464 American Archivist / Vol. 58 / Fall 1995 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets to Practical MARC AMC; Or, Dancing with the Dinosaur at the Amistad FREDERICK STIELOW, WITH REBECCA HANKINS AND VENOLA JONES Abstract: This article discusses how theory and historical analysis can help inform man- agerial practices toward the integration of MARC AMC as part of a descriptive chain. The staff of the Amistad Research Center used their own experiences and research and Zipf s Law of Least Effort to produce techniques to simplify and rationalize the complex, library-based MARC format for their environment and ongoing technological change. The process is ongoing and far from revolutionary, but the techniques to date include the production of a standard cataloging worksheet and an authority list of subject headings. About the authors: Frederick J. Stielow is now the executive director of the Mid-Hudson Library System. He served as executive director of the Amistad Research Center from 1992 to 1995 and had previously taught archives and information technology at Catholic University and the University of Maryland. He has a dual Ph.D. in History and American Studies and an M.L.S. Stielow has published over seventy articles, including the Posner Prize-winning "Archival Theory Redux and Redeemed,'' and six books, including the Leland Award-winning The Management of Oral History Sound Archives. Well-known on the dance floor, he also consults for bodies from the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame and Jazz and Heritage Association to the World Bank. The initial draft of this article was written during the luxury of the 1994 Archival Summer Institute at the Bentley Library of the University of Michigan. Thanks to Susan Rosenfeld for additional comments. Rebecca Hankins is the archivist at the Amistad Research Center. Venola Jones is a cataloger at the Dillard University Library in New Orleans. She also does cataloging for the Amistad Research Center. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets 465 THE TRANSIT FROM THE ivory tower of teaching to the nitty-gritty of archival man- agement can prove a learning experience. Some colleagues have even developed a sordid interest in how one addresses real practice instead of just dancing around with theory. The admittedly verbose lead author of this article acknowledges the sig- nificance of this challenge. Indeed, this ar- ticle developed in partial response to a minor contretemps on his comments in the editorial pages of the American Archivist.' The argument, dating back to the au- thor's ill-spent youth and training as a sys- tems analyst and data processing section chief in the late 1960s, was then and is now that Machine Readable Cataloging (MARC) format seems to be a "technolog- ical dinosaur." MARC simply could not escape its origins during that almost paleo- lithic era of mainframes with expensive storage costs and military communication protocols. Since then we have had a mi- crocomputer revolution. The need to code and keep data neatly isolated is disappear- ing. Our vocabulary has enlarged to more "user friendly" data models. We have gone from lines of programming code to spread sheets and relational data base mod- els of the 1970s, to the word processing of the 80s, and to the interactive and hyper- media world of today.2 '"To the editor," American Archivist 55 (Fall 1992): 524. The comments were in regard to an ear- lier article by Bruce Bruemmer on oral history and the MARC-AMC format. My specific point was that not every individual tape merits an AMC record—that archival theory and descriptive practices allow us to operate at the collections level and avoid the library imperative for unit cataloging. (In a minor contre- temps, Bruemmer and Judith Campbell Turner took some exception to my thoughts, but still failed to deal with the collective nature of archival description in their subsequent letters to the editor.) 2In addition to his work while in a U.S. Army com- puter center, the author produced one of the first text- edited history dissertations in the mid-1970s. He also taught introductory computer and information systems classes to graduate students, and has consulted on au- tomated systems for a variety of businesses and in- stitutions. Just as the alligator survives from the "Age of Dinosaurs" and functions in fairly effective fashion, however, MARC has its place. The archival manager must recognize that MARC provides a key an- swer to the goal of a national inventory for archival records and has also succeeded in bringing archives into the "Information Age." Yet, such an embrace does not deny the responsibility of keeping up with on- going technological improvements or fu- ture changes; nor does it come without the need for historical and critical analysis to insure the system's proper integration within the institution.3 The following article describes an at- tempt to blend theory and practice