A Microsoft Office Alternative to Archivists’ Toolkit

Matt StraussHeinz History Center

Began in 1879

Western Pa. history

Processing has not always kept pace

with collecting

Basic Processing Grant awarded in

2011.

Introduced MPLP processing to

backlog.

Provided additional staff

over collections processed

amounting to linear feet

reducing the backlog by

in just

600

2,130

75%

2 years

Project Goals

Descriptive and administrative information

MS Word finding aids, catalog records, EAD Files

An important part of the planned project…

…but there were concerns from

the IT Dept.

Benefits of building a Microsoft alternative

Already installed

Tons of online help

Quickly and easily built

No coding necessary

Applications play nice with one another

Even More Benefits:

Table view

55 Fields

Form view

Different tabs

Finding aid MARC EAD

Mail Merge

Pre-Merge

EAD MS Word template

Post-merge

Copied into XML editor

Some clean-up is required

Does not support container lists

Built for collection-level description

Helped to keep project on track

mstrauss@heinzhistorycenter.org

Matthew Strauss @mattdys