Performing Archival Research

This top-most archival level refers to the organization, institution, or physical space that houses an archives and its collections. Some large institutions may have several different repositories. Pratt has just one: The Pratt Institute Archives.

Within a repository, are its various collections. A collection refers to a discrete grouping of materials usually produced by a single original creator, which can be a person, family, organization, corporation, or community group. Collections can range in size from one or two boxes, to hundreds of boxes. They also can contain a variety of different types of materials such as paper records, photographs, digital media, physical artifacts, and more. Archival collections are typically formed based on their history as a group of documents, rather than around a specific subject or topic. As a result, you may need to consult various collections with related materials during your research.

Types of Collections

There are three primary types of collections you will encounter while performing archival research: 

1. Records collections consist of documents created and maintained by an organization or entity. In the Pratt Archives, records have been created by Pratt Schools, departments, and other organizations affiliated with Pratt. Records collections typically include administrative materials like meeting minutes, correspondence, financial records, annual reports, and more.

   Examples include: 

   • Records of the School of Art and Design (a school of the Institute)
   • Records of the Library (an Institute department)
   • Records of Beta Phi Mu (an Institute honor society) 
   • Records of the Pratt Institute Neighborship Association (an affiliated organization)

2. Papers are collections created and kept by an individual and/or family. They are also called manuscript collections. In the Pratt Archives, most papers were created by the Pratt family, alumni, faculty, and other individuals related to the Institute. When you view a papers collection, you can often expect to find handwritten letters, scrapbooks, artwork, writings, memorabilia, and more.

   Examples include: 

   • Charles Pratt Papers (founder)
   • Alice E. Fitts Papers (Director of the Department of Kindergartens) 
   • Amy Brook Snider Papers (faculty)
   • Maryette Charlton Papers (alumni)

3. A Collection (not to be confused with the general term for any archival collection) is one in which materials have been intentionally brought together by the archivist, outside of the original circumstances in which they were created (i.e. against their original order). Archivists have identified a reason for these materials to be collected together to facilitate research and to tell the story of a particular group or subject. 

   Examples include: 

   • Alumni Collection
   • Pratt Institute Memorabilia Collection
   • Vertical Files Collection
   • Photograph Collection

After the collection-level, there are two parallel levels: the way the physical files are organized amongst boxes and containers, and the way the collection is conceptually, or intellectually, organized into series and subseries. The physical and intellectual arrangements of an archival collection are related, but do not always correspond one-to-one. 

Boxes & Containers
In physical terms, the next level of an archival collection is composed of boxes and containers which hold the materials and keep them safe for long-term storage. When you request materials to view from the archives, archivists will bring these boxes to you during your appointment. 

Series & Subseries
Intellectually, files of documents are arranged into series and subseries. You can think of them as conceptual containers that hold related materials together and help you find what you need. A subseries is just like a series except it is nested underneath a series. Series and subseries can be formed based on an original filing system maintained by the creator of the records, or they may be created by the archivist during processing. Archivist-created series will usually be based on the different categories or formats of the materials, or the types of activities that produced the records. 

How does this affect my research?
The distinction between physical and intellectual arrangement is something you likely won’t need to worry about when performing archival research. Because researchers don’t have access to the physical stacks at the Pratt Archives, you’ll primarily be finding materials by navigating collections’ series and subseries. 

You might run into it if you are looking at materials that have been added to a collection after the bulk of it had already been processed. Instead of physically reorganizing the entire collection, which can be extremely time-consuming, archivists will physically place the new materials at the end of the collection and intellectually place the materials within the series or subseries to which they belong. Long story short, if archivists pull boxes labeled #2-4, and then a box #32 for you, rest assured nothing is missing, and the materials you requested are in the right place. 

Next, boxes and series contain files, which hold groups of individual related items usually housed in folders. Sometimes, large files may take up more than one folder!

The last, and most specific archival level, is an item. One individual item can be something such as a book, document, photograph, or object. Because archives can hold thousands upon thousands of items, it is rare for archivists to maintain item-level inventories of collections. There simply isn't enough time to read everything! But unique collections sometimes may have item-level records.