Integrating Archival Processing into a Technical Services Unit: Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned
Technical service units have traditionally included a wide variety of specialized areas of librarianship, from acquisitions and cataloging to collection development and scholarly communications. When presented with the opportunity to integrate archival processing into our cataloging and metadata unit, there were many practical considerations that need to be addressed in order to successfully merge the two areas, including managing administrative and personnel management changes, gaining responsibility for our institution’s archival processing and management system (i.e., ArchivesSpace), hiring and training student workers to assist with data entry and cleanup, and implementing solutions to address storage, transportation, and preservation for archival materials. However, this also presented us with the opportunity to standardize metadata standards and controlled vocabularies across traditional cataloging and archival processing, analyze and streamline workflow to avoid single points of failure, and increase communication and diversification of skills across personnel. This presentation will include a brief overview of the challenges and opportunities experienced during this transition as well as the lessons learned after a year working with these integrated areas.
Speakers
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Catherine SmithHead of Metadata and Archival Processing, The University of Alabama LibrariesShe/Her/Hers
Catherine Smith is the Head of Metadata and Archival Processing at The University of Alabama Libraries. She received her MLIS from the University of Kentucky in 2013. -
Emily Miller
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Kendall Hallberg