Single Item Manuscript Acquisitions

Manuscripts Division Collections: Single-item Acquisitions Management Guidelines 

Status

Approved by DSSG on 12 Dec 2019 

Executive Summary 

The following guidelines relate to the management of single-item acquisitions for Manuscripts Division Collections. Within scope are individual items and small aggregates (usually fewer than 10 items), regardless of format, that are managed by processing staff and described by a single record. The Single-item Manuscripts Description Working Group recommends that single-item manuscripts be added to an existing, sole general collection, General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection (C0140), rather than being distributed to various artificial collections (collections created by the library or a donor and based on format or subject). This approach will avoid the lack of clarity associated with subject-based collections and enhance discoverability of these materials. 

Current Practice/Prior Considerations

Manuscripts processing staff recently decided to reassess how single-item or small manuscript acquisitions are managed, as the current practice of managing manuscript materials by format and subject is a legacy practice that had not been reviewed since it was put in place a couple of decades ago. Processing staff has developed recommendations, which better align with archival standards, for how these materials should be managed; this current document is largely based on their work. 

Recommendations

If the library continues to collect single-item or small acquisitions, manuscripts processing staff will manage these materials by adding items to the General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection (C0140) rather than distributing the materials to various artificial collections (collections created by the library or a donor and based on format or subject). Thus, processing staff will no longer add materials to collections such as: General Miscellaneous Bound Volumes (C0938), Princeton University Library Collection of Western Americana Photographs (WC064), Princeton University Library Collection of Western Americana Miscellaneous Manuscripts (C1446), Princeton University Library Collection on Slavery in the Americas (C1210), Princeton Greek Manuscripts Collection (C0879),  Princeton Miscellaneous Hellenic Studies Collection (C0958), and other legacy subject and format-based collections. Items may, however, still be added to creator-based assembled collections, i.e. collections that the library formed through the process of combining single-item acquisitions of a particular person, family, or organization, particularly in cases where a particular fund is used that requires that acquisitions be managed as an individual collection. These items, regardless of type and format, will be treated like any other such material that would be found in a manuscript collection. 

Aside from exceptional cases in which preservation issues are a concern, items will be housed in the same manner as other manuscript materials or collections. Legacy collections will be left as-is, and processing staff will add a note to the finding aids indicating that the formation of these collections was a legacy practice to which we no longer adhere. This should not affect discoverability, as materials of the same creator or those of the same subject located in various collections are currently discoverable through subject, keyword, and advanced keyword searching. Notably, creator names are indexed fields. 

As part of the finding aid for General Manuscripts Miscellaneous Collection (C0140), the description for these items will include the creator and controlled access points/subject headings for optimal discovery. All individual components will also be exported and added to the catalog in the same way that Systems is managing the creation of collection-level MARC records from EAD files. Continuing to describe these materials using EAD rather than creating MARC records offers an efficient workflow for staff. EAD also offers more flexibility for describing archival materials than MARC, by providing a more detailed data structure for description. 

Rationale

As articulated above, the recommended approach, which is in line with archival standards, will result in a more streamlined experience for researchers working with archival materials. It will also benefit users by allowing for increased discoverability of these types of materials as they will be discoverable in both the finding aids website and the catalog. (Loose materials in C0140 are currently only discoverable via PULFA and bound items via the catalog.)  

Possible Exceptions and Questions

Exceptions to this approach may include: non-Roman language materials, specifically Islamic and Hebrew manuscripts, as well as Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts (including those in the Medieval and Renaissance MSS Collection and the Garrett Collection of Medieval and Renaissance MSS) and papyri. All of these materials are currently or have in the past been cataloged by CAMS staff following current descriptive standards. Such exceptions should be determined by the appropriate stakeholders, including the ADAPT team leader, the director of cataloging & metadata services, and selectors and curators.

There are a couple of questions regarding these (potential) exceptions that require further consideration. One concerns the specific nature of the Islamic and Hebrew manuscript materials collected by the library, and whether they are better served by MARC records following early manuscripts standards, or by EAD records (with the input of language specialists). Another relates to the Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature (RTC01), which contains Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts that are currently described using EAD -- an “exception to the exception” for Medieval/Renaissance manuscripts. We recommend that metadata for the Taylor collection and other collections of early manuscripts described in EAD be exported to MARC to facilitate discovery of these collections alongside similar items described in MARC in the catalog.