Posted on behalf of Callum Marquis-Carr, Head of Archives.
October is American Archives Month so we’re answering some common questions we get about the Genesee Historical Collection Center (GHCC) and archives in general.
What is an archive?
An archive is an institution where you can access original historical documents for research. This is where history is collected, physically preserved, and protected. Much of what archives carry is physical media, sometimes in dead formats, and often not digitized due to time and budget constraints.
As time wears on more and more collections are born digital documents which require digital archiving in both cloud and hard drives in multiple locations. Digital collections are great for archives due to their accessibility. If people can't come in, they can still see some things on our digital display.
What kind of stuff gets saved in an archive?
Documents in an archive include photographs, journals, correspondence, organizational documents like meeting minutes, and scrapbooks. Archives also collect other materials like audiovisual materials, oral histories, art, and some smaller 3D objects.
Archives will have an area of specialization and focus, such as the GHCC, which specializes in labor and social history in Flint and university history. In contrast, the Sloan Museum focuses on General Motors and Buick, and the William Clements Library in Ann Arbor focuses on early American history.
Unlike museums, archives mainly deal with documents, audiovisual materials, and other flat materials like photographs with only a smattering of related 3D objects. That being said, almost anything with research value is fair game for an archive to collect if it fits within the collection scope.
How do I use an archive?
Often, it’s just working up the bravery to send an email or step through the door! Different archives have different requirements and protocols for access. First, check out the archive’s website for access information, including scheduling an appointment to use the reading room and requesting materials in advance. You'll also find the workhorse of the archival world - the finding aid (more on that below).
If anything is still unclear, email the archive staff. Archivists want you to come in and use these things. They have a professional, ethical responsibility to provide access to materials in the collection as long as it does not put the materials themselves at risk.
Our campus archive is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday - Friday to students, faculty, staff, and community members without an appointment. If someone needs to meet outside of these hours, the Head of Archives, Callum Carr-Marquis, can arrange that. While you can drop in, we recommend emailing first so we can get your request ready for when you walk in the door.
The rules for using archival materials vary among institutions. They have different expectations than those in a borrowing collection’s reading room.
What is a finding aid?
A finding aid is a document prepared by an archivist which describes what is in a collection in order to help make historical research easier and more effective. A finding aid consists of administrative information, historical note, contents summary, and a folder list. The folder list will tell you the location of the folder (collection number, box number, folder number), the date of that folder’s document creation or publication, and the folder title. Sometimes, in large collections, the folder list will be broken down into series and subseries to enhance findability. All the GHCC finding aids are available online.
How do you decide what to keep?
Callum took whole classes on this question and it's hard to pin down. We can't guess what people will research in the future but we can grow the collection’s strengths like Flint social organizations. We have collections from groups like the Urban League and Rotary Club so it made sense to add the history of the Dom Polski polish center and the Flint Freemasons.
When a major event easily recognizable as historic occurs, we collect whatever we can get our hands on at the moment of its creation. Most items take 50 years to enter an archive and in that time important pieces can be lost, for example, protest signs and photos from the last ten years of the Flint Water Crisis.
What we don't keep is a shorter list. No personal medical information, no unrelated education records, no receipts (yes budgets!), nothing widely published (think Stephen King novels or the New York Times), plaques or awards, and only 3 copies of anything - please do not donate 1,000 copies.
Everything else? Please ask! It's our job to separate out what is and isn't worth keeping. You'll probably be surprised!
University of Michigan-Flint
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