from an institutional perspective. It rests on histor- ical and observational methods. With tongues and mixed metaphors firmly in cheek, we want to show how the Amistad Research Center is learning to dance with the MARCosaurus.4 The Setting The Amistad Research Center is one of the nation's premier minority archives. The first repository created with a specific eye to chronicling the Civil Rights Movement, the Center currently holds over 800 collec- tions with more than ten million documents and thousands of tapes and photographs. It has a 25,000-volume library and the Deep South's finest African-American art collec- tion. An independent organization, the 3The alligator analogy is to reassure Judith Camp- bell Turner, "To the editor," American Archivist 57 (Winter 1994): 8-9—who ignored the author's danc- ing style, but did question background knowledge on MARC and chastise with the faint hope of a devel- opmental framework, "Stielow is using dinosaur in the way paleontologists and evolutionary biologists would." 4Apologies to Trudy Peterson and her "Archival Bestiary," as well as the designer of a dinosaur tee- shirt that helped to symbolize the struggles of the Na- tional Archives' movement for independence in the early 1980s. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 466 American Archivist / Fall 1995 Amistad maintains its own Solinet/OCLC catalog account, but is housed at Tulane University with ties to the campus library system. In addition, Tulane provides an ethernet hub and direct access to computer experts and the Internet, including gopher and Web nodes. The Amistad joined the rush to MARC in the late 1980s with the aid of a Depart- ment of Education grant. All of the Cen- ter's archival collections then received AMC breakdowns and were downloaded into the OCLC national bibliographic da- tabase. Yet, by the arrival of a new director in mid-1992, the Center had not really in- tegrated MARC into its descriptive appa- ratus. We at the Center faced an ever growing backlog with few new MARC rec- ords to show. While significant, MARC en- tries still remained largely the domain of the cataloger. They were somehow apart from most of the archivists and their main- stay two-steps with registers and card in- dexes—an element for the specialist and, frequently, only an afterthought or a poten- tially easily overlooked, time-consuming burden. In the jitterbug toward a "sexy" and "funded" technological advancement, the Center may have abrogated some of its professional responsibilities. One doubts that we were alone. Some Historical Factors From at least the early nineteenth cen- tury and Antonio Panizzi's dictates at the British Museum, librarians were able to de- volve strict rules to standardize their de- scriptive practices across institutions. They produced a generic "book and catalog card model" with demands for precision of en- try of an eighteenth-century minuet. In the United States, the late nineteenth-century establishment of professional library edu- cation helped firm up a new national bib- liographic order. The model gained more clout and economic expediency following the introduction of printed card sets from the Library of Congress in the early 1900s.5 The underlying American intellectual schema went through several permutations before eventually linking back across the Atlantic and into the Anglo-American Cat- aloguing Rules. AACR was a special pio- neer. It was conceived to dovetail with emergent mainframe technologies of the 1960s Cold War era and lay the ground rules for projected MARC standards. Through the monumental labors of people like Henrietta Avram at the Library of Congress, MARC itself surfaced during the late 1960s. It helped provide the economies of scale, borrowing services, and "copy cataloging" that continue to drive library automation. Archives followed jazzier, idiosyncratic patterns and did not partake in the library evolution until recently. Even the devel- opment of an archival/library model with the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections in the 1950s was strangely dis- tant from the AACR that was being dis- cussed in the same halls at the Library of Congress. Instead, the AMC initiative emerged as the controversial breakthrough of the SAA's National Information Sys- tems Task Force in the early to mid 1980s—a decade and a half after MARC's creation.6 The AMC format helped introduce data processing concepts and a new precision to the art form of archival description. MARC entries inform the researcher around the world about the existence and location of a collection. They can facilitate the internal collocation of similar subjects across prov- enance lines and bring a new order to ar- chival management. With more than 'Historical information is drawn from notes from Stielow's courses on the History of Libraries and the History of Archives and Information Systems. 