our collections
I did this short blurb for a draft collections policy I am working on. The whole thing is still in draft but if you are interested, I will share it with you. Here is the short version:
Garrett Park Archives doubles as a records center for the Town of Garrett Park and as the town’s archival repository. Official town records include records of town ordinances and charter revisions, zoning decisions, voter registration records, actual election records, town council meeting minutes (from 1898), residential property records (of every residence) including lot and block records, limited records of Garrett Park Elementary School, town events calendars, town historical events, town office records, crime and police records, etc.
The archives repository contains the following documents and artifacts: oral history tapes and transcripts (over 150, about half awaiting transcription); archived print and digital copies of The Bugle, the town bulletin (back to 1953); a small collection of reminiscences by prominent citizens; a collection of documents on civic institutions such as the Town Arboretum, designation as a Nuclear-Free Zone, the Citizens Association, the Women’s Committee, and to a lesser extent, park gardening, hiking and walking trails, and the local swimming pool; records of the historical preservation committee, the archives committee, and the Garrett Park Players; a large number of digitized and print photos, several individual collections of prominent citizens, and a number of boxes of museum-quality artifacts.
Postscript. The advisory committee chair asked me in a meeting about a deaccessioning policy. My first inclination was to respond that we deaccession on the front end, through the collection policy and appraisal. But then I thought about it. Because we are part record center and part archives, a deaccessioning policy on the back end might be appropriate. Now deaccessioning can be a sensitive thing – people become attached to “stuff” in sentimental and personal ways. So, in the draft policy, deaccessioning requires (1) recommendation by the archivist and (2) approval by simple majority of the advisory board with (3) the town manager casting the tie-breaking vote in the event of a tie on the advisory committee.