From Unheard Voices to Women, Enterprise and Society:

Putting a Guide to Women's History Materials on the Web

On September 28th, the Women's Studies and Business Librarians' Interest Groups welcomed forty-five attendees to their joint program on the Women in Business Project held at Harvard Business School's Spangler Center.

 

Under the stewardship of Laura Linard, Director of Baker Library's Historical Collections and the leadership of Clara Bouricius, Project Manager of the Women in Business Survey, working women's voices from the 18th-20th centuries are beginning to resonate from Baker Library's Historical Collections through the pages of the "Unheard Voices" [now Women, Enterprise and Society] web site: http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/wes/

 

Clara Bouricius and Project Staff presented a fascinating overview of the women's history materials in the Baker Library's business manuscript collections and the challenges inherent in locating, organizing and providing access to these important archival collections.

 

Baker Library's Historical Collections Survey

As cultural history began to bloom, Baker Library's historical collections were increasingly sought after by archeologists and people interested in gender studies. Librarians at Baker Library were aware that the collection's finding aids were made before there was a focus on women's history and studies. As a start to determining what these collections contained, Baker Library received money from the Harvard University Women's Matching Fund. The first step in beginning the survey was to decide which collections were going to be surveyed and what the survey criteria were going to be. Of the 300 collections surveyed, 206 yielded material on women in business. Materials cover the whole chain of production in addition to holding a large amount of private materials consisting of diaries, letters, and household account books. As the survey of the 18th and 19th century collections progressed, it became clear that in order to create a comprehensive guide that a survey of 20th century materials was also needed and that a web site was the best vehicle for a guide to the women in business collections.

 

Compared to the 18th and 19th centuries, the 20th century "office revolution" resulted in massive amounts of record keeping. This revolution also marked the beginning of the gender revolution. By the end of the 19th century, 90% of office workers were women. This rapid expansion of women in the workplace is borne out in the 20th century collection survey where staff found that 72 out of 113 were office collections.

 

Web site

The aim of the "Unheard Voices" web site is to inform scholars about what is in the collection with links to Baker Library's online catalog records that, in turn, link to the collection's finding aids. The materials themselves are not being digitized. "Unheard Voices" will be superseded by an expanded version of the site entitled "Women, Enterprise and Society" which will provide an indexed guide to 182 collection level descriptions and concentrate on women, enterprise, and society. The site will have 5 divisions: Introduction to the Collections, Collections, Index, Bibliography, and Site Map. The indexes will make it possible for the web site to be used as a research tool. Three indexes will be made available: an alphabetical index, an index to the collections by place and date, and a subject index. These indexes will be hot linked to the collection descriptions.

 

The role of the Libaries' catalog

Karen Bailey, Rare Books Librarian, explained the multiple linkages that are being made to/from Hollis to the web site and the challenges involved in providing links from the finding aids and collection descriptions to the Baker Library's OPAC records. She discussed the web sites place in the Baker Library's holdings and the factors that contributed to the decision about creating a web guide and the various linkages between the guide and the catalog's MARC records.

 

Taxonomy

Carol Ellerbeck, Business Information Taxonomist for the Baker Library, talked about subject access and the benefits of a faceted schema in locating materials on the web. Carol discussed the challenges of creating an organizational mechanism that works with a web site's user interface. The indexed guide will use a faceted schema that will be accessible by place, period, occupation, and subject which will enable the researcher to see how the content is distributed.

 

Web design

Sam Hainer, Senior Web Designer, concluded with an interesting presentation on the web site's design and interface issues and how the project moved from simply being an initial tour of the collection to a product where researchers can determine both what the collection holds, and what it doesn't have. Sam explained how metadata and a taxonomic structure were critical to this progression.

A lively question and answer period followed the morning's program.

Back