This document summarizes the key points of a take-home exam for an introductory archives course. The exam asks the student to define and discuss archival concepts like provenance and intrinsic value. It also poses two essay questions, asking the student to draft a collection development policy as the new archivist of a college, and to discuss how the concept of access has changed in the archival profession over the last 30 years.

1. INFO560
INTRO TO ARCHIVES I – Fall 2012
Final Exam
Sarah Kazmierczak
This is a take-home examination. Your answers are due by 10 p.m. Tuesday,
December 11(EasternTime). Grades will be noted in Blackboard, but you will not
receive comments from me. If you want to learn more about your exam grade, contact
me.
You are expected to answer the following questions using materials covered in class,
including lectures, assigned readings, assignment-related work, and Blackboard
discussions. Please do not do extra research. Cite assigned readings as appropriate,
but full citations are not necessary. You are on your honor not to collaborate with
classmates on these questions. DO NOT FORGET TO SUBMIT THE ACADEMIC
HONESTY STATEMENT WITH YOUR EXAM!
I certify that my work in this course will be entirely my own work. I will not quote
the words of any other person from a printed source or a website without
indicating what has been quoted and providing an appropriate citation. I will not
submit my work in this course to satisfy the requirements of any other course.
Name: Sarah Kazmierczak
Date: 12/10/2012
I. Define and discuss the significance, use, and historical development of each of
the following for archival administration. Each answer should be no more than
250 words, double-spaced. (10% each x 4 = 40%)
A. Provenance
Provenance is the principle that defines organizing their collections, and is
based on the insight that the person or organization producing the records
determines their content (O’Toole, Cox, 102). If the archivist follows this
and lets the person/organization that created the records serve as the
organizational standard, then it’s easier to let the records fall into a more
natural grouping than imposing a standard on them (O’Toole, Cox, 103).
Basically, what it means is that an archivist should look at who created the
records and why, and group them based on that knowledge instead of
organizing them in a way that doesn’t fit their original creation. Connected

2. to this is the idea of original order, which is that records should be kept in
the order that they were created (O’Toole, Cox, 103). These ideas are
significant because as Cox and O’Toole state on page 104, they form the
basis of how an archivist looks at records and establishes the context that
an archivist works from. Provenance is also important because it helps
keep the records authentic (Pugh, 78). If the records stay in the order that
they were written, than it can be reasonably assumed that nothing has
been done to alter them or destroy their value. But if they’ve been mixed
up to fit someone’s idea of order, than it’s harder to trust them. Every
archivist and administration needs to know this. This probably developed
when an early record keeper noticed the records made more sense this
way.
B. Intrinsic value
Intrinsic value is the value that records have as artifacts, symbols, and
links to the past (Pugh, 35). They don’t have to be nationally important
items either, but anything that has value to the people who created them,
such as wedding photographs to a married couple. I would hazard a guess
to say that records and items having intrinsic value is the entire basis for
the archival profession, since if we don’t perceive things as having value,
why would we try to preserve and store them? Provenance may guide how
we process these records, but intrinsic value determines what the records
are in the first place. The first archives likely began when someone
decided that something had intrinsic value, and put it in a safe place to be

3. preserved. Archives aren’t just about records either, they can also be
storehouses for artifacts, and a good archivist and their administration
needs to know and understand why and how each record and artifact,
down to the smallest earring or sale bill has intrinsic value. It reminds me
of my trip to the McHenry County Historical Society and I saw their
museum and object room. All of those items had value to their creators,
and as archivists we acknowledge that value every day we work to
preserve and share them.
C. Descriptive standards
Descriptive Standards was described as being part of Descriptive Systems
in Pugh, and it refers to the formats for exchanging information, describing
archives and manuscripts and authority control over indexing terms (Pugh,
90). Not every standard is widespread however, and many repositories
have standards that only apply to them (Pugh, 90). Admittedly, the idea of
imposed descriptive standards can conflict with Provenance, in that
Provenance keep records in the original order, but some standards can
make organizing and locating records easier. Archivists and their
administrations need at least some standards in place in order to function
cooperatively. It’s interesting that the first national standard wasn’t
developed until the 1980’s, and that was the MARC record (Pugh, 91). I
became thoroughly familiar with the MARC record over the summer for
another class, which required us to create full MARC records both for
books provided through the course and books in our own possession.

