wrapping practise. You may be asking the same question I did, which is why on earth would you wrap a book in tissue paper? Well, apparently this is done if the book has pieces falling off, in which case it keeps all the material together and prevents the loss of any parts. Wrapping also provides protection to elaborate decoration on the cover and prevents abrasive action from neighbouring books, particularly if they have metal furniture, and finally, wrapping helps protect a collection if it is being relocated.

This workshop was really useful for us in the Archive Service. Currently our archive assistant, Carole, is cataloguing the Nick Darke Collection in which there are numerous note books. These are quite often spiral pads and other cheaply constructed notebooks which are not necessarily conducive to long term preservation. By using the techniques demonstrated, we will be able to make archival boxes for each individual notebook and so help reduce the wear and damage to the books by protecting them against dust, atmospheric pollutants and light. Such boxes are also able to minimise the effects of temperature and humidity fluctuations in the storage space.

But of course, whilst you can try to prevent damage from external sources it is very difficult to protect an item from the very material it is made of. One of the greatest enemies of paper conservation is the acidity of the paper itself. Prior to the early nineteenth century paper was made from plant fibres such as cotton or flax which have longer fibres and so produce a stronger material. Since then, demand for paper has meant new processes and materials have been employed. Some of these introduce acids to the material during the manufacturing process, for instance bleaching agents, or use materials which can become acidic. Cheap papers, such as newspaper, are made using wood pulp, which not only has shorter fibres, but also contains lignin. Lignin is a natural substance within wood, found in the cell walls, which provides the structure and strength of the plant, but as lignin deteriorates it gives off acid. Newspaper is notoriously fragile and prone to discolouration for this very reason. To add to the issue, acidity can migrate from one material to another, so although paper may not start off as acidic, it can become so through contact, eventually causing disclouration of the paper.

Within the archival world there is a huge array of different groups and organisations holding archives, all with very different access to resources and funding. When you send off for a catalogue from an archival company it can be hugely intimidating and overwhelming, not only with the amount of products on offer, but also the cost implications, which can leave many groups feeling as though there is very little they can do to care for their collections. What was so good about this workshop was that it introduced you to the basic materials needed and showed how cheaply and easily you can make a difference and care for your collection. As someone who has volunteered and worked at a variety of different archives, I can see how this workshop would be invaluable to groups with small budgets who struggle to get funding.

Gloves- on or off?

Last week we were involved with a number of sessions to introduce english students to the wonders of 19th century periodicals. The materials included copies of The Graphic, Lady's Own Paper and the Illustrated London News. For each session our Archivist and one of the Academic Liaison Team introduced the material and gave a short introduction on how to use and handle the materials. Much to our surprise, one of the students showed some disappointment when asked to wash their hands prior to handling the material rather than wearing the magic cotton gloves.

So, when and why did donning gloves first appear in the archival annals? Surprisingly, Baker and Silverman suggest the spread of gloves into the reading room has only occurred during the last twenty years and as such it is a fairly new development. [1] There are few who would disagree that throughout this period our appetite for the past has grown which has perhaps necessitated a response to control the ever increasing demands placed on some archival material.

It could also be said that gloves contribute towards our experience of the past by building a sense of anticipation and occasion when we view historical material. This effect has long been utilised by television to inspire awe in its audiences and in so doing build viewer expectations during historical and genealogical programmes.The gloves reinforce the fragility of the past as if without them to protect it, the past will escape our grasp and disappear into the ether. This has not been without benefit to the guiding archival principle of preservation. This deference to the past increases our sense of value in a document or object, so facilitating the archival goal of preservation by guiding a user's behaviour towards an archive.

Yet, the question as to whether or not you should wear gloves remains undecided. Many Conservators and Archivists no longer recommend their use. This is largely because the initial delight in donning the magic gloves is soon replaced by frustration and discomfort as sensitivity to touch is reduced, encouraging rougher treatment of the material through the inability to fully interact with the item. Neither The National Archive or British Library requires readers to wear cotton gloves, unless handling particularly delicate material such as photographs. [2+3] However, there are institutions that still prefer gloves to be worn and. noting the difficulties of using cotton, supply nitrile gloves instead. Archives Outside is a website managed by staff at the State Records Repository of NSW Australia, to help promote other archives in the state and advise on the care and management of those collections. The senior conservator there recommends in their general handling procedures that when handling archives, gloves should be worn where possible, but points out plastic as the best option, so circumventing the issues of reduced sensitivity. [ 4] Indeed, they even ran a poll of reader's preferences between nitrile and cotton, and  found cotton ranked very closely behind nitrile with 29% compared to 26%.[5] A surprisingly close result considering the supposed difficulties of using cotton.The Jury remains out!

What do you think? Is it best to recommend gloves or do you think most readers respect the rules and wash their hands?



[1]Silverman, Randy. & Baker, Cathleen A. 'Misperceptions about white gloves', International Preservation News, No. 37 Dec 2005  http://archive.ifla.org/VI/4/news/ipnn37.pdf  [Accessed 8/11/2012]
[2]The National Archives, 'What is the policy of the National Archives on wearing gloves to handle documents', http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/projects-and-work/preventative-conservation-measures.htm [Accessed 8/11/12]
[3]Pimlott, Jane. 'Use of white cotton gloves for handling collection items' http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/ccare/introduction/preservation/usingcollections/whitegloves.pdf
[4] Hadlow, Elizabeth. Archives Outside,'General Handling Procedures' http://archivesoutside.records.nsw.gov.au/moving-and-handling-archives-the-basics/ [9/11/12]
[5]Archives Outside, 'Glove Poll', http://archivesoutside.records.nsw.gov.au/quick-poll-do-your-readers-use-gloves-when-accessing-archives/  [9th Nov 2009]