The Lone Arranger: getting the full picture of professional archivists' work.

• Author: Franklin, Jenara
• Position: The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository - Book review

The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository

Author: Christina J. Zamon

Publisher: Society of American Archivists

Publication Date: 2012

Length: 157 pages

Price: $69.95

ISBN-13:1-93:1.666-41-5

Source: www.archivists.org

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The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository by Christina J. Zamon is a guide for people who work as single archivists and for those who may not even recognize they are an archivist or preserver of history. Zamon's book touches on all aspects of running a small archival repository, including administration, collection management, information technology, archival fundamentals, disaster recovery, reference requests, and budgeting.

Providing policy advice and examples, as well as information on the daily challenges of the job, this book will be of interest to a range of practitioners, from veteran to "accidental" archivists.

The chapters are cleverly arranged in a user-question format that provides easy referencing and an element of humor. For example, the chapter "What Am I Doing Here?" pertains to administration and management, and the chapter "You Want What?" focuses on reference and outreach.

Zamon evaluates the lone arranger's role and responsibilities and probes the reader with questions that need to be answered in order to accomplish fundamental work and meet tangible priorities and goals.

Zamon looks at the field of collection management, from acquisition, appraisal, and organizational finding aids. Although discussions on these topics can be quite technical, here they are clearly explained as straight facts to the reader. Formal definitions are given in the margins of the book for reference, allowing a readable discussion of archival practice that is not bogged down by highly technical and theoretical discussion.

The section on information technology provides guidelines about what to ask before setting up software to manage the archival collection, which will help ensure making the best choice for the organization and the collection. Zamon also discusses how to plan physical space and manage it efficiently and usefully, as well as how to create a budget and write grants.

The overall reassuring tone of the book makes readers feel they are not only up to the task of becoming a lone arranger, but that they will be able to shine at it. Numerous photographs illustrate different archival realities--from the disarray of records archivists can discover to how properly stored materials...