Direct access to a host of standards germane to archival practice is facilitated through SAA's Standards Portal . The portal is designed to educate the archives community about the value and role of standards, enhance the application of standards to archival practice, and facilitate successful partnerships with related information organizations with mutual concerns and interests. The portal includes SAA-approved standards, guidelines, and best practice documents. SAA's long-term goal is to establish a comprehensive clearinghouse that includes contextual information to assist archivists and allied professionals in moving these and other external standards from theory to practice.

A compilation of tools, toolkits, workbooks, and other resources developed by various repositories to regulate local practice and to create efficiencies. All of these resources are included because they have potential to be adapted by other repositories. 

Tools and Toolkits

• Archival Metrics Investigators. Archival Metrics Toolkits.

  Our project seeks to promote a culture of assessment in the archival domain by creating standardized user-based evaluation tools and other performance measures. Our user-based evaluation toolkits are ready-made packages that include validated, tested questionnaires, administration and coding instructions, and sample reports illustrating how to effectively communicate study results to others. Adoption of these standardized measures will support the movement to allow repositories to compare their performance with others' thereby identifying best practices, and helping all institutions improve their user services.

• New York University. Archival Collections Management: Arrangement and Description. Processing Plan Template

A formatted model, with embedded instructions, used by the repository to create a standardized processing plan document to guide each project.

• SAA. Regional Archival Associations Consortium. Disaster Planning and Response Resources

A wide-ranging set of resources--including tools, toolkits, and guidelines--that are intended to provide archival repository employees with useful information about disaster planning, response, and recovery so they have somewhere to turn when an emergency strikes. While the list is not all encompassing, the links here will guide you in the right direction. The resources provided are for informational purposes only and are not meant as an endorsement by RAAC or its members. Many of the pages contain links to additional resources.

• Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Linear Footage Calculator.

This simple form-based calculator allows one to convert a group of storage containers of various types and sizes into a linear footage total.

• North Carolina State University Libraries. Social Media Archives Toolkit.

  In 2014, the NC State University Libraries was awarded an EZ Innovation Grant from the State Library of North Carolina to develop a freely available web-based documentary toolkit that publicly documents their own effort to develop a sophisticated social media archival program in a way that may help guide cultural heritage organizations that are interested in collecting and curating social media content. The toolkit may help archivists develop collecting strategies for content, see how peer institutions have done so, assess legal and ethical implications, understand potential of such content for researchers, and utilize labor- and cost-saving techniques.

•  Special Collections and Social Media Wiki.

  This site is intended to be resource for the libraries and archives communities, providing an aggregate of links to the social media sites that special collections libraries and archives use. There is also a section in which participants can consider best practices, ask questions, and share ideas with each other. This wiki is organized by social media type.

Resource Guides

• Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (2012 and ongoing). Guide to Sources in North America.

  A Comprehensive guide to archival collections.

• MARAC. Diversity and Inclusion Committee - Resource List.

  A comprehensive and ongoing list of D+I resources for archivists.

A gateway into a variety of resources that can be useful for understanding current and recent research efforts and how they can be adapted or emulated, as well as suggestions for fruitful areas for future research projects. 

Video Tutorials/Webinars

• Basics of Quantitative Data Analysis Using A*CENSUS II (Part 1 & 2) (fee required).

• Navigating the Institutional Review Board Process.

Works in Progress

• Ongoing Research Projects Tracking Sheet.

An Annotated Reading List

• Arnold, Hillel. (2017, Mar 24).  Standards work: Revising the DACS Principles (in a blizzard). Bits & Bytes: News from Rockefeller Archive Center's Digital Team.

  A short debrief explaining the structure and methodology used by a group of archivists during a three-day working session to revise the Principles statement undergirding the DACS standard. Potentially useful as practice guide for conducting analogous processes.

• Cifor, M., Evans, J., Punzalan, R., Ramirez, M.H., Soyka, H. Wartenbe, M., & Wilczek, E. (2014, July 14).  “Grand challenges.” Plenary panel at AERI 2014, University of Pittsburgh.

  A detailed examination by the AERI Grand Challenges Working Group of four selected grand challenge areas--Organizational transparency and accountability, Environmental sustainability, Human rights and social justice, Peace and security--and denoting recent archival research aligning with them.

• Council of State Archivists. (2013).   The importance of state archives. Albany, NY: CoSA.

  This document has been prepared by the Council of State Archivists to identify the importance of the programs and functions provided by the state archives programs in the United States.

• Cox, R.J., Yakel, E., Wallace, D., Bastian, J.A., & Marshall. J. (2001).   Archival education in North American library and information science schools. Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy 71(2):141-194.

  Findings from research into the archival education programs within LIS schools in the US.

