Ruth Engs Finding Aid

Now that the processing of the Ruth Engs collection is finished and the container list has been compiled and completed, one of the last steps of my work on the collection will be to complete some of the additional elements of the finding aid.  Aside from providing a list of the archival materials that are contained in a particular collection, a finding aid should also provide the proper amount of contextual and background information about a collection.  This information allows an archives patron to better contextualize the information contained within the collection and both archivists and patrons alike to more easily identify which collections may contain material related to a certain subject, trend, event, person, or organization.

This past week, I spent some time working on completing this contextual information for the Ruth Engs finding aid.  The sections of this part of the finding aid (for collections of an individual) that are typically the longest are the biography and scope and content notes.  The biographical section provides a thorough account of the professional activities of the individual, and, for an academic, should provide a summary of his or her notable publications, professional activities, education, and teaching career.  Providing details and dates is important; someone reading the biography should be able to get a basic understanding and outline of the person's professional career.  Some information about the personal life of the subject should also be provided.

The scope and content note should provide a description of the collection itself.  Someone reading this section of a finding aid should gain an understanding of the various types of records that can be found within the collection as well as an understanding of the organizational structure of the collection.

For some collections, writing a biography can be quite challenging, while for others, it can be a much more straightforward process.  If the collection contains CV's, resumes, autobiographical or biographical write-ups, or obituaries that are clearly marked and well organized, compiling biographical information can be relatively simple.  If a collection does not have a wealth of this sort of material, the processing archivist must to considerably more synthesizing in order to produce a detailed, helpful biography.  Thankfully, the Ruth Engs collection contains a subseries dedicated to resumes and CV's as well as a short autobiography that is several pages in length that she wrote near the end of her career.