Cohesion Lab
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Guides

Work you can do without hiring us.

The Capacity commitment — that the holder ends every engagement more able to govern their own records — extends past engagement boundaries. These guides are the version of that you can use before, instead of, or after working with us.

Available guides

  • A starter checklist for a family archive

    Seven things to do before you buy software, hire a service, or pay for storage. Most of this work survives the choices you make later.

  • FAIR-grade catalog basics for the small-museum volunteer

    Coming. Standards-based metadata, controlled vocabularies, and handoff-ready records, written for a volunteer with no previous CMS experience.

…unless you want some help.

Here's how a project usually starts.

You don't need a finished plan. A few sentences are enough:

  1. What you want to do. Catalog it, share parts of it, build a teaching tool from it.
  2. Who it's for. Family, students, scholars, your members, the general public.
  3. What objects you have. Photos, audio, journals, ledgers, art, ephemera — and roughly how many.

Send us those three things and we'll write back within three business days with a plan that fits — or an honest "we're not the right fit, here's who might be."