Presented by Margaret Pember
A course requirement for students studying archives at Curtin University is the ‘hands-on’ processing of a small collection or consignment of archival records according to accepted best practice archival principles and standards with due regard for provenance and original order. The processing exercise is a formal part of unit assessment. It involves the physical arrangement of a collection in archival quality enclosures and boxes and archival description to an appropriate level depending on the particular records. An outcome of the project is a detailed finding aid for use by researchers. In addition, students are expected to research the provenance and broad context of the collection and to produce a biographical note or organisational history to support the finding aid. These are just the tangible measurable outcomes of the hands-on experience. The less obvious intangible outcomes are just as important.