Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Clark, Maribeth
Area of Concentration
Humanities, Russian Language and Literature
Abstract
This thesis covers the work done during the Dr. Helen Fagin Archival Internship Project while reflecting on the interaction of the project with information literacy skills, and how it can serve as an exercise in building said skills. The internship itself focuses on the processing of the personal collection donated to the Jane Bancroft Library by Dr. Fagin, with the primary goals being to complete the physical processing of the collection, thereby appraising, arranging, and preserving the collection, and endeavoring to work its amplification, raising awareness of and accessibility to the collection. A synthesis of these two objectives is embodied in the finding aid. The finding aid is crucial to both aspects, as it serves as an organizational, locative, and contextualizing document. In order to successfully create a finding aid, the collection must first be appraised and arranged; an organizational skeleton needs to be constructed. Then the collection needs to be physically processed in order for the finding aid to accurately reflect the locations of the materials. After this is completed, the finding aid can serve as a map and registry for the collection, increasing accessibility by lowering the effort barrier to efficiently find and use relevant materials. The amount and scope of work done on the project is truly reflective of the importance of the collection as a cultural and historical resource, as well as one for the application of information skill building techniques.
Recommended Citation
White, Fiona, "A Life in Documents:
A Case Study in Building Information Literacy Skills through the Processing and Creation of a
Finding Aid for the Helen Fagin Archive Collection at the
Jane Bancroft Cook Library" (2025). Theses & ETDs. 6731.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/6731