'Unfortunately, MARC-AMC evolved under the auspices of the far less archivally sensitive second edition, or AACR2. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets 467 500,000 records already logged, MARC has emerged as a standard for modern American archival description. Because of such factors, the Amistad re- mains professionally committed to MARC AMC, and proudly continues to proclaim that all its collections will receive such en- tries. We take it as a given that such a pres- ence is vital in informing the widest range of outside researchers on the existence of our holdings. We understand too that such acceptance implies acquiescence to a pan- oply of outside rules and the entry of such formerly alien tunes as "Subfleld Delim- iters" and "National Thesauruses." Managerial and Theoretical Considerations: Any archival manager knows that MARC is far from a panacea. While ar- chives did come to the MARC cotillion, they did not necessarily move with the same rhythms or partake as fully in its synergies as their library sisters. The key portions of archival description still re- main fuzzy and tied to descriptive narra- tives beyond the easy reach of a MARC record.7 The manager has bottom-line consider- ations. Archives do not fully join in such economic benefits as shared cataloging and interlibrary loan. MARC AMC depends on the expensive and time-consuming norm of "original cataloging." Many archives are linked to bibliographic utilities with costly annual fees and incur additional charges whenever they update records for growing collections. MARC may also call for in- creasing staff specialization and slow down the descriptive process, thus prolonging backlogs. 7For more background and additional challenges, see David Bearman, "Archives and Manuscript Con- trol with Bibliographic Utilities," American Archivist 52 (Winter 1989): 26-39. At the human level, how can any casual or infrequent user reasonably keep in mind the nuances of AMC? Who can memorize its seventy-seven variable-length field op- tions and their myriad of sub-field delim- iters? The visible format is dated with unnecessary redundancies between the var- iable and a block of fixed field codes, which are themselves largely unusable and unsearchable. The use of the 650 field with LCSH [Library of Congress Subject Head- ings] alone may be described as a tango within Dante's Inferno. Users face dizzy- ing possibilities and ever-changing rulings to meet national library needs. Library lit- erature and anecdotal evidence are pock- marked by repeated technical and intellec- tual failures to live up to its potential. Archivaria also recently illustrated a growing nest of acronyms from MAD to RAD, which have appeared as supplemen- tal standards to expand and potentially challenge MARC. MARC's limitations also are evident to anyone conversant with current data base design. From conversa- tions with network specialists, it seems that even MARC's underlying Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) or computer com- munications standard is under scrutiny and may prove insufficient to meet data transfer needs in the fiber optics age.8 Given that most archivists come with primary training in history, we can also posit a likely lack of awareness of pertinent managerial theoretical perspectives from other fields. For instance, George Zipf s Law of Least Effort is a recognized classic in information science. His is a form of game theory with cost/benefit checks for an applied and managerial context. Zipf ar- gues from the warning maxim that "jobs seek tools; tools seek jobs." He calls for avoiding the inefficiencies of unplanned or makeshift responses to new demands through the conscious development of 'Archivaria 35 (Spring 1993). D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 468 American Archivist / Fall 1995 techniques and tools designed for the least effort to accomplish the tasks. Zipf s Law suggests putting energy at the front-end to structure efficient mechanisms and hence heighten probable returns at the back-end. Thus, descriptive practice should be weighed and formulated to avoid demand- ing more time and energy than the likely value to be derived from the information. Although it may be possible to so describe a record as to virtually guarantee access, the economic and managerial equations must also be weighted with probability and risk assessment. The resulting equation suggests—Input (time * costs) should be < or = Output (value * costs). Without the formula, such evaluation relates directly to appraisal and many archival practices out- side of MARC AMC and its "flat" or uni- tary form of description.9 The Amistad Experience Historical, practical, and theoretical con- siderations thus led us to a deeper exami- nation of how best to use MARC AMC. We sought to maximize the integration of useful, staff-efficient, standardized, and easily accomplished description, with a minimum of energy. Our cautions were to avoid "reinventing the wheel" and stay with Zipf