Digital Collections and Finding Aids - Explore a Box - Activity
Introduction | Explore a Box - Activity | Read a Finding Aid - Prep | Read a Finding Aid - Activity
Explore a digitized collection (15 minutes)
Archival collections usually consist of many individual items.
Think of a person’s file cabinet, or the documents on your computer. These items don’t always announce exactly what they are, nor is it always obvious how the individual items relate to each other. Researchers rely on the descriptions written by librarians and archivists to identify what materials might be useful to them.
Typically, researchers start with a topic and then search library catalogs and finding aids to find relevant materials. Once these materials are found, the researcher will request these materials to consult in the reading room.
In this activity, we are going to reverse that sequence. First, you will explore documents from a collection. Second, you will think about how to describe them for potential researchers.
This activity uses a collection at Houghton Library called the Carter Family Papers. This collection was fully digitized as part of the Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom project.
The collection is relatively small, consisting of only two boxes.
When you open the boxes up and start to explore their contents, you will find each item or group of items is in a folder, stacked and labeled in the box.
Go inside the box
Explore these three items in the collection, which show the range of material in these boxes:
Note: If you require an accommodation to access these materials please contact Unabridged staff.
What information do these items contain, and how might they relate to each other? Whether you are combing through scans or physical materials, it can be helpful to focus on physical details as well. Details such as what the item is made out of and the condition it’s in can help you understand how the item was used.
Questions to ask:
- What is this thing?
- Who wrote/made it?
- Why did they make it?
- When was it written/created?
- Why is it preserved?
- What questions does it bring up?
- Can you create a story around it?
- What do you want to know more about?
- What other material would you expect/want to find in the rest of this collection?
- Are there perspectives or voices you didn’t find reflected in the material?
Describe the box (5 minutes)
If you were describing these documents for a potential researcher, what information would you ideally want to include?
In the next section, you will be able to compare your ideas to our finding aid’s description of the Carter Family Papers.
Note: To explore more of the collection, you can browse the full set of items on the Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation, and Freedom collection site.
Introduction | Explore a Box - Activity | Read a Finding Aid - Prep | Read a Finding Aid - Activity