1. Archives Committee 2012: Dottie and Harry Kessler Document Collection
Lifetime of collecting Fincastle history
Given to HFI by the family
Perfect match with HFI goals
Unique resource
Given to HFI with the instruction that HFI “preserve, archive, display and distribute her notes, writings and photographs of the town and county in a manner that honors her love for her town and county.”
Perfect match “to collect, interpret, and disseminate information on the physical and cultural history of the historic Town of Fincastle and surrounding areas.”
Unique resource - needs to be where the public can enjoy them, where researchers can use them to further their research, and where people who simply love the area can gain a greater understanding of its history and culture –online 1

2. HFI Archives: Document Sorting
Process for each piece of paper, photo or map
Read
Contents identified and cataloged
Entered into PastPerfect
Scanned image attached to record
Status: ongoing with goal of going live by 2014

3. Archives: PastPerfect Home Screen
Very comprehensive program. Two main components, collections and development.
4 collections
Track where each item is located
Can now actually find specific documents that have been cataloged.
Database can be searched in a variety of ways.
Wonderful section for membership and fund raising. 3

4. Example: 3 newspaper articles about Jockey Alley
Example: 3 newspaper articles about Jockey Alley. This what is called the “Screen View.”
Upper section: identification. Identifies the type of item, where it came from, it’s date or approximate date, who cataloged it, and its current location
Lower section: description. This is one of the two most time consuming parts of cataloging an item, capturing the key content in a concise way. 4

5. Under Other Views you can specify much more information about the item.
A key section is People, Subjects, Classification and Search Terms. These are what PastPerfect calls “authority files.” They are used to specify terms that might be used when searching for information.
Subjects are Library of Congress subjects and cannot be changed. We just select the ones from a list that apply.
However, People and Search Terms are local in nature. As we are cataloging we type the names of people related to the item in the People authority file, or local subjects in the Search Terms authority file.
Once they have been entered all we have to do is double click on the name or search term to have it attached to the record we are working on.
Deciding which people, subjects and search terms should be connected to the record is the second most time consuming aspect of cataloging.
After entering all necessary information we scan the item. Is easy to do right from the PastPerfect record. Easy, but can also be tricky! 5

6. Will show 2 of the 3 articles about Jockey Alley as an example.
This is pretty hard to read, even on the original. PastPerfect anticipated this and added a Zoom button. 6

7. If you want further magnification you can click on the magnifying glass icon and move it around the image. 7

8. The next article is more legible than the first article…8

9. …but also much easier to read in Zoom mode.
Let’s see one more example of our cataloging, this time a photograph. 9

10. The Photos catalog is the other major section of the Main Menu item we will be working in as we catalog. 10

11. In the Other Views section of the Photos catalog we again select Library of Congress subjects, and select or add local People and Search Terms. 11

12. We were fortunate that someone wrote on the back of the photo and also included a sheet of paper identifying the ladies in the photo.
One of them is only tentatively identified, and the child is unknown.
Archives Committee is a small, but dedicated group. 12