Collection Guides
A collection guide (finding aid) is a description and listing of the content of a manuscript or archival collection. Guides help researchers identify the boxes or folders of interest within a collection. A typical guide also provides background information on the organization or person who created the material, an overview of the collection, how it is arranged plus a detailed container list, location (some collections are housed offsite and must be requested in advance), and any use restrictions.
How to Find Collection Guides?
Archives West Links to an external site. is a searchable database of collection guides in Special Collections and at other libraries in the Pacific Northwest. Use Archives West to identify collections of interest. You can search by name, organization or topic keywords.
Example: This is part of the collection guide for the Higano Family Papers Links to an external site.. As I scroll down the guide I see that in Box 1, Folders 9-11 are letters from Kenji Okuda. Note: all the collection guide tells me is that there are letters between the Higano family and Okuda that date from 1939 to 1943, there is no information about the content of the letters. I need to scan through all the letters in the folders in order to find this May 1942 letter from Kenji Okuda to Norio Higano describing conditions at the Puyallup Assembly Center (aka Camp Harmony).
Finding Collection Guides Elsewhere
More and more collection guides are appearing on the web. Here are a few resources to identify possible collections and guides.
- Archive Grid Links to an external site. - Provides information on over 1,000 different archival institutions
- Archives Hub Links to an external site. - Search finding guides from over 350 British institutions
- Archives Portal Europe Links to an external site. - Directory to archival institutions throughout Europe
- Online Archive of California Links to an external site. - Finding guides to collections from more than 200 California institutions
- Social Networks and Archival Context Links to an external site. - Search for collections and linkages between collections
Optional Activities
- Do a keywords search for a topic of interest in Archives West Links to an external site. and scan through some collections guides. Some of the guides will link to digitized items.
- Do a keywords search for a topic of interest in Digital Collections Links to an external site. and browse through some of the results.
- Read: The Hows and Whys of Finding Aids Links to an external site., especially "Reading a Finding Aid Links to an external site." and "What's in a Finding Aid and What's Not Links to an external site." (Harvard)
Content adapted from the Graduate Student Research Institute.