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Accessioning Levels

Overview

The accessioning of special collections and archives materials is a foundational archival function and should happen as soon as possible after the formal transfer from the donor to the repository. This will ensure that a repository has basic physical and intellectual control of the materials, will allow conservation staff to address urgent preservation concerns, and will prevent the accumulation of an accessioning backlog.

The three suggested levels to accessioning are standard, optimal, and value added.

  • Standard (required): Ensures basic physical and intellectual control of the materials. Considered the bare minimum of what is necessary for good stewardship of acquired special collections and archives material.
  • Optimum: Provides additional information which improves discoverability, accessibility and use. Provides a solid infrastructure upon which any future archival work may be built.
  • Value Added:  Supports the highest level of discoverability, accessibility and use. May reduce or eliminate the need for more formal processing.

Each approach allows technical services staff to gain basic physical and intellectual control over the materials, however it is not always feasible or necessary to accession collection materials to the same level of detail. Factors such as staff time and resources, expected time to processing, the current state of the collection materials, and the donor agreement may all impact selecting the appropriate level.

While it may not be possible or feasible for every collection or record group to be accessioned at the optimum or value added level, any descriptive work completed at the point of accession and any accompanying documentation about the accession provided from donors, transferring offices, and collections/curatorial staff can streamline accessioning, thus reducing repository backlogs and facilitating timely access to collection material.

Levels

Intellectual Control

Standard
  • Accession record including at least the DACS single-level required elements.
Optimum
  • Accession record including at least the DACS single-level required elements.
  • MARC record with DACS single-level optimum elements.
Value Added
  • Accession record including at least the DACS single-level required elements.
  • MARC record with DACS single-level. optimum elements.
  • Authority work completed.
Level of Description

Standard
  • Collection level
  • Container-level inventory with containers undifferentiated (e.g., Carton 1, Carton 2, Box 1, Box 2)
Optimum
  • Series
  • Container-level inventory with container-level titles. Container level titles should be as brief as possible.
Value Added
  • Folder/Item
  • Folder or item-level inventory.
Physical and Intellectual Arrangement

Standard

None, leave as is.

Optimum

None, leave as is.

Value Added

Obvious groupings of materials co-located.

Physical Control

Standard
  • Container labels with identifiers applied.
  • Onsite storage location assigned and tracked.
  • Audiovisual and digital media identified, separated, and inventoried, noting media type and original location. Inventory is in aggregate.
Optimum
  • Container labels with identifiers and barcodes applied.
  • Onsite storage location assigned and tracked. Materials could also be transferred to Harvard Depository (HD) with addition of barcodes.
  • Audiovisual and digital media identified, separated, inventoried noting media type and original location. Inventory is in  aggregate.
Value Added
  • Container labels with identifiers and barcodes applied.
  • Onsite storage location assigned and tracked. Materials could also be transferred to Harvard Depository (HD) with addition of barcodes.
  • Audiovisual items and storage media: identified, separated, inventoried, noting media type and original location. Inventory is item-level and all media labeled with a unique ID.
Preservation

Standard
  • Rehouse materials into containers if not usable by a user in a reading room or unable to safely store as is.
Optimum
  • Rehouse materials into standard size containers that are appropriately full.
  • House loose items.
  • Replace folders, binders, or envelopes only if unservable.
  • Basic preservation concerns addressed.
Value Added
  • Rehouse materials into standard size containers that are appropriately full.
  • House loose items.
  • Remove all materials from binders or envelopes and rehouse in folders. 
  • All preservation concerns addressed and items housed or treated appropriately
Appraisal

Standard
  • None. For collections with privacy concerns throughout, restrict the entire collection and review for use on demand.
Optimum
  • Appraise series, sub-series or other large discernible groupings of material.
  • Avoid finer weeding.
  • If privacy concerns exist throughout an entire series, restrict the series and review for use on demand.
Value Added
  • Appraise more granularly.
  • Weeding of duplicate materials.
  • Deaccession materials following repository guidelines.
  • Access restrictions identified at the collection level of the finding aid and or MARC record and where they appear in the collection as required.