s injunctions, as well as follow- ing the rule of KISS—keep it simple, stu- pid. We needed to deal with our reality. This process largely relied on historical and ob- servational methods. The Amistad had to recognize that the overwhelming bulk of its descriptive tools were not tied to MARC nor adapted to accommodate its arrival. The register was still our primary focus and what our clients sought. We were already in the process of recasting this device to allow for enhanced retrieval through word- 'George Zipf, Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1949). processed narratives and box and folder lists formed with data base management software. Moreover, Internet ties appeared to be increasing our traffic more than MARC had.10 Other pragmatic factors intruded. We fea- tured trained library catalogers, several with MARC AMC workshop training, and a di- rector who made MARC entries for archives even before AMC. But the Center had not begun to address the full range of what MARC has to offer, and probably cannot do so with the staff at hand. Although quite active, the Center may, at best, catalog sev- enty-five collections in a year. Such a num- ber is barely sufficient to maintain the sophistication necessary for the complex art form of original cataloging. In addition, the Amistad must deal with "non-MARCian" processors. The Center can simply not af- ford to extend the requisite workshops to its transient pool of student interns and volun- teers working on its backlog. Our quest also led to the literature and contacts with other institutions. We learned that the basic recourse lay in solid manual approaches and the design of a standard worksheet. Nancy Sahli suggested such techniques early on in the MARC AMC revolution. As we interpreted her 1985 writings, an ar- chives could systematically foxtrot through the MARC maze by preselecting and stan- dardizing its fields for entry. We attempted to streamline and further simplify this pro- cess with forms design theory. Instead of seventy-seven major variable field options, why not present only a dozen and make most of those mandatory? Why not attempt to default all the fixed fields at the top of l0We do not view automated registers or Internet connections as being in an "either-or" conflict with MARC. Instead they are all related methods toward the same goal within our environment and its ties to a university library system. However, this does not mean that some archives may make a logical choice for themselves to concentrate electronic delivery on the Internet without a MARC format. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets 469 the record, rather than looking up the choices? Why not design to ease manual entry, but still enhance data retrieval: e.g., default where possible, avoid codes, and use check blocks with built-in terminology controls?" We even extended these latter concepts to subject selections in the 650 field. In- stead of the two volumes of LCSH, the Center developed a single sheet of terms and codes for our processors. The Sisy- phian choices were researched and broken down into rough "thesaurus" categories to reflect the activities of our preexisting and likely holdings. Other managerial decisions helped in- crease our "probable returns." In essence, we weighed the importance of promoting finely polished descriptions versus the value of getting information out quickly to researchers and attacking our backlog. We opted for speed and minimal energy. Worksheets would be addressed imme- diately following a quick preliminary in- ventory, or as early as possible during processing. Entries need not be very long, will usually be one-time ventures, and will be limited to a collection-level overview. (But, they could also be revisited if sub- stantial errors or other factors interfered.) Finally, we decided that the collection's processors should be primarily responsible for filling out the initial forms. The results could stand alone as the sole pointer, especially for a small, less important collection. But the MARC rec- "Nancy Sahli, MARC: For Archives and Manu- scripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1985). We looked at a number of later publications and forms at several institutions. In addition, Stielow had built a MARC archival worksheet at the Univer- sity of Southwestern Louisiana as early as 1982. Among other features, our forms design approaches for check blocks are consciously limited by the Miller Number of 7 (+ - ) 2, which conforms to human capacities, versus overly long lists of terms fit only for the computer. Note, too, the placement of a con- trol number with year of creation and retention sched- ule. ord could also be an introduction to stan- dard finding aides with box and folder lists for larger and more complex collec- tions. At the Amistad, MARC does not stand at the apex; rather, it is an initial step and integrated into an overall de- scriptive chain. Information from