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WVRHC Documentation

West Virginia and Regional History Center Documentation

For all things digital and audiovisual at the WVRHC.

This site outlines procedures, principles, and standards used for accessioning, appraising, ingesting, processing, describing, stewarding, preserving, digitizing, and making accessible, digitized and born digital special collections and archival materials at the West Virginia and Regional History Center. It is used as a manual by various WVRHC employees and was first completed in October 2022 by Elizabeth James, Digital Archivist at the WVRHC, and added to Github in November 2022.

Documentation Principles

Digital archives work is done through a series of decisions and actions, made by humans over time and guided by principles, that coalesce into an approach for stewarding these formats and types and materials. Digital archives work emphasizes:

  • Collaboration within the department and with Systems and Information Technology groups to accomplish program goals.
  • Responsibility for materials and the individuals documented within our collections.
  • Usability of our materials by people in the short and long term.

In addition to these more abstract working principles, we also seek to adhere to the following principles for efficient processing and management of material, as recommended by the now ubiquitous Guidelines for Efficient Archival Processing in the University of California Libraries:

  • Aim to provide access to all holdings.
  • Always look for the “golden minimum.”
  • Analyze the work necessary for every collection and be flexible in the amount of work applied.
  • Arrange, describe, and preserve materials in harmony.
  • Measure and compare processing rates to ensure processing is carried out efficiently.

This site is meant to be a living document–please feel free to email Elizabeth James or open an issue on Github if you notice any inaccuracies, typos, or have thoughts on how this documentation can be improved. If you’ve used this documentation in your work or it has been helpful to you, please send that along as well!