New
Blog Helps Preserve History
Ivy Day 1895--photographer
unknown (College Archives) |
Imagine a world without records of our past, one devoid
of archives containing the hard-copy histories of those who
have lived, worked and studied before us. How would we learn
and evolve?
Amid this digital information age, the business and processes
of record keeping have become increasingly difficult to manage.
Email correspondence that once would have existed on paper
letters becomes lost in a digital morass. Many research notes
and records of events exist only virtually, stored precariously
on hard drives that can quickly become obsolete. Yet archiving
and record keeping is as important today as ever.
To help the management
of keeping important records at Smith, Leslie Fields, who
began at Smith in October as the records services archivist
in the libraries, has created a new weblog, titled , designed to assist those in
the Smith community with their archiving.
“History really does come alive through journals,
letters, documents, photographs, films, and all sorts of
other records,” notes Fields. “These materials
help to tell the story of Smith, the larger story of women
and higher education in the United States, and the even larger
story of women’s history.”
The records services blog includes periodic entries, such
as links to articles regarding archiving, as well as explanatory
tidbits on record keeping and helpful guides to completing
forms.
“The objective of the records services blog is to
teach the Smith community about records management at Smith,” says
Fields. “Every employee has an important role to play
in protecting the future of Smith by creating, using, retrieving,
and disposing of records in accordance with the college’s
records management policy.”
The college’s
policy was devised during nine months last year by the
ad hoc Committee on Records Management, composed of members
of the offices of the general counsel, Dean of the Faculty/Provost,
controller and class deans, and from College Archives and
ITS. The policy outlines requirements and processes for
how to create, use and preserve records, and applies to
all departments and schools on campus.
This year, records services will work closely with several
offices on campus, including the School for Social Work,
the Clark Science Center and science departments, the Center
for Foreign Languages and Culture, and language departments.
The endeavor, for which Fields was hired to assist, is supported
by a grant from the Alice K. Delmas Foundation.
Fields’ blog
is intended to promote the college records management policy
and its records services program in College Archives, and
to provide Smith employees with easy access to records
services forms. Also, says Fields, she hopes her blog posts
will help employees understand their responsibilities to
manage records.
“I want everyone to know that we are here to help
them,” said Fields. “It is important to share
record-keeping advice with the Smith community so everyone
is aware of both the college’s legal obligations to
retain and preserve certain types of records and the importance
of records to its overall operations.”
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