MARC helps inform other parts of that chain. Eventually, AMC records will likely link, or "front-end," to a full range of electronic in-house registers and database indexes, which will also be placed on our gopher and Web nodes. Compromises and Bending the Rules The cognoscenti are aware of legalistic problems—elements that differ from the originating library model and may trouble the more literal MARC interpreter. To Steven Hensen, for example, in the APPM bible, "In such a system, a catalog record created according to these rules is usually a summary or abstract of information con- tained in other finding aides." His under- lying assumptions follow from the finished book model with a finding aide as "chief source of information." Theoretically, the in- tense scrutiny given in the production of the finding aide will lead to more accurate and "cleaner" records.12 Our waltz was obviously a compromise to fit a particular situation, but we did have internal evidence to argue for our simplified, early entries. For instance, we had found no evidence of increased use through MARC. In light of our other find- ing aides, automation advances, and user requests, we also found little motivation to expand the size of our catalog records. We were aware, too, that many of our col- lections continued to receive deposits and had economic imperatives against costly and awkward on-line updating. Most im- uSteven Hensen, Archives, Personal Papers, and Manuscripts, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1989), 4. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 470 American Archivist / Fall 1995 portantly, a review of earlier and properly formulated entries from completed regis- ters and trained staff showed a great deal of inconsistency and "dirt." The sum- mary information in the scope note often appeared distant from a comparative read- ing of the finding aid. Subject headings were often isolated "break dances," too overly diverse to help tie our collections together.13 We still tried to build in qualitative safeguards. We knew that student interns and undertrained staff would have to be involved even to dent the backlog. Thus, we made certain that all staff and interns received similar training in an attempt to coordinate in-house processing. They also have ready recourse to key background readings and an internal processing man- ual. Each collection is managed by a Holdings Folder and Processing Control Sheet, which helps coordinate and inte- grate the full range of processing. It con- tains both check blocks to indicate the level of description, and pertinent infor- mation for the MARC entry. Moreover, the Senior Archivist provides the proces- sors with tutelage and assistance in com- pleting their sheets. Finally, trained catalogers make the actual data entries and are responsible for quality and authority control, which involves additional author- ity checks through an off-line microcom- puter cataloging package. Although Hensen's recommendations did not meet our needs or experiences, the Center was still committed to following the rules. Fortunately, he also had hinted at the '•"Helen Tibbo, Abstracting, Information Retrieval, and the Humanities: Providing Access to Historical Literature (Chicago: American Library Association, 1993), demonstrates the difficulties in producing a good abstract—problems that are exacerbated the fur- ther removed they are from the original author. Tibbo, who is one of the coming lights in the field, has also provided some disturbing information on impractical- ity of complex subject headings in actual application within current on-line systems. absence of an absolute requirement for the record, just "to be an abstract of a more substantial finding aid." Fortunately too, OCLC obligingly provided us with a con- comitant technological break. Sitting in the fixed fields at the start of entry screen in OCLC is a demand for encoding level (Enc.Lvl). OCLC's MARC AMC Catalog- ing Manual reveals that Enc.Lvl comes with several options—from " 1 " , showing that processing and description are com- plete to " 5 " , indicating incompleteness. The Amistad elected to rhumba and throw the " 5 " switch. MARC AMC Coding Sheet Rather than prolong what could become a tedious theoretical debate, or go beyond still preliminary findings—let us examine the dance card. The Amistad's AMC Worksheet is far from revolutionary; many institutions regularly employ similar de- vices. Ours is perhaps designed to be more "transparent" and user-friendly. At pres- ent, it appears as a two-page form, mim- icking the pre-prepared OCLC computer template, with an explanatory guide in- cluded. [Worksheet and Guide are included as Appendix A-Ed.] Conclusions Let us admit that the reality of imple- mentation—of going from theory to prac- tice—can be frustrating. We are in the midst of an information revolution. Archi- vists and catalogers do have problems communicating, and the case is magnified