An open acid-free archives box and archival storage solution with archival file folders on a green filing cabinet..

If you have a closet or room or basement full of boxes, documents, records, old floppy disks, and other historical “stuff,” it can be difficult to know what to do with it. We may call it junk and talk about decluttering, and it’s tempting to just get rid of all of it by donating it or throwing it away so we can make better use of that space. But we know that some important items are probably hiding under all the chaos. This gut feeling stops us from calling 1-800-JUNK, but all of the sorting and sifting work is daunting and time-consuming. It’s hard to know where to begin and how to find archival solutions that work.

Archivists tend to approach their work in three steps. Sometimes it’s described as the Archival Mission:

Identify materials of enduring value
Preserve them
Make them available for people to use

It acts as a sort of pipeline or cycle. Records come in, they get preserved, and then they go out to a broader audience. At the end of the pipeline is an organized and accessible archival collection that contains valuable information. This mission guides us through how to store paper documents and digital files long term.

The Bright Archives Process

At Bright Archives, there are four steps to creating a meaningful archive:

LiSTEN
Process
Provide Access
Tell Stories

The archival mission is embedded in our four steps, but we add in our own twist and flair. One of the ways we customize the process is through our LiSTEN framework, which is the first step we take with any archival project.

We Love to Li-S-T-E-N

LiSTEN is an acronym that stands for:

Listen to identify needs and goals
Start documenting context and provenance
Take stock of your archival materials
Explore options that meet your needs
Name desired outcomes and outline a practical process for getting there

We developed this framework to gather as much information as possible about the materials. In archival science, when we don’t have much intellectual or physical control over anything yet, it’s called the “pre-custodial phase” or “accessioning phase,” and it usually consists of activities like acquisition, surveying, and appraisal. There are many definitions and approaches to these activities and I won’t get into them here, but they all revolve around gathering context and gaining control. Taken together, these details help us figure out how to make sense of the materials and how best to preserve them.

An infographic for the LiSTEN framework developed by Bright Archives.

Applying the LiSTEN Framework to Archival Assessments

We apply our LiSTEN framework to multiple areas of our work, but we’ve found that it’s especially useful when working through the “precustodial phase” of the archival process. It allows us to move quickly and build services that are approachable, open-ended, and flexible. The process of applying the LiSTEN framework could take an hour or a few weeks, depending on the needs of the project. We ask questions about who created the material and what type of material it is (e.g., is it physical papers or digital files?) while paying attention to what is most important to the person or organization who owns the material and what the goals are for working with the collection.

It’s an exploratory, generative, and conversational process that results in a few important things:

Documentation
Strategy

Creating Collection Documentation

First, we gather and create documentation about the materials, helping it start to transform from a pile of stuff to more of a collection. We photograph the space where the materials stored (the “before” photo) and may even interview people who created them. We also write down as much context as possible. Things like, what the materials are, what information they contain, how they were and are used, how they were created, when they were created, who created them, what condition they are in, what enduring value they have, what the goals are for organizing them, and who will manage them when they’re part of the archive.

The information we gather tends to revolve around three basic principles in archival science: respect des fonds, original order, and provenance. These three essentials prioritize keeping things in their original groupings as much as possible to maintain their context, which adds to their overall meaning and value. (If you want to learn more about archival principles, check out this article from the Council on Library and Information Resources.) We may also create a preliminary box list or inventory and start identifying basic categories of items.

This documentation becomes the foundation for all the work that comes next.

Creating a Strategy

Second, we build a strategy around the collection. This often includes a processing plan, which outlines a strategy for organizing, arranging, describing, and cataloging. The processing plan details natural groupings or categories of materials and outlines what materials may be weeded or discarded. We also tend to include a vision and goals for the future of the collection. This might take the form of plans for digitization, online access, technical requirements, staffing, fundraising, exhibitions, events, and storytelling using the materials.

Go Forth and Organize!

After the LiSTEN step, with documentation and a strategy in hand, suddenly the closet or room or basement full of stuff becomes understandable and manageable and decidedly less scary.

We can then start to move on to the next step, Process, where we’ll execute the strategy using all of that documentation, but I’ll save that topic for another day.