What is a Guide to a Collection?
A Guide or finding aid is a document produced to give researchers an overview of a collection of papers. An individual, a family, a business, a church, or an organization for which the collection is named produces the papers, or an individual (for which the collection is named) collects the materials concerning a specific topic. The staff members of the Manuscript Collection have organized and read the materials in each collection and produced guides to them.
 

What is the Historical Note?
It is a brief biographical sketch of the person or group the collection concerns.
 

What is the Abstract?
It is a brief description of the types of materials in the collection and their organization.
 

What is the Description?
It contains an overview of all the materials in the collection with specific topics likely to be of interest to researchers highlighted with more extensive description.
 

What is the Container List?
It is a summarized listing of the materials in each box and/or folder of the collection.
 

What are the Online Catalog Headings?
The Online Catalog Headings section of the Guide lists the various cards produced by the staff for the in-house card catalog. The cards lead researchers to topics in collections by subject, by geographic location, by important authors of letters in a collection (autograph cards), by family name (for genealogists), or by date period, and to pamphlets, newspapers or maps found in a collection. The list of cards is provided in this Guide to give researchers an idea of specific topics or items of interest in the collection.
 

What is a Collection Number?
A number is assigned to each collection when it becomes a part of the Manuscript Collection. The numbers are given out in consecutive order.
 

What does Mf., O.H., M.C., and C.R. mean in the Collection Number?
Mf. indicates that a collection is in a microfilm format, O.H. that the collection is an oral history, M.C. a map format (when everything in the collection is a map), and C.R. indicates church records. Occasionally there will be a collection that does not have a Collection Number but rather a designation that begins with Miscellaneous. This is a practice no longer used by the Manuscript Collection, but in the past when a collection included a small number of photographs, old newspapers or one set of Bible records with no expectation of additions, it was given a designation of Miscellaneous Photographs, Miscellaneous Newspapers, or Miscellaneous Genealogies and filed in a different location in our stacks.
 

What does the Call Number mean in the PHOTOGRAPHIC AND LOGO IMAGES section?
The Call Number is the unique number given to an image and the staff in the Manuscript Collection must have this number in order to find the image for the researcher. If the Call Number begins with a P, that indicates the image is a photograph, while a PA indicates the image is found in a photograph album, and PC indicates the image is a post card. The number after the dash refers to the collection number that is followed by a slash and then the unique image number. P-39/155 indicates the image is photograph number 155 in collection 39.
 

What does Restricted mean?
In some cases the donor of a collection asks that some or all of his collection be restricted, usually for a set period of time. This means either no one can use that portion of the collection or the researcher must obtain permission to use it from the donor. For example, often politicians will close their collections while they are still actively running for elected offices, but might consent to allow someone to use non-sensitive material for research purposes. Normally only a small number of collections would have restrictions.
 

What does the number in parentheses mean in the Autograph Card listings?
This number indicates the total number of letters written and/or signed by the listed individual that are found in that collection. For example in collection 0160 the following listing is found in the Autograph Cards: Vance, Z[ebulon] B[aird] (3) 1890,1894. This means that three letters written and/or signed by Z. B. Vance in the years 1890 and 1894 are found in collection 160.
 

Why do some finding aids have only unprocessed information?
When no official Guide has been written yet, the EAD tagging project presents Acquisition Information in the form of a skeletal descriptive summary and basic accessions information.