Day 4 : Creating a Processing Plan

The first step in developing a processing plan involves:

1. reviewing the subject matter of the collection and its creator
2. reviewing all documentation relating to the accession
• this includes the deed of gift/purchase/transfer, the accession register, the provenance, and any correspondence that took place between the organization and the donor.

Firstly, you want to review the subject matter of the collection so that you will have a working knowledge of the collection's subject matter and be able to identify key ideas, dates and phrases. You need not be on equal footing knowledge-wise with the collection's creator; however, understanding the creator's passions will aid in understanding the collection's order and goal.

The documents relating to the acquisition, accessioning and processing will also become part of the collection--the administrative record for the collection. This portion of the collection helps document the archivist's reasons for giving the collection a particular order and hierarchy. It will also document if the  collection remained in its original order or if the archivist imposed a new order on the folders and documents.

Information from the deed of gift, correspondence leading up to the gift and the accession register will determine whether or not the collection retained its original order. An this will determine how the collection is to be processed.