• Dooley, J. M., & Luce, K. (2010).   Taking our pulse: The OCLC Research survey of special collections and archives. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research.

  Findings from a detailed survey to study special collections and archives in 275 academic and research libraries throughout the United States and Canada. The survey identified norms across the community and intended to help define needs for community action and further research.

• Duff, W., Yakel, E., Tibbo H., Cherry, J., Krause, M., & Sheffield, R. (2010).   The development, testing, and evaluation of the Archival Metrics Toolkits. American Archivist, 73(2), 569-599.

  This paper reports on the Archival Metrics Project, which developed, tested, and evaluated a set of toolkits designed to overcome some of the challenges of conducting user-based evaluation in college and university archival repositories.

• Dupont, C. and Yakel, E. (2013).   “What’s so special about Special Collections?” Or, assessing the value special collections bring to academic libraries. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 8(2).

  The findings from a study to examine and call attention to the current deficiency in standardized performance measures and usage metrics suited to assessing the value and impact of special collections and archives and their contributions to the mission of academic research libraries and to suggest possible approaches to overcoming the deficiency.

• Mazurczyk, T., Piekielek, N., Tansey, E., & Goldman, B. (2018).   American archives and climate change: Risks and adaptation. Climate Risk Management.

  This study evaluated present and future consequences of water-related climate change impacts using a mapping methodology to assess exposure of American archives to incompatible weather extremes. And SEE ALSO:  American archives and climate change: Risks and adaptation. Climate Risk Management .

• McKemmish, S., with Gilliland, A., Evans, J., Lau, A., & Rolan, G. (2016, July 9).   “ARK research: The state of the art.” Plenary presented at AERI 2016, Kent State University.

  This paper reports on the state of the art of archival and recordkeeping research in the English‐speaking world. It will present a thematic analysis of ARK research over the past 10 years, update previous analyses by Gilliland and McKemmish of the methodologies and methods being used in ARK research, and identify emergent areas.

• Meissner, D. (2017, Spring/Summer).   "Bare necessities." American Archivist 80(1): 6-18.

  This presidential address argues that archivists must develop an understanding, supported by meaningful data, of who our users are, what services they value, how they want to use our collections, and which potential users we are not serving. We must understand the real economic impact of archives and archivists on their communities. The goal in this regard is to provide access to compelling data about American archives and their users that speak to the value of archives for society and that also help us improve our services to our consumers.

• ProjectARCC.   Climate change syllabus.

  ProjectARCC members compiled a large and varied assortment of resources related to climate change, from general resources for the beginner, communication strategies about climate change, disaster response, and popular science.

• Project STAND (2018).   Student Activism Now Documented website.

  Project STAND was formed in 2016 as an online collaborative project led by academic archives that serves as an access point for archival materials related to historical and current student activism, particularly in support of marginalized or underrepresented identities, including a toolkit to support the collecting activities. It provides an online clearinghouse where academic institutions can provide researchers a centralized access point to historical and archival documentation on the development and on-going occurrences of student dissent.

• SAA Council (2022).   SAA Strategic Plan, 2022-2025.

  The SAA strategic plan, among its other uses, suggests useful areas for research that that would benefit the association and the archival community.

• University of Cape Town (2018).   Archival platform.

  The Platform was envisaged as a vehicle for nurturing and promoting archival activism. It did this through information-sharing, dialogue and advocacy for social justice across South Africa’s archival and broader memory sectors. At the heart of the Archival Platform’s mission was a commitment to playing a catalytic role in enabling practitioners, theorists and the general public to reimagine the concept of ‘archive’ and to re-think the ways in which archiving is practiced in a changing world.

• Weber, C. S. 2017.   "Research and learning agenda for archives, special, and distinctive collections in research libraries." Dublin, OH: OCLC Research.

  This research and learning agenda represents the latest in a long line of OCLC Research efforts on behalf of archives and special collections in research libraries, to discern and respond to current and emerging needs in the community, and to convene colleagues across the profession to collectively move the profession forward. It is practitioner focused and represents the results of numerous conversations, reading broadly, and thinking carefully about the most pressing needs that face our collective collections and operations. The agenda addresses areas of inquiry and potential research and learning opportunities, building on recent work in the profession.

• Zanish-Belcher, T. (2018, April 23).   Some archives questions need answers. Off the Record.

  The SAA president recommends research into a few questions that could yield up-to-date, basic facts and figures about archives and archivists.

A diverse repository of ready reference statistical sets, dashboards, infographics, and other resources intended to aid archivists and repositories in developing and presenting advocacy messages to a variety of audiences. 

Reports

• Council of State Archivists. CoSA Reports and Surveys.

  The CoSA Reports and Surveys are a rich set of resources useful for archival advocacy. They include research reports, whitepapers, surveys, and infographics.