Accessioning: The Roots of Archival Stewardship

Accessioning is the basis of all archival stewardship. It is a suite of activities through which archivists appraise, transfer, stabilize, and document archival acquisitions. Accessioning provides pathways to access, informs future decisions, and promotes sustained resource commitment for the care of archival materials.

Accessioning is foundational to ethical archival practice. Accessioning marks the beginning of care for archival materials and is proof of a repository’s ability to do so. Through the act of accessioning, archivists commit to supplying accurate information about archival materials to colleagues and users, ensure materials are stable, initiate the ongoing work of preserving them, enable access, and keep promises made to donors and collection creators to do all of the above.

Accessioning is not an isolated or project-based task but rather systemic work directly connected to the core archival functions of appraisal, arrangement and description, preservation, and access.

The amount of institutional resources put into accessioning may be the single best test of a repository’s commitment to the responsible stewardship of materials. If an institution doesn’t have the time, space, and resources to accurately describe, stabilize, store, and administer a new acquisition, it cannot meet its obligations to care for and provide access to the materials. An unaccessioned or poorly accessioned acquisition is an inaccessible one, and providing access is an ethical imperative of the archival profession. An institutional commitment to accessioning constitutes a substantial commitment to care for archives and signals a meaningful respect for the work of archivists.

Accessioning work has a holistic impact across an institution. The accessioning labor of skilled archivists furthers institutional goals, mitigates risks, and has wide-ranging effects on preservation, stacks management, technical services, public services, instruction, outreach and programming, donor relations, and collection development. Therefore, it is vital to understand the complexity of accessioning labor, as well as the professional judgment and diverse yet specific set of skills it requires. The Best Practices seek to build solidarity around accessioning work by centering the archivist not only as a worker, but, more importantly, as a person.

These best practices are intended to be an active resource for practitioners.