Tracking Source Material: Best Practices for Archival Citations in History and Humanities

Archival research presents citation problems that the Chicago Manual of Style addresses in general terms and that practice requires authors to resolve in specific ones. Manuscript collections, institutional records, correspondence, oral history recordings, government documents held in non-standard repositories, and a growing volume of digitized archival material all sit somewhere between the manual's guidance and the source on the desk. Scholarly authors in history and the humanities close that distance case by case. Often they do it without adequate models.

The principles below are for Chicago NB style, and they hold across a range of source types.

Establish the citation hierarchy early. Archival citations in Chicago NB style follow a general hierarchy: item description, collection name, box and folder information (where applicable), and repository name and location. Not every element will be present for every source, but the order should be consistent throughout the manuscript. Write it into a style sheet early. Authors who do so avoid the inconsistency that builds across a long manuscript when citation decisions are made ad hoc, and the style sheet doubles as a research record — a systematic account of where the evidence came from and how it was accessed, useful to the author long after the manuscript is submitted.

Handle collections and repositories with full information at first citation. The first citation of any archival collection gives the full name of the collection, the full name of the repository, and the repository's location. Later citations may use abbreviated forms — a shortened collection name and the repository's standard abbreviation, if one exists — provided the full form appears at first use and the abbreviation is established explicitly.

Digitized archival material requires both the original source and the digital access information. When a primary source has been accessed through a digital repository, such as a digitized newspaper collection, a scanned manuscript collection, or a government records database, the citation identifies the original source first and then gives the access information for the digital version. The URL or database name and the access date follow the original source information. A citation that gives only the digital access point is formally incomplete. It will fail a rigorous editorial review.

Oral history citations require specific elements. An oral history interview cited in Chicago NB should include the name of the interviewee, the name of the interviewer if different from the author, the date of the interview, the format of the recording or transcript, and the repository where the recording or transcript is held. Add the collection's formal name and call number if it has them. Self-conducted interviews need one more note. The author should state clearly that she conducted them and specify whether the recording, the transcript, or both are available, and where.

Develop a consistent treatment for undated and unsigned documents. Archival collections often contain such documents. Chicago style offers general guidance: "n.d." for undated documents, "Anonymous" or the descriptive label for unsigned ones. In collections where such documents are common, that guidance needs a consistent local practice behind it, written into the style sheet so that each case does not become a fresh decision.