How to keep industrial site interpretation hiring records without gaps

A hiring record answers four questions: what the provider was asked to do, what the site supplied, who approved each public claim, and what the client received at handoff. It is a project file for interpretation work, not an operational or legal document.

What to take away

Write the scope and every proposal assumption into one file before work starts.
Separate the four approval rolessubject, site, local, and media rights.
Keep a dated evidence entry behind each public claim.
Log corrections with the old wording, the new wording, and the source checked.
Name the site contact who owns each current visitor fact, and the review date.

Open the file before the first site visit

The scope document is the spine of the record. It states the subject, the audience, the deliverables, and what the project excludes. It also states the schedule and what the client will supply.

Scope document contents

Subject and audience
Deliverables and exclusions
Schedule and milestones
Client-supplied materials
Proposal assumptions
Tasks, roles, and milestones

Proposal assumptions matter more than the price line. A provider who assumes the site will arrange archive access is quoting a different job from one who assumes the client holds the scans. Write both assumptions down, then note which one the signed scope adopted.

The National Archives asks applicants to its archival projects to outline each stage of planned work, and to clarify complex plans with a time chart. It also asks for job descriptions for staff hired to the project. Borrow that discipline: list tasks, roles, and milestones before anyone starts. The project-planning guidance shows the level of detail expected.

Four approval roles, four signatures

A single "approved" stamp hides who decided what. Split it.

Four approval roles

Subject reviewer.Approves the historical or technical claim.
Site contact.Approves current visitor facts: hours, access, closures, route changes.
Local reviewer.Approves place names, spelling, and local context.
Media rights contact.Approves the credit line and the licence note on each image.

When a claim is questioned two years later, the record points to the person who can answer. Without the split, the query lands on whoever still works there.

Keep evidence entries small and dated

For each material claim, keep one short entry: what the source shows, how you read it, and how it supports the published sentence.

The document-analysis worksheets from the National Archives split an item into what it is, what it says, and what it can be used to prove. Those three fields stop a later editor treating an early sketch as proof of a finished building.

Keep current visitor facts in a separate table from historical notes. Historical claims change when scholarship changes. Visitor facts change when a plant shuts a line, reroutes a walkway, or moves a gate. Different clocks, different owners.

The research-visit instructions tell researchers to confirm where records are held and to make contact before travelling. Apply the same care to each visitor detail: official source, check date, named contact, next review date.

Worked example: a caption correction

A provider publishes a caption reading "furnace line, 1912." A retired plant worker writes in to say the line was rebuilt in 1929 and the photograph shows the later structure.

The record should already hold the source note for the 1912 date, the reviewer who passed it, and the image licence. The correction log then records several details:

Caption correction

the old caption
the new caption
the source checked
the reviewer consulted
the date
the pages carrying the same image

If the same photograph appears on three pages, the log lists all three. A correction applied to one page and missed on two others is the most common failure in interpretation archives.

Handoff, and what to leave out

At handoff the client should be able to open the project folder and find the final files, the editable files, the source notes, the approvals, and the update record. Stable file names and a dated folder do the work. An explanation that lives only in one person's inbox is not a record.

Do not store private, security-sensitive, medical, operational, or legal material in this file. It covers public interpretation only. Retention and access rules come from the organization's own records policy, and any contract question belongs with a qualified attorney in the relevant jurisdiction.

Add one post-publication check. The Visitor Use Management Framework describes how agencies assess conditions and adjust management actions over time. A modest version for a site: test whether a reader can find the source behind a claim, then log any correction that follows.

Common questions

Who owns the source record after handoff?

Set ownership and access in the agreement before work starts. The client needs enough documentation to maintain the published material without going back to the provider.

What goes in a change log?

The item changed, the previous and new wording or credit, and the reason. The source or approval checked, the date, and every public page carrying the change.