Archives Week 2017 -- 12,000 hidden collections: cataloging the American Historical Manuscript Collection at the New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society’s (N-YHS) Open House will focus on the NEH funded project: “Access to the American Historical Manuscript Collection at the New-York Historical Society.” The N-YHS’s American Historical Manuscript Collection (AHMC) consists of approximately 12,000 small collections and individual items from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries related to individuals, families, and organizations in New York and America. To meet contemporary assumptions of and needs for online access, the project has focused on facilitating access to the AHMC through collection-level MARC21 records and digitization. The project aims to catalog 12,000 items over 4 years (2014-2018) followed by a separate digitization project for which the library will develop detailed selection criteria. Staff currently working on the grant funded project will host the Open House. In addition to discussing the nature of the collection (and showcasing collection highlights!) they will explore the project’s cataloging methodology. This open house may be especially interesting to archivists looking to implement an MPLP approach (through cataloging) to the archival description of artificial collections, small collections, manuscripts, and individual items. Interested attendees should RSVP to matthew.murphy@nyhistory.org. The event will be capped at 25. Staff will meet attendees in the lobby.
DONATE
