Performing Archival Research

In order to efficiently research wtih archival materials, it helps to understand how archives are created, formed, and maintained by archivists.

When a new collection first gets to the Archives, archivists process the materials to prepare it for use by researchers. Processing involves surveying the materials in the collection, evaluating their research potential, and deciding what actions are needed to preserve and provide access to them in the long term. Archivists then arrange and describe the materials in the collection to the best of our ability so that researchers like you can find what they need. 

Arrangement is the order or sequence of materials in a collection, as well as the action of placing materials in that sequence. Provenance is the guiding principle behind archival arrangement. You may know the term from art history, in which provenance refers to the record of ownership of a work of art. In the archival world, provenance similarly refers to the origins, custody, and ownership of an archival item or collection (from the SAA Dictionary). Provenance tells us from where and who the materials came, and how and when they got to the Archives.

Provenance emphasizes that the relationships archival materials have to each other as a collection are just as important as the individual documents themselves.  According to provenance, archival records should remain together and in their original order as much as possible from when they were first created or used. 

Take for example, an unlabeled photograph which may have little meaning if we do not know when, who, or why it was taken:

The same unlabeled photograph situated in a scrapbook amongst letters, diary entries, and souvenirs tells us much more:

High School Class of 1895 Reunions Scrapbook. Alumni Collection. Pratt Institute Archives.

Because archival collections do not typically come with inventories or tables of contents, archivists need to spend time examining their contents in order to help you find what you need. Archival description refers to the work archivists do to gather and present information about collections to researchers. Archival description is presented in the form of finding aids, which act as guides to locating materials within a collection.