The Archives Help Preserve AUC History
By: Maya Abouelnasr
@EmEn1125
The University Archives and Records Management teams have long been vital members of the community, hard at work behind the scenes tasked with preserving over a century’s worth of AUC’s rich history.
The University Records Management Services is part of the Rare Books Special Collections Library (RBSCL) and is affiliated with the University Archives.
The team of four, including Assistant University Archivist for Records Management Maria Papanikolaou, work meticulously to maintain material that is specifically related to AUC’s business and academic transactions and informational assets.
“The University Archives are the only place in the world where this information can be preserved and tracked. We could dare to say that the University Archives are the personal record of AUC,” Papanikolaou told The Caravan.
The records are especially valuable to various offices on campus for preserving documents in a place where they can be stored and retrieved efficiently, as well as for requiring guidance on how long to keep records and how to handle their disposal.
“We have eight main users such as Office of the Provost, Office of the Registrar, Office of the Controller, Office of Construction Design and Planning, which we serve regularly, like daily, weekly, monthly or every six months,” Papanikolaou said.
She explained that the team is also responsible for archival projects. Some of these projects have consisted of archiving records of certain departments, as well as digitizing material for greater accessibility through the RBSCL Digital Library website.
This includes old issues of student newspapers such as The Caravan and issues of several Egyptian magazines such as Al Musawwar and Al Kawakib.
A project that is currently in the works is the plan to digitize the New Campus Planning Office Design and Construction Boards.
Other than business and academic transactions, a plethora of unique records can be found in the archives such as oral histories, detailing the experiences of AUC leadership (past presidents, provosts, etc.), faculty, students and staff over the years.
“It is also interesting the documentation kept from the first two decades [1920s and1930s] of AUC’s history, such as promotional leaflets, students’ booklets, audiovisual material depicting the student life at the Old Campus, and the first President and Founder of AUC Charles Watson’s records collection,” Papanikolaou added.
Though ultimately rewarding, the process of archiving this wealth of material that spans as far back as 1919 can be a tedious one.
Papanikolaou noted that archiving extends beyond simply collecting and storing historically important records, and rather, is more dynamic due to the meticulous maintenance and assessment of each record.
This can be summarized through the use of verbs for archiving, which are identify, appraise and select, arrange and describe, and preserve and access.
“Before archiving the records, we need to identify what records from an office, department or a person have potential archival value and separate them with those with temporary value. Then, to appraise the records according to the University Archives collection criteria and select them for transfer to the University Archives,” Papanikolaou said.
The selection process criteria for what is regarded as being of archival value is broken up into two parts.
The first aspect is the content and context-based material, which includes records that are administratively, institutionally and academically important such as policies, event records and meeting minutes. This also extends beyond AUC’s walls to include archives relating to records that document relations between Egypt and the U.S. Government.
The second part involves records related to media-based content such as audiovisual material from floppy disks, cassettes, videotapes, tape reels and past versions of the university website.
Following this stage, the focus shifts to arranging and checking the material for access restrictions, alongside noting if restoration work is needed in cases where the physical status of the record may have deteriorated with time.
The material is then put through a description process, wherein it needs to pass professional archival standards and rules for the Records Management team and Archives to gain control of the material and facilitate assistance for research purposes.
Preservation work follows the description phase, which involves careful packaging of paper records, storing the records in climate control facilities, carrying out restorations and preserving already digitized material in the servers and archival software.
This all ultimately ends with accessibility of the material to the community in the reading room on the third floor of the RBSCL, Library and Learning Technologies building, or through online tools such as the RBSCL Digital Library.
Papanikolaou further emphasized the value and purpose of this time-consuming, yet rewarding work that the Records Management and University Archive teams do.
“The University Archives are the treasury of institutional knowledge and memory by collecting and preserving it from the past, to present and future,” Papanikolaou said.
“If this knowledge and memory is not collected and preserved, it will be lost and not be replaced again.”
