Archnet > Collection > Finding Aids/Inventories

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Recording information about archives in various lists and inventories of materials as they arrive at our repository can be the beginning of how our archives are described, and understood. They may or may not come with written information. It may also be how we get to know what we have, how it was organized originally, when received, and can be a way of recording how material might be reorganized, if that is wanted, or needed, to be done to increase the accessibility of an archive.

A combination of existing documentation, and lists or data created can be the raw materials that eventually may become a "finding aid". The goal being to expose what we have, to make it accessible, and enable you to find it all, and eventually to find exactly what you want, and know where it is. We have been transitioning from using Archivist's Toolkit, as our collections management and description tool, to ArchivesSpace, which is web-based, and a great improvement, but still continually under development. It is mainly because of this that our description and the format(s) of that description will be under development as well, until further notice. Most of our descriptive texts will therefore be labelled as a "Draft". Additionally, some of the description may need to be revised, or have unfinished sections or entries which were not fully resolved, prior to making them available. This is another reason they might be considered "draft" versions.

This Finding Aids/Inventories sub-collection of Notes from the Archives is where we will eventually be linking all of our existing finding aids and/or descriptive guides and inventories relating to the physical archives at the Aga Khan Documentation Center.

Please contact us if you have information to add, or that seems to contradict something in our written records. Thank you!

Betsy Baldwin, Collections Archivist,

Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries