Archives

Help with Inventories

An inventory describes the contents of a collection or group of records. A Notre Dame Archives inventory begins by indentifying the collection or group by name and by collection code. It often gives information about the scope, content, and structure of the collection or record group, and sometimes provides a historical or biographical sketch of its subject. It nearly always lists the units that make up the collection or record group (boxes and folders in a typical manuscript collection) and sometimes provides more detailed information as to the contents of those units.

In our old inventories, this list follows a standard format which uses the following codes to characterize entries:

$ -- for series title
| -- for subseries title
x -- for a group of folders
F -- for folder title
S -- for subject
D -- for document type
A -- for author
T -- for title of a book, pamphlet, or report
L -- for a letter
R -- for the recipient of a letter
W -- for the writer of a letter
c -- for a correspondent
Z -- for explanations of abbreviations
{ -- for a line in a paragraph of description

In our new finding aids, these codes are expanded so as to be self-explanatory.

In a typical inventory each line begins with two or more numbers, separated by either a slash (/) or hyphen (-), which indicate a range of boxes or of folders within a box. For examp1e, an entry such as "1-10" refers to boxes 1 through 10 in the collection, while "1/1-10" refers to folders 1 through 10 within box 1 of the collection.

A Notre Dame Archives inventory generally does NOT provide links to images of the documents it describes. It resembles a library's catalog in which one expects to find bibliographical descriptions but not the whole text of the books described.

If you see something in an inventory that interests you, you can order photocopies using our form -- but to do so, you will need to ask us to count pages. If you have email, you can send us a message (Archives.1@nd.edu) and tell us the collection code, unit number, and description. Generally you can do this most easily by marking the text that interests you, copying it to your clipboard, and pasting it into your email message.

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