Starting an Archives

Starting an Archives is a must have book for anyone who has the responsibility of caring for archive or manuscript collections yet has little experience. In less than one hundred pages, Elizabeth Yakel skillfully navigates the basic process for getting an archive up and running. She discusses planning for an archival program and offers insights regarding expenses, staffing, facilities, and consultants. She addresses many of the issues, such as collection development and appraisal, that archivists deal with prior to a collection being called a collection. Her discussions of arrangement and description are extremely helpful. She also covers issues that are sometimes overlooked, such as providing reference services and outreach. Especially helpful are her appendices, which offer models for deeds of gifts, procedure manuals, and user registration forms.

This book should be on every archivist's shelf, but it should be especially helpful for small start-up archives that one might find in small towns, local libraries, or churches. It would help workers in such organizations to do no harm to their collections and to use terminology common to the archival profession. This would aid the workers greatly when they seek outside consultation. All in all, this book is a very helpful general resource. Most archivists at any level would need more information than this book includes. Issues such as arrangement, description, and preservation require longer, more detailed works to cover all the issues one encounters. Yakel's work, however, is a great beginner's guide that I recommend highly.