Pavia Workshop

28 February 2013

Michael Forstrom

Modern Literary Fonds: Split by Principle

Manuscript Unit, Beinecke Library

Principles

The principle of respect des fonds is the basis of

archival arrangement and description (Describing

Archives: A Content Standard, 2004):

"The records created, assembled, accumulated, and/or

maintained and used by an organization or individual

must be kept together... in their original order, if such

order exists or has been maintained... This dictum is the

natural and logical consequence of the organic nature of

archival materials" (DACS, xii).

History

• Early formulation of respect des fonds, Natalis de

Wailly, "Circulaire du 16 April 1841"

• Refinement of the principle by German archivists (1881)

• Dutch Manual of Arrangement and Description of

Archives (1898)

• International congress of librarians and archivists in

Brussels in 1910

• Dissemination of Dutch Manual through translation

• Developments in the U.S.

• Rediscovery of idea of fonds in 1970s-80s

Challenges

• Defining the fonds in modern archives

• Provenance versus original order

• Applying original order to the fonds of individuals and

to electronic/digital records

• Principles or methodologies?

• Alternatives to the fonds: record groups, archival

groups, collections, etc.

Types of split fonds

• Split between different collecting repositories

• Split between fonds and what survives

• Split by collecting strategy or agreement

• Split between early portion of papers and creator

• Split by relocation and change in custody

• Split between portion of papers and component in

private hands

• Split by provenance: papers versus artificial collection

Types of split fonds (continued)

• Split by accession(s)

• Split within institutions

• Split between personal, professional, and family papers

• Split between papers and media

• Split between papers and born-digital

• Split by reproduction

• Split between collection(s) and national interest

Description Standards

• Data content:

DACS

RAD2

ISAD(G)

ISAAR(CPF)

• Data structure

EAD

EAC(CPF)

Associated Materials

Printed material received with the collection was

removed for separate cataloging and can be accessed by

searching the library's online catalog.

The Lockwood Memorial Library at the State University

of New York at Buffalo also houses Williams papers.

Associated Materials (continued)

Yale University's Beinecke Library holds a major deposit of

William Carlos Williams' papers. Among its ninety-four-box

Williams collection are three boxes of John Thirlwall's research

materials for The Selected Letters of William Carlos Williams.

A second major collection of Williams' manuscripts and

correspondence is housed in the Poetry Collection at the

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. Drafts

of Williams' Paterson are split between these two collections,

with materials for Books I and II at Buffalo, and materials for

Books III-V at Yale. Smaller Williams collections are held at the

University of Delaware, the University of Virginia, and Indiana

University's Lilly Library.

Discovery

• Description

Local/institutional finding aid databases

Regional databases

ArchiveGrid

Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC)

• Projects

Location registers

Digitization

Digital Humanities projects

Scholarly editing projects

References

• Becker, Devin and Collier Nogues. "Saving-Over, Over-

Saving, and the Future Mess of Writers' Digital

Archives..." American Archivist 75 (Fall/Winter 2012)

• Cook, Terry. "The Concept of the Archival Fonds:

Theory, Description and Provenance in the Post-

Custodial Era," in Terry Eastwood (eds.) The Archival

Fonds (1992)

• Duchein, Michel. "Theoretical Principles and Practical

Problems of Respect des Fonds in Archival Science."

Archivaria 16 (Summer 1983)

• Horsman, Peter. "The Last Dance of the Phoenix, or the

Re-Discovery of the Archival Fonds." Archivaria 54 (Fall

2002)

References (continued)

• Lee, Cal. "Collecting the Externalized Me: Appraisal of

Materials in the Social Web," in Cal Lee (ed.) I, Digital

(2011)

• Millar, Laura. "The Death of the Fonds and the

Resurrection of Provenance: Archival Context in Space

and Time." Archivaria 53 (Spring 2002)

• Schellenberg, Theodore. Modern Archives: Principles

and Techniques (1956)

• Yeo, Geoffrey. "The Conceptual Fonds and the Physical

Collection," Archivaria 73 (Spring 2012)

• Yeo, Geoffrey. "Bringing This Together: Aggregate

Records in a Digital Age," Archivaria 74 (Fall 2012)