4. This gave me a great appreciation for the MARC system, and I think that it’s
an excellent way of classifying and cataloging documents, but I don’t think
that it works for objects. As such other kinds of finding aids are
necessary. In any case, they are significant because they can provide
order out of chaos, and useful not only to archivists, but to patrons looking
for information.
D. Record
A record is any item or document that can be preserved and archived.
Pugh on page 11 describes records as documents created or kept during
the course of practical activity. Records form the basis for everything that
we do. A record is a window into the past, into the life of someone else and
a completely different time and place. Without records of any kind there is
no reason for archivists to exist and therefore their significance is
incredible. How they are used depends entirely on their content and
purpose, every record is unique. Their historical development can be
traced back to the first document ever created. When I think of records I
generally think of something that is printed, but I’ve learned that archivists
keep track of more than just documents, and now records are no longer
exclusively written. Today we have electronic records, which require
different standards and different ideas on how to manage and preserve
them, and the definition of record is changing to accommodate these new
kinds of records. Electronic records have the benefit of being easier to
access, but it’s also much harder to keep them in one location, since unlike

5. written records electronic records can be accessed anywhere, which
makes it harder for archivists and their administrations to continue to
justify their existence.
Write a essay, doubled-spaced, maximum 750 words, on each of the following
questions (30% each x 2 = 60%).
II. You have been hired by Buckingham College as their first archivist. The College
has never had a formal archives program, although materials have been
amassed by various departments over the institution’s 150-year history.
Furthermore, Buckingham College is located in Buckingham, New Hampshire.
The college is seen as a major focal point of this small community of small
business owners, farmers, and members of the College. A successful
fundraising campaign has resulted in a state-of-the-art climate-controlled vault
large enough to encompass what will likely become the Buckingham College
Archives’ first collections, while still allowing for growth. Therefore, your first
order of business is to draft a collection development policy. What would you
consider collecting? What might be outside the scope of the Archives? Please
elaborate on the rationale for your decisions and the steps you would take to
arrive at these decisions.
The first order of business that I would attend to as archivist would be to
gather all of the materials that the college had collected over the years into
one place and analyze their contents. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have a better
understanding of what the college and the community considers important,
and I’ll be able to base future decisions on that knowledge. Based on the
community, I would seek to gather materials that would be of interest to
them, so I would gather materials related to the history of the community,
farming and small business needs. Some history from the state itself
would help put things into perspective. From our lecture notes for week 3,
I know that any collection policy should be based on the needs of the
institution, the types of programs sponsored and whatever the priorities
are (Slide 6, 2012). Therefore my policy would be based around the

6. college’s needs, and I would collect materials to enhance the college’s
focus and mission. I don’t need to plan for the space for my holdings,
since it has already been provided, but I do need to factor in that I will likely
only have that one space to work from (O’Toole, Cox, 116). Slide 6 also
mentions that a policy can’t be set in stone, so any policy that I make will
have to allow for change as needed. Now, since I only have to one location
to work from, I need to institute some kind of deaccesioning policy in order
to handle this. I already have an example in the current situation of the
McHenry County Historical Society, and how they are currently
deaccesioning some of their collections in order to make room, so like
them I would search through what I already have and eliminate duplicates
of items unless I had a reason to have more than one copy of something.
So as far as the scope of the collections, I would exclude everything that
didn’t involve the college and the community it serves unless it was
something general that could enhance the collections (again, taking my
lead from the McHenry County Historical Society). I might even exclude
farm and small business related materials that I felt didn’t match the needs
of the community or college. Even though this is a college archive,
because it is such a focal point for the community I would include materials
from the community, which would make them feel more involved with both
the archives and the college itself. To aid with this process, I think that I
might hire volunteers from within the college to help me sort through all of
the materials gathered by the departments to see what stays and what