when dealing with automation and net- working specialists. Specific software packages and the need to conform to an on- line bibliographic utility can provide slam dance nightmares, which lay waste to the- ory and logic. For example, we could not default all the fixed field codes. If research- ers were to receive a reasonable initial on- line pointer, OCLC requires that DATES be filled in—even though they are repli- D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets 471 cated at the end of the 245 field. LCSH subject headings caused expected head- aches and a tarantella back to the manuals for sub-field indicators before they would be accepted by the system. Finally, we concede that we are still studying at the Arthur Murray School for MARC Dancers. The readers are only glimpsing a portion of a work in pro- gress—the MARC section of what is in- tended to be an integrated and highly computerized system. Our future plans in- clude descriptive apparatus with hypertext links from all key terms and subjects, pointers to the location of the materials, and, eventually, hypermedia buttons to the actual information and across collection lines. Much study and quality control re- mains to be done. The Center invites com- ments and criticism from others in a similar struggle, so we can begin to rock-n-roll in the Information Age—especially before the new integrated format finally hits the air- ways with sounds guaranteed to disturb ar- chivists and send us back for new dance lessons once again.14 14Those interested in how we are developing our overall procedures can glimpse them in the Proce- dures Section of our Installation Manual, which is available on line through the Amistad's web page or directly in the gopher under Departments in go- pher@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu. D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 472 American Archivist / Fall 1995 Appendix A AMISTAD RESEARCH CENTER MARC-AMC FORM Processor: Date Finished: ToCataloger: OK-date: FIXED FIELD CODES [predetermined, except Dates and if added languages] OCLC: NEW Rec. Stat: n Type: b Bib lvl: c Source: d Lang: eng [• other languages: ] DCF: Repro: Enclvl: k Ctry: us Desc: Mod rec: Dattp: i Dates: , [repeat from 245 field] Variable Length Fields 035 Collection Number [take from "Acquisitions Register"]: Main Entry [check appropriate category, fill in information] • 100 1-person; 9 100 2--family; • 110 2~corporate body Last Name: First: Middle/(maiden) Dates [optional] ($f) year born- , year died-- 245 10 Title ($a) [Check one]« Archives (corporate body/institution) • Papers (person or family) t Collection (artificial grouping) Collection Year Span ($f) , [give earliest and latest years] 300 Extent. [if> 3" fill in] linear feet [if< 3" fill in no. of] items 340 03 Medium [optional—only for collection with non manuscript materials] [Check any applicable] • painting; •sculpture; •photographs; •audiotapes; • videotapes; •computer files • or~ 500 General [optional—use to list related collections by title] See Also: 520 Summary and Scope Note [describe collection in a few sentences that define the subject and indicate key events/locations/individuals, as well as our series breakdown-may abstract Register's Collection Overview] 545 Biographical/Historical Note [optional, if you feel 520 note needs more on the subject's life or milestones- relate to Register's chronology] 555 0 Finding Aids Note [optional, check any present] • register; • computer inventory; o gopher file, o mosaic file Subject Added Entries [Use appropriate codes (600=Person; 610=Corporate; 650=Topic; 651=Place); list the key persons, institutions, or places : Go to the "Topic Sheet for LCSH" for 650 terms] 6 _ 6 _ 6 _ 6 _ 6 _ 6 _ 851 Location ($a) [predetermined] Amistad Research Center, Tilton Hall, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118 $d USA E-Mail: amistad ©mailhost. tcs.tulane.edu Marc.94-lyr D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 From Managerial Theory and Worksheets 473 Amistad Research Center MARC-AMC WORKSHEET GUIDE Instructions: Processors must be aware that their collections require MARC-AMC Worksheets [the initials stand for Machine Readable Cataloging-Archives and Manu- scripts Collections]. MARC includes unseen data communications protocols, which you do not have to worry about, and the visible fields on your MARC-AMC Worksheet. Most of the fixed fields at the top of the form are already completed. You will con- centrate on abstracting information within the remaining variable length fields. The results will be converted into a short "catalog card" image for the online public access catalog (OPAC). This guide is to help explain the fields and how to enter data on the worksheet. It will include several sample entries.