Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives

Since its original publication, no text has served as a better overview of the field of archives than Hunter’s manual. Newly revised and updated to thoroughly address our increasingly digital world, it remains the most comprehensive guide to the discipline.

Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives covers such key topics as:

• a history of archives, including the roles of historical societies and local history collections in libraries
• new sections on community archives, diversity, and inclusion
• conducting a survey and starting an archival program
• selection, appraisal, acquisition, accessioning and deaccessioning
• important points of copyright, privacy and ethics
• arrangement of archival collections, with a discussion of new theories
• description, including DACS, EAD and tools such as ArchivesSpace
• access, reference, and outreach, with a look at how recent innovations in finding aids can help researchers
• preservation, including guidance on how to handle rare books, maps, architectural records and artefacts
• digital records
• disaster planning, security, and theft prevention
• metrics, assessment, establishing employee procedures and policies, working with interns and volunteers and other managerial duties
• public relations and marketing, from social media and the Web to advocacy and
• professional guidelines and codes such as the newly developed SAA Statement of Core Values of Archivists.

Providing in-depth coverage of both theory and practice, this manual is essential for archivists at all levels of experience and of all backgrounds.