7. goes, because not everything that the college gathered over the years
might be worth keeping. Once I’ve finished with the housecleaning, I would
put out an announcement to the community to donate their materials to the
new archive, and I would sort everything depending on what it was and
when it was from. If voluntarily donating to the archives doesn’t get any
response, I would offer some kind of compensation to encourage
donations. I want this archives to serve everyone in the community,
especially after they worked so hard to raise the money to buy a climate
controlled vault, that’s why I want to collect from the whole community, not
just the college. I mean, the college is so important to the community, but
the college is also part of the community, so it wouldn’t be fair to exclude
their history from the archives. The collections relating to the college will
be the central focus, but the community will have the secondary place.
III. Discuss how the concept of access has changed within the archival profession in
the last 30 years. While your response is likely to focus on the effect of
technology, consider also other societal and research factors in your answer.
The first thing that springs to mind when I think about the societal changes
within the archival profession is one that took place within the library
profession as a whole. I remember reading (but I don’t quite remember
where) how during the cold war and even earlier collections and libraries
were strictly controlled to keep any content that the regime didn’t agree
with or thought was unpatriotic out of the hands of the public. If we are
talking about the last 30 years however, I think of one of the articles that I
did for my literature review, “Automated Information Management: Is There

8. a Role for the Archivist in the Office of the Future?” It isn’t so much the
technological factors in the article that get to me, but the attitude towards
the public that the author displays that shows how much has changed.
From the article: In my view it does not matter if the general public
"understands" what an archivist does and the importance of this mission
to society as a whole. Our work is too inti-mately concerned with matters of
research to be appreciated by the "man on the street." Quite frankly, I
doubt that we will ever achieve a sufficient level of comprehension about
archives and the responsibilities of archivists among the general public to
do the profession much good. Indeed, consider, if you will, the ignorance
of archival practices demonstrated by even those scholars who frequent
our repositories on a regular basis. Furthermore, the public's perceptions,
no matter how sympathetic, will not influence our prosperity or even our
survival.” (Kesner, 1984, 164). If this is the attitude that archivists had
towards the general public 30 years ago, it’s no wonder that we have to
justify ourselves today, people think we’re elitist! We’ve changed since
then; access is not limited to scholars only anymore. During the last 30
years, the internet has radically changed how information is accessed as
well as who access it. One of the articles we read for week 8, New Skills for
a Digital Era had a quote that made a particularly nice point about access.
The quote was “Working with patrons may be radically different in the
digital era. No doubt many patrons will continue to visit libraries and
archives to conduct research in person. Others will contact a librarian or

9. archivist for assistance, either through e-mail or an interactive chat service.
But many patrons will find and retrieve materials on their own without ever
communicating with an information professional”. Archivists no longer
have sole control over access to records and other kinds of information
that previously could only be found in a repository. Slide 8 from the lecture
notes for week 8 enhance this point with the statement about how
researchers now expect instant or near instant results and how archivists
are no longer required to obtain information in many cases (Slide 8, 2012).
It leaves us with the question, how do we compete with the easy access of
the internet for information? How do we justify our jobs now?
I referenced my visit to the repository, an article from my Lit review which I
will list below, and Lecture Notes, book pages and readings when
appropriate. All are cited in text.
Kesner, Richard M. (1984). Automated Information Management: Is There
a Role for the Archivist in the Office of the Future? Archivaria Vol 19, 162-
172.
Davis, Susan E. and Pearce-Moses, Richard. (2006). New Skills for a Digital
Era.

10. archivist for assistance, either through e-mail or an interactive chat service.
But many patrons will find and retrieve materials on their own without ever
communicating with an information professional”. Archivists no longer
have sole control over access to records and other kinds of information
that previously could only be found in a repository. Slide 8 from the lecture
notes for week 8 enhance this point with the statement about how
researchers now expect instant or near instant results and how archivists
are no longer required to obtain information in many cases (Slide 8, 2012).
It leaves us with the question, how do we compete with the easy access of
the internet for information? How do we justify our jobs now?
I referenced my visit to the repository, an article from my Lit review which I
will list below, and Lecture Notes, book pages and readings when
appropriate. All are cited in text.
Kesner, Richard M. (1984). Automated Information Management: Is There
a Role for the Archivist in the Office of the Future? Archivaria Vol 19, 162-
172.
Davis, Susan E. and Pearce-Moses, Richard. (2006). New Skills for a Digital
Era.