Processing note should be a single level required or optimum

[kbogan]

Link to relevant DACS principle

Principle 10. Archivists must have a user driven reason to enhance existing archival description.
Principle 11. Archival description is a continuous intellectual endeavor.

Describe how DACS does not currently meet this principle

As mentioned in Issue 55, processing notes are buried at the end of Part I and are not a required field. Documentation of processing work is a key piece of archival description and is often omitted. The appraisal, arrangement, and description decisions that are made shape the collection as does the bias that an archivist brings to their work. As Michelle Light and Tom Hyry point out in Colophons and Annotations: New Directions for the Finding Aid, "postmodern thought challenges archivists, as individuals and social actors unable to separate their own viewpoints and decisions from their contexts, to consider and acknowledge our mediating role in shaping the historical record."

I expect that this will require a

• Minor change to DACS
• Major change to DACS

Link(s) to any relevant part(s) of DACS

7.1.8 Processing Information

[regineheberlein]

Proposed action:

• add to https://saa-ts-dacs.github.io/dacs/06_part_I/02_chapter_01.html#single-level-required
• remove "added value" from https://saa-ts-dacs.github.io/dacs/06_part_I/08_chapter_07/01_notes.html#71-notes-added-value
• re-order notes in two sections, required and added-value statements
• fold https://saa-ts-dacs.github.io/dacs/06_part_I/09_chapter_08/01_description_control.html#81-description-control-added-value into the required section (see Revision notes should be required #70)

[regineheberlein]

Add usage guidance and examples to distinguish between processing and revision notes as @searcy suggests: #70 (comment)

[emcbrien]

Taking some stabs at definitions:

Processing encompasses actions taken on the physical collection including, for example: arrangement and housing as well as the initial description.
Examples:

Revision is any updates to the description subsequent to the initial description. This includes significant upgrades to the description (i.e. from an accession record), as well as any significant change in the description's subject, focus, or tone. Minor edits do not constitute a full revision.
Examples: “Updated physloc code” or “Run through normalization routines.”

Examples could be a great thing to crowdsource.

[rovinghistorian]

I like these definition ideas, though I'd also state that we use processing notes to describe decisions processors have made in writing finding aids, in addition to physical actions we have made (which may range from disassembling a binder to treating an entire collection for mold). For example, we'll note "Folder titles from the creator have been used whenever possible; [brackets] indicate staff had to create a folder title or added information for clarification" or similar language, either in the processing information note or in a scope and contents note.

[gwiedeman]

I have some takeaways from the discussion during the 2023 June 26 TS-DACS annual business meeting that I just want to document.

I think DACS seeing processing notes and revision statements as the same thing would be useful to be system agnostic. That way DACS can state what should be described and an archivist can use whatever - a revision statement in ASpace or a processing note. Perhaps DACS just then states you should be consistent in your use or something.

Some other good suggestions that came up in conversations:

• Also describe what you don't know.
• Document when you started documenting changes, so it doesn't seems like those are the only changes
• Describe reasons for changes
• Describe changes at the appropriate level
• Describe only meaningful changes
• Understand/expect all description to possibly change over time.

[searcy]

I really appreciate this conversation. Something that continues to nag at me is the need to document information about our decisions, actions, and assumptions (@gwiedeman's bullet points above are super helpful) at that first iteration of work. So much of the conversation in the field right now is on making changes and reparative work, but I think we have a continued need to document this sense-making work the archivist is doing at the outset. Those things wouldn't be appropriate in a revision note.

[michelsd]

Expanding on Greg's point, pulling processing information out of Chapter 7 could be beneficial to this (and for generally highlighting its importance).

[dorkivist]

Posting the following comments on behalf of the SAA Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct:

In the SAA Core Values Statement and Code of Ethics, we state that "Archivists should be transparent about their role in the selection, retention, and creation of the historical record by carefully documenting all collections-related policy decisions, including preservation treatments, descriptive work, processing activities, and access guidelines” (emphasis added). Archivists’ interventions can have a profound impact on users’ experience and interpretation of materials. Requiring archivists to document their interventions and make that documentation accessible to users would bring archival practice closer to the core values and ethics of our profession. Accordingly, the Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct endorses the proposal to make the Processing Information Note a single-level, required finding aid note.