Archivist-Documentalist Training

Lesson 1 • History and Purpose of Archives

Traces archival practice from ancient record-keeping to modern institutions. Grounds students in the social and administrative functions archives serve.

Lesson 2 • Types of Archival Materials

Surveys textual, audiovisual, cartographic, and born-digital record types. Prepares students to identify and handle diverse holdings.

Lesson 3 • The Archival Profession and Ethics

Introduces professional codes of ethics, neutrality, and duty of care. Establishes the values guiding all archival decisions.

Lesson 1 • Disposition and Transfer Procedures

Details secure destruction, transfer to archives, and documentation of disposition actions. Ensures students can execute and audit disposition decisions.

Lesson 2 • Classification and File Plan Design

Teaches functional and subject-based classification schemes for organising records. Students design a file plan aligned with organisational functions.

Lesson 3 • Vital Records and Business Continuity

Identifies records critical to organisational survival and recovery. Students create a vital records protection plan.

Lesson 4 • Retention Scheduling

Covers how to set legally defensible retention periods based on regulatory and operational requirements. Students draft a retention schedule for a sample organisation.

Lesson 1 • Theories of Archival Appraisal

Compares macro-appraisal, functional appraisal, and documentation strategy approaches. Equips students to choose the right methodology for different institutional contexts.

Lesson 2 • Conducting an Appraisal Survey

Guides students through surveying a record creator's functions, records, and context. Produces a written appraisal report as a practical deliverable.

Lesson 3 • Acquisition Policies and Collecting Scope

Explains how institutions define collecting mandates and avoid duplication with peer repositories. Students draft an acquisition policy statement.

Lesson 1 • Quality Control in Description

Establishes review workflows, consistency checks, and error correction procedures. Ensures finding aids meet institutional and user quality standards.

Lesson 2 • Descriptive Standards and Schemas

Introduces internationally recognised descriptive standards for archival content and authority records. Students map local practice to standard elements.

Lesson 3 • Writing Archival Finding Aids

Teaches scope and content notes, biographical histories, and container lists. Students draft a complete finding aid for a processed collection.

Lesson 4 • Principles of Archival Arrangement

Applies provenance and original order to multi-level arrangement decisions. Students arrange a sample accession from fonds level to item level.

Lesson 1 • Disaster Preparedness and Recovery

Builds skills in writing disaster plans, salvage priorities, and post-disaster recovery. Students complete a disaster response exercise for a simulated emergency.

Lesson 2 • Environmental Controls and Storage

Specifies optimal storage conditions and enclosure standards for different record formats. Students audit a sample storage area and recommend improvements.

Lesson 3 • Agents of Deterioration

Identifies physical, chemical, biological, and human threats to archival materials. Provides the diagnostic foundation for all preservation interventions.

Lesson 4 • Conservation Treatment Principles

Covers stabilisation, cleaning, repair, and the ethics of minimal intervention. Distinguishes archivist responsibilities from conservator specialist work.

Lesson 1 • Managing Email and Collaborative Platforms

Addresses capture, appraisal, and preservation of email, shared drives, and collaboration tools. Applies digital preservation principles to high-volume, complex record types.

Lesson 2 • Trusted Digital Repository Standards

Introduces open archival information system concepts and repository audit criteria. Students assess a repository against a recognised trustworthiness framework.

Lesson 3 • Characteristics of Electronic Records

Analyses authenticity, reliability, integrity, and usability requirements for digital records. Establishes why digital preservation differs fundamentally from analogue preservation.

Lesson 4 • Ingest and Processing of Digital Records

Covers virus checking, checksum verification, format identification, and metadata extraction. Students process a sample digital accession through an ingest workflow.

Lesson 1 • Reference Interview and Research Assistance

Teaches techniques for understanding researcher needs and guiding effective archival searches. Students conduct and evaluate mock reference interviews.

Lesson 2 • Reading Room Operations

Covers registration, supervision, handling rules, and reproduction policies for on-site access. Ensures safe and orderly researcher access to original materials.

Lesson 3 • Restricted and Sensitive Records Management

Addresses redaction, access review workflows, and managing classified or sensitive materials. Students apply an access review process to a sample restricted collection.

Lesson 4 • Principles of Archival Access

Balances the right to access with privacy, confidentiality, and donor restrictions. Establishes the ethical and legal framework for all reference decisions.

Lesson 1 • Budgeting and Resource Management

Covers budget preparation, cost justification, and resource allocation for archival operations. Students build a sample operating budget with narrative justification.

Lesson 2 • Staffing, Training, and Supervision

Addresses hiring, onboarding, performance management, and professional development for archival staff. Builds capacity to lead a diverse archival team.

Lesson 3 • Advocacy and Stakeholder Engagement

Builds skills in communicating archival value to administrators, funders, and the public. Students develop an advocacy campaign for a specific archival programme.

Lesson 4 • Strategic Planning for Archives

Applies environmental scanning, mission alignment, and goal-setting to archival programme development. Produces a multi-year strategic plan as a capstone deliverable.