Archival Description and Arrangement: Building a Realistic, Flexible Work Plan
There’s a lot out there about how to arrange and describe archival collections. This post is less about the nitty-gritty of how to decide where to file the “1974 Correspondence” and more about how to build a plan that lets you get the work done in a sustainable, realistic, and thoughtful way. We'll talk about what goes into a solid arrangement and description work plan, how to create one, what kinds of questions you should ask along the way, and how to estimate time and effort. Plus, I’ll share a few examples of collections I’ve worked on and how those plans changed in real time.
For step-by-step guidance on levels of arrangement, original order, or description standards, check out the Backlog webinar on Finding Aid Basics or dig into resources like Dennis Meissner’s Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts. That kind of technical detail is helpful, but this post is about thinking through your approach.
Start with the Basics: Definitions That Matter
Before diving into a plan, it helps to make sure we’re speaking the same language.
Processing is an umbrella term. The SAA defines it as preparing materials for archival use. Meissner expands it to include arrangement, description, housing, and other activities like conservation and preservation. It’s a term that gets used in lots of ways, so be clear on how your institution defines it.
Arrangement is the process of organizing materials based on who created them and how they were originally kept. This includes both intellectual order (the structure that makes sense based on content and context) and physical order (how things are housed). Sometimes original order is obvious. Other times you have to recreate it, or make your best guess.
Description is how you make collections findable and understandable to researchers. That includes explaining what’s in the collection, who created it, when and why it was created, and how the pieces fit together. Description is usually captured in a finding aid, but it can also show up in catalog records, digital object metadata, or online exhibits.
Why You Should Have a Plan (Even If You Don’t Stick to It)
Planning might sound like a luxury when you're already behind or buried in boxes. But a plan helps you set expectations, build in consistency, and avoid reinventing the wheel every time you sit down to work. It doesn't have to be perfect or permanent. It will evolve, just like your understanding of the collection.
Every institution has a different workflow, but they usually share the same general steps: appraisal, acquisition, accessioning, arrangement, description, preservation, and access. In real life, those steps overlap. You might start moving materials into folders at the same time you’re sketching out a series structure. You might revisit your timeline after finding fragile materials or unexpected audiovisual content. That’s normal.
As Samantha Thompson from the Region of Peel once said, every collection makes you feel like a beginner again. You can have experience and training, but each collection will challenge you in new ways.
What to Include in Your Work Plan
Here’s a breakdown of what your plan might cover, based on Meissner’s approach and adjusted for real life.
1. Set Expectations
Talk with your supervisor, if you have one, about the scope. Are there deadlines due to an exhibit or an anniversary? What level of processing is expected? Are you describing down to the folder, or just organizing at the series level? Is this a quick-turnaround project or a deep-dive?
Some organizations have detailed processing manuals that lay out criteria. Others are more informal. Either way, know what success looks like.
2. Review Existing Documentation
Before you touch the boxes, check for anything that might already exist. Inventories, notes from previous staff, donor documentation, or accession records can save you a ton of time. If possible, talk to people familiar with the collection, including donors. Look for signs that someone already proposed an arrangement. That gives you a head start, or at least a baseline.
3. Do Background Research
Who created the records? What were they doing, and why did these materials survive? What relationships exist between people, organizations, and events in the records?
Create a rough timeline. Build a list of acronyms. Dig through obituaries, memoirs, institutional histories, and oral histories. All of that helps provide context and will shape how you arrange and describe the materials. This kind of research doesn't have to be linear. You can be reading a chapter here and there while also doing your survey work.
4. Survey the Collection
Go container by container and get a sense of what’s there. What formats are represented? Are there fragile items or privacy concerns? Is there any sign of an internal order? Use post-its, tags, or spreadsheets to start marking series or groupings. Write everything down.
This is also when you start noticing what kind of labor might be required. If everything is neatly grouped and foldered, that’s one thing. If it’s a mix of loose materials and unlabeled folders, you’ll need to budget more time for sorting.
5. Arrangement
This stage is where you start building intellectual and physical structure.
For intellectual arrangement, determine your series and subseries. Decide what kind of sorting is necessary. If you can leave most materials as they are, that’s quick. If you need to sort at the item level, that’s much slower.
Once you’ve finalized your intellectual structure, begin physically arranging the materials. This means rehousing, labeling folders and boxes, and preparing a container list. You may already have done some of this during the survey, and that’s fine. Just document what’s done and what still needs to happen.
6. Description
You’ve probably already been drafting description throughout the process, especially while creating the container list. Now is the time to finalize that content and make sure it matches your description standards. Be ready to review and revise more than once. If your institution uses ArchivesSpace, AtoM, or another platform, you’ll likely be uploading your content there.
7. Build in Flexibility
Your work plan should include rough time estimates for each stage, but know that those are subject to change. Keep track of how long things actually take. Use that data to adjust your plan. Processing is full of surprises. Collections that look easy can turn out to be complicated, and vice versa.
Final Thoughts
Have a plan, but give yourself space to adapt. This work is detailed, slow, and often full of surprises. You’ll have to make judgment calls about when something is “done enough,” and those calls aren’t always easy. But you’re not doing this alone. Talk with colleagues. Share documentation. Revisit your plan. And don’t forget that this work, while sometimes tedious, is what makes archives usable and meaningful.
If you want to see some of these ideas in action, check out our full webinar on this topic. I walk through the work plans and decision-making behind two real collections, with examples of how the original structure (or lack of it) shaped the arrangement and description process. Whether you're brand new to processing or just want to feel less alone in the mess, it’s a great way to see how flexible, thoughtful planning plays out in real life.
