Priorities for What we will Collect
This is a statement of policies and priorities for use in determining what material we will gather for USMS archives. This statement is preceeded by Barbara Dunbar's "Principles Document" (September, 2001) and this statement will certainly evolve further.
| Archive purpose | Paper Archives | Digital Archives |
|---|---|---|
| General Statement - our basic approach for high priority material. | Some documents will be protected by removal of acid and by hermetically sealing them in plastic (without bonding). For priorities, we'll simply start with the most important and see how it goes. All must be saved until digitized. | All information that is best stored in a traditional database (with records & fields) will be digitized with high priority. Top priority will be for everything 1993 and since because that is almost done. Prior years will be more difficult; we must design procedures to make conversion of old databases as accurate and as easy as possible. |
| Official Documents - important documents and some official publications. | The documents by which USMS was founded must be found and sent to ISHOF for the highest possible protection. All Committees should be asked to give an inventory of their important documents and their location (if not already at ISHOF). A policy should be articulated about how what documents should be saved by Committees and how long they should remain in the possession of the Committee Chairperson for administrative purposes. When they are no longer needed for administrative purposes, key documents should be sent to ISHOF. Policy for digitization will be developed. We may someday discard many of our old documents and all of our official magazines and newsletters relying on the digitized versions for future access. | Digitization must be with high quality so that at some time in the future (when technology gets better) it can be easily submitted to character recognition. |
| Museum Content - all that we have on USMS people who are also ISHOF Honorees (all categories), or who we judge are likely to become candidates for the Hall of Fame. | Importance will be given to the collection of paper material for this purpose. | Digitization must be with high quality so that at some time in the future (when technology gets better) it can be easily submitted to character recognition. All statistical information in this category will be given special attention to its retrievability and quality of display. |
| Marketing Material - stories and other information that we judge might have important value in establishing the importance of our sport and our organization. | Importance will be given to the collection of paper material for this purpose. | Digitization must be with high quality so that at some time in the future (when technology gets better) it can be easily submitted to character recognition. |
| Statistics - results of all USMS sanctioned national championships, special awards and Top Ten achievements. | Eventually all paper documents will be discarded (or put in deep, cheap storage). However, all must be retained and readily available until it is digitized. Digitized, in this case, means with character recognition so computers can interpret it. | The most important missing information since 1993 are FINA & USMS Records and Service Awards. Designing procedures to make digitization of old data as accurate and as easy as possible is of critical importance. |
| Personal Information - information important to persons, families and descendants. | We do not expect to seek or retain paper information on individuals unless it is for Museum purposes. | Digital information will be retained forever and will be easily retrievable for any person. Formats will be developed for attractive display (including printing) for all (or selected) information we have on any one person. We may eventually require that narrative information on individuals be given to us in an appropriate digital format. Or we might allow acceptance of text material on individuals be dependent on volunteers who will put it in appropriate digital form. |
| Zone, LMSC & Club Information | We do not expect to seek or retain paper information on zones, LMSC's or Clubs. | Digital information will be retained forever, including assignment of information we have on individual people to the zones, LMSC's and Clubs to which they belonged. Data for a particular person will be coded to the correct person as accurately as possible, but we will not make any attempt to keep track of his or her affiliations during his or her swimming career. Affiliation, in most cases, will be where he or she is or was most recently affiliated. We will welcome narrative material on zones, LMSC's and Clubs that is given to us in digital form. |
