{"id":1185,"date":"2014-05-01T05:47:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T10:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2014-04-30T15:33:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T20:33:29","slug":"first-steps-in-discovery-online-finding-aids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/2014\/05\/01\/first-steps-in-discovery-online-finding-aids\/","title":{"rendered":"First Steps in Discovery: Online Finding Aids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What do you have in your archive?\u00a0 Will any of it interest me?\u00a0<\/em> These are critical questions; we address these concerns on a regular basis.\u00a0 If the heart of any archive is its holdings, access to those collections is paramount.\u00a0 A first place to discover the content of a collection is a\u00a0<em>finding aid<\/em>.\u00a0 A finding aid could be as simple as a box list, or it could be as detailed as an item list.\u00a0 Whatever its level of detail, it describes the arrangement of the collection and assists a researcher in determining its research value.\u00a0 Think of it as a roadmap to an archival collection.\u00a0 An excellent finding aid saves researchers time and energy, allowing for efficient research and more rewarding study.\u00a0 Believing our collections hold great potential for understanding and even transformation, our goal is to provide clear and accessible finding aids.<\/p>\n<p>ACU&#8217;s Center for Restoration Studies holds hundreds of collections.\u00a0 Some are small caches of a few photographs or diaries.\u00a0 Others consist of congregational items like a single church directory or cassette-tape sermons or newsletters.\u00a0 Others are robust collections&#8211;dozens of boxes of scholarly research notes and correspondence.\u00a0 As we roll out expanded finding aids for these collections, we will post them <a title=\"here\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/findingaids\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 All collections will also be entered into the Library&#8217;s <a title=\"online catalog\" href=\"http:\/\/catalog.alc.org\/uhtbin\/cgisirsi.exe\/?ps=6PqCaiRYMW\/ACU\/283490020\/60\/502\/X\" target=\"_blank\">online catalog<\/a>, and therefore will be visible to the world in <a title=\"Worldcat.org\" href=\"http:\/\/Worldcat.org\" target=\"_blank\">Worldcat.org<\/a>.\u00a0 If you need assistance or would like to arrange for in-person or remote research assistance, <a title=\"click here\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/findingaids\/research-assistance\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you have in your archive?\u00a0 Will any of it interest me?\u00a0 These are critical questions; we address these concerns on a regular basis.\u00a0 If the heart of any archive is its holdings, access to those collections is paramount.\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/2014\/05\/01\/first-steps-in-discovery-online-finding-aids\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83092,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-aids","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4fxGI-j7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}