What we Collect

Collection Boundaries: Types of Materials Stored in the Archives

The JHSMW Archives collects materials in all formats, including books, bound periodicals, manuscripts, audio and video tapes, motion picture films, and artifacts of physical culture, and any other types of media as may be presented in the future.

Collection Boundaries: Records Retained by the JHSMW Archives

The JHSMW Archives is the repository for a wide variety of institutions, organizations, individuals and families; the geographic collection boundaries are as follows:

Essex County
Morris County
Sussex County
Union County (Northern portion)

As such, the JHSMW Archives actively collects the following types of documents related those institutions:

Administrative, legal and financial records, including but not limited to, records of community businesses and organizations.
Published and unpublished books or manuscripts produced by or about members of the Jewish community.
Records of Jewish life and culture in the geographical region covered by the Society, includuing but not limited to, photographs, slides, posters, audio and video recordings, films, and artifacts of physical culture.
Personal papers and effects of individuals and families, including letters, diaries, family histories, artifacts of physical culture and photographs relating to their personal lives or their professional lives within the community.
Records of religious life and affiliation including the records of synagogues, religious schools or other religious groups, religious texts and artifacts of physical culture produced or collected by members of the community.
Records of anti-Semitism in the geographical area, including oral histories of Holocaust survivors who reside in the community.

Collection Boundaries: Collecting Priorities

The JHSMW should make every effort to limit collections to original records in good condition. Photocopies are acceptable only if the original record has been lost or destroyed.

The development of the archives collection will be monitored by the Archives Committee, which shall be comprised of the President of the Society, the Archivist of the Society, the Curator and Outreach Director and at least two members of the Board of Trustees of the Society, one of whom must be a member of the Executive Committee.

Class A (1 st priority - records actively sought)

Records of the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest
Records of Federation-sponsored or beneficiary social service organizations
Congregational records
Religious (Hebrew) Schools
Jewish Day schools
Jewish fraternal and social organizations
Community newspapers and other publications pertaining to the Jewish community
Papers of families and individuals residing in the community
Oral histories from community members about life in the community
Papers of Jewish-owned businesses in the community
Paintings, Photographs and a/v recordings of, or by, individuals and groups who reside or do business in the MetroWest area when the subject matter is of, or related to, the Jewish community.

Class B (2 nd priority - records accepted if offered, but not sought)

Oral histories of local Holocaust survivors
Other historical documents related to the Holocaust experiences of residents of our collecting areas.
Items not listed but approved by the Archives Committee

Class C (3 rd priority - records not sought and not accepted if offered)

Miscelleneous historical documents, including, but not limited to:

items that document historical events unrelated to the Jewish community
national newspapers and other items that document historical events on a national scale, whether or not they are related to the Jewish community.

Proposed donations must be evaluated by at least two members of the Archives Committee before being accepted into the Archives. Once a collection of records has been evaluated and accepted into the Archives , it will then be assigned an accession number and a record group number, prioritized for processing, and placed on the shelves. Collections expected to generate high levels of use should be prioritized above those that are expected to draw lower levels of use.

Materials found to be inappropriate for the Archives will be returned to the donor, with suggestions for appropriate repositories.

Collection Boundaries: Removing Records from the Archives

Records found to be already in the JHSMW Archives that are outside the scope of the collection development plan under the terms of the JHSMW Accession Policy and that are not found to be of enduring interest to the JHSMW shall be submitted to the Archives Committee and proposed for deaccession. If the items are approved for deaccession, they shall be removed from the Archives and donated to an appropriate institution.