Is CA right for a really amateurr archivist?

dbibel

I have taken on the task of archiving the documents and images for a Unitarian church which was founded in 1651. I've come across documents going back to the 1800's; and there are various ledgers and other books with minutes of meetings which contain a variety of interesting facts.

I think I need some type of software to help in the cataloging and organizing effort, and wonder if CA is right for this - or would it be overkill?

The church has a web site (on Godaddy) on which I'm sure I could install the program -- but would like some advice or an opinion if this would make sense at all.

Thanks!

seth

It may well be overkill, and you should certainly look at other software such as ICA-AtoM (http://www.ica-atom.org), a nice open-source application specifically designed for "straight" archive work, as well as commercial software like PastPerfect, which is relatively inexpensive and widely used in historical societies.

That said, CA could probably work nicely for your project. You may want to try it out and see how it goes. Worst case is in exchange for some time you learn more about how to execute your project.

In terms of hosting, GoDaddy is probably not going to work. They impose many limits on their hosting offerings, and in my limited experience with them performance of just about anything (not just CA) was abysmal. You might want to check out this page for some alternatives: http://wiki.collectiveaccess.org/index.php?title=Installing_on_Cheap_Shared_Servers

seth

dbibel

thanks for the quick reply. I'm probably over my head in all of this anyway, and the 'historical records' kept here are in mostly total disarray anyway - I need to figure out in general the 'hows' and 'whys' of this. The big questions I have are 1) What to keep; 2) How to preserve things that are in poor shape (mimeographed documents where the ink is fading for one example. There is an Historical Society in town, but their documents are not in much better shape.

I'll take a look at ICA-Atom too.

Dan

seth

Let us know how else we can help. Good luck with your project!

billey

Hi Dan - I'm one of the resident archivists (and a Unitarian!) working on CollectiveAccess. It's always a good idea to answer the "big questions" before figuring out what software package to work with. As a thorough archival reference, I would recommend checking out Hunter, G. S. (2003). Developing and maintaining practical archives. New York: Neal-Schuman. <http://www.worldcat.org/title/developing-and-maintaining-practical-archives/oclc/432893861>

I'm also working on a configuration for CollectiveAccess that supports EAD and DACS standards. So maybe once you've answered the big questions, that profile will be ready for collection.

Best of luck!

Billey