Accession Policies and Procedures

MBMG Data Preservation Accessioning Procedures

Our procedures align with the professional guidelines established by the Society of American Archivists and assure that we responsibly process all donations and maintain our reputation as a creditable archival repository. If you would like our full procedures, please contact Denise, Chelsea, or Tony.

1. When we accept a donation from an individual, the MBMG and the donor complete a Deed of Gift giving the MBMG full possession of the donations. (We approach donations from state or federal agencies differently. If you are offered a collection of information from an agency, please contact us.)
2. All accepted donations should be transferred to Data Preservation/Mining Archives program staff. Acceptance is the start of our accessioning process, and a basic inventory in Microsoft Access must be completed, at least at folder level.
3. Mining Archives staff will inventory donated materials to identify uniqueness, condition, duplicate records; potential internal and external demands, enduring value, and technological obsolescence.
4. Once Mining Archives staff inventory the donated collection, they work with geologists and the MBMG Director to identify (if any) records to be deaccessioned for disposal, use by staff, or transfer to other agencies or repositories.
5. The collection is added to the Data Preservation Project Status Report Spreadsheet (M:\PublicationsPublic\Data_Preservation) and is assigned an intended preservation level. Preservation levels change in response to funding and demand for the information.
6. The Data Preservation page on the MBMG website cannot display, nor is there public demand for, every document and map from every collection. Legislative interest/funding and public demand are two of the criteria we use to determine what files are available for download. The website includes descriptions of all of our collections with our contact information for those who want more information. We regularly reevaluate both preservation levels and web options.

**If you are offered a collection of potentially relevant information, we encourage you to bring that information to us. This procedure summary is to help you and donors understand our processes.

Society of American Archivists Museum Standards Best Practices Guide

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