Coding Scheme
Many organizations have asked ISHOF to manage their archives. From these experiences, ISHOF has developed a standard organizational scheme which is the starting point with which they suggest that archival documents be organized (see the table below).
Three boxes of USMS Archives have been received from Joan Smith and delivered to Preston Levi at ISHOF. Preston & Rita Levi, Cav & Debbie Cavanaugh and Carl House will meet at 11:00 am on Friday 9/29/00 to begin looking at the contents of Joan's 3 boxes to determine who well this organizational scheme will work for USMS. An initial attempt to create a catalogue (in Excel) will result from this.
The next step, perhaps at convention, will be to distribute this list to key USMS people asking them to identify the documents they have or are aware of that should be added to the "official USMS archives" held for safekeeping by ISHOF. At the same time, an invitation will be given to comment on this scheme for organizing USMS documents with an eye to making the plan more useful for USMS.
It is to be understood that "archives" will have two meanings in our common use. In the narrow sense, it will be said that "archives" are the documents (mostly paper) that fall into the categories below. Stories, Top Ten, All-Americans, meet results, photographs and vast additional materials will be said to be "data". In this narrow sense, "archives" will be the official documents that record the history and deliberative procedures of the organization.
In this narrow definition of "archives", the "data" will be organized in a separate catalogue and available on the web and on a CD. "Data" will continually be updated on the USMS Archives website and periodically published on a CD and available at ISHOF for convenience. Copies will be made available to those requesting copies on a basis yet to be determined.
In the more broad sense of our "archives", the "data" is included. Thus, the "USMS History & Archives Committee" is responsible for both paper archives and data archives and there will be some gray area between these categories. The principal meaning of this distinction is in defining the responsibility of ISHOF. ISHOF, together with volunteers from USMS, will be responsible for paper "archives". The USMS Ad Hoc History and Archives Committee will be responsible for "data" and for publishing it on the web and on a series of compact disks.
