- unitid
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{"value"=>"76895", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unittitle
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{"value"=>"I. Central Files"}
- physdesc
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{"value"=>"1082 boxes", "format"=>"simple"}
- scopecontent
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{"value"=>"<p>The Central Files Department maintained the core administrative records of the New York World's Fair 1939 /1940 Corporation and served as a vital resource to the hundreds of executives and administrators responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Fair. With few exceptions, the over two-dozen organizational units were required to file significant correspondence and memoranda in Central Files for reference or documentation purposes. Only materials deemed to be of a confidential nature or constituting part of the working records of a department were withheld and maintained within departmental files. At the peak operating period, the eleven employees who staffed the Central Files unit received and managed thousands of documents a week.</p> <p>Correspondence sent to Central Files was classified, indexed, filed by subject and then cross-referenced by name of individual and organization in an alphabetically-arranged Master Card Index. The card index both facilitated rapid retrieval and guided the clerical staff in the classification and indexing of the steady influx of new documents. The files were arranged by the Fair employees according to a hierarchically-structured, decimal-based classification system that at the highest level, divided into five major units under the headings of Administration, Construction, Maintenance, Participation, Public Relations. This original filing scheme -- which offers insights into the Fair's office management practices and serves as a model of mid-twentieth century recordkeeping systems -- has been preserved along with <a href='http://worldsfair.nypl.org/'>an electronic version of the card index (worldsfair.nypl.org)</a> providing item-level access to well over one million documents.</p> <p>There is some overlap of topics between the five sections, so carefully read all the notes to determine which records you may need to consult. The subject headings and associated alpha-numeric codes that appear in the scope notes serve as pointers to the location of the referenced material. For a fuller explanation of utilizing the filing system see: Conducting Research in the Central Files.</p>"}
- note
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{"type"=>"did", "value"=>"Dates in parentheses were assigned during processing and indicate whether documents pertain to the 1939 or the 1940 season of the Fair. The expression of the dates serves as a surrogate to the colored-coded filing labels employed by the Central File staff to distinguish between the two seasons. Material concerning the 1939 season includes documents that have a date range of 1935-1939. All other dates that appear in the box and folder list reflect those assigned by the NYWF staff. Following Central Files departmental practices, folders are arranged in reverse chronological order with later dated material preceding earlier dated material."}