* Should you want more information refer to the APPM Manual or one of several articles and books available to you on the subject in the professional reference shelves. If you have additional questions or problems, ask your supervisor, the Senior Archivist or director. Write for clarity and to communicate with others outside the Amistad. Keep sen- tences concise with no more than 25 words. In general, try to report out what you would think a typical researcher might need to find the information. Data Entry A. Initial Blocks: Fill in your name and the date that you complete the worksheet. All Worksheets go to the Catalog InTray for review—feel free to ask to help with the data entry. B. Fixed Fields: With two exceptions do not make any entries: 1. If you encounter a significant amount of non-English materials, check the box next to LANG and enter the languages; 2. DATES, you will enter the earliest year, the latest year of materials that you encountered during your Preliminary Inventory—entry the same as the 245 field. C. Variable Length Fields: The information to complete these sections will come from your research and initial inventorying of the collection, as well as the Processing Control Sheet and Holdings Folder. The numbers are tag lines to define data entry elements and an asterix * before any tag means that entry is optional—all other fields must be completed before passing the form to the cataloger. 035—Collection Number [found on the Processing Control Sheet, or ask the Ac- quisitions Archivist.] Main Entry [use this area to enter information on the provenance or creator of the material. First check the appropriate 100's delimiter—the materials come from a person, family, or a corporate body (a business, college, association). Next enter the proper name of this originator—if you have questions, the cataloger and Mic-Me software have a predetermine "authority list" of some of the names. Finally, if known and verified, enter the year in which the originator was born or founded and any death or closing year.] D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021 474 American Archivist /Fall 1995 245—Title [we have limited you to three choices: check "Archives" for the records of a corporate body; "Papers" for a person or family's documents; or, "Collections." The last refers to any holdings without clear provenance and that we have artificially drawn together to describe a person or event—for example, "The David Duke Collec- tion" was not donated by Duke, but brought together by the staff as we monitored his actions.] Collection Year Span: Indicate the earliest, latest year of the materials that you encountered in the collection (Duplicate in DATE: in fixed field area). 300—Extent [approximate the size of the holdings: if less than a Hollinger Box, give the number of items; if larger, indicate the number of feet and/or a decimal equiv- alent for less than a foot—e.g., .6 linear feet.] 340—Medium [optional] unless the holdings have materials other than paper records. Check any and all applicable blanks and write in any materials not covered by the check list. 500—General Note [optional] use to show if it relates significantly to other holdings in the archives, or to cross reference for materials that were pulled from another holding—e.g., an artwork that was separated into the art collection. 520—Scope and Content Note [this is the heart of your work]—a narrative para- graph on the holding and any significant people, place, or events that it helps inform. Think of this as an abstract of the Collection Overview from a register. Keep it short, but you can use the reverse side of the sheet for more. 545—Biographical Note [optional, but highly recommended and may extend to the verso also] Build a short biographical statement chronicling the person, family, or in- stitution. This should put stress on the time frames/events that are actually documented by the materials and feed to the Chronology of a Register. 555—Finding Aides Note [optional, unless one of the terms is checked on the Pro- cessing Guide Sheet] You should check any and all applicable entries—are you doing a register; does the register include a Paradox DBMS index of the inventory; is that material scheduled for downloading into a textual "gopher" and/or "Mosaic" hyper- media platform. 600—Subject Added Entries [with the scope note, the key pointers for researchers] First select the significant persons, families, events, institutions that you have cited in your 520 or 545 notes—go back and correct any oversights. Fill in the appropriate numerical tags found in the header notes and then the selection. Once that is done, turn to the Subject Headings—650 Topic Notes guide sheet, which is an authority list of acceptable terms from the Library of Congress's Subject Headings. Refer to the direc- tions and make the appropriate selections and entries. 851—Location [the standard address to contact the Center] *Sample Entries [eliminated for this paper] D ow nloaded from http://m eridian.allenpress.com /doi/pdf/10.17723/aarc.58.4.2h24853221046411 by C arnegie M ellon U niversity user on 06 A pril 2021