Archives Found

The main reason that I was in Austin several weeks ago was to attend a symposium at U-T’s Kilgarlin Center, titled “From Gray Areas to Green Areas: Developing Sustainable Practices in Preservation Environments.” While there were many sessions that I was anticipating, two that definitely did not disappoint were those by James Reilly of the Image Permanence Institute in Rochester, and Richard Kershner from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. I’m planning to talk a bit more in upcoming posts about some of the sessions, but I wanted to drop off a few links here first. There’s a (low-activity so far) conference blog, as well as some pictures taken by various attendees here and here. I think that the conference organizers did a great job of selecting the various speakers and panels, and overall it was an inspiring and interesting event.

This morning’s brief NYT article about the death of one of the last known survivors of the Titanic made me pause for a moment. Not because I’m a Titanic buff (I’m not, though I do find the story to be fascinating), but because of the mention that the deceased was one of the last two survivors of that fateful journey, a representative of the past. As time marches onward, memories fade and we begin to lose more and more “eyewitnesses” to history. Within my lifetime, the last Holocaust survivor, the last soldier present on D-Day, and others will slowly go “into that good night.” I’m not ready for that to happen yet. As an archivist charged with preserving history, I feel that I am always looking for ways to stave off a time when firsthand accounts are no longer available in the flesh. Of course oral histories look to fill that gap, but are there other things that we can do as keepers of the record to preserve the immediacy of speaking with someone who was there at Normandy? How can we, without overinterpreting or overemphasizing, better bring an accurate sense of the past to the present? What are the best ways to capture these things now, before the opportunity is lost?

An article in the LA Times this morning stunned me: Reagan Library unable to fully account for 80,000 artifacts. I’m interested in finding out more about this, because I’m wondering about the status of the Reagan Papers. I think that the museum/artifacts staff and area is separated from the artifacts and donated items, but it obviously raises a lot of questions about security, access, and proper recordkeeping procedures. Talk about terrible publicity– and right before their C-Span broadcast, too. I wonder if any of the allegations will be addressed during their live broadcast tomorrow night? Unfortunately, I won’t be able to watch, as I’ll be traveling, but I’ll definitely look forward to catching it online later. I really hope that C-Span decides to rerun the episodes before the elections next year, and potentially at a better time/day of the week.

Over the past weekend, I had a fantastic time at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Some highlights of the festival part of the weekend included sitting in more than a few author talks, having some new books signed, and making a huge list of books to check out once I’ve finished the current pile. One discussion that I particularly enjoyed on Sunday was that of the excellent-looking book Lone Stars of David: the Jews of Texas. Co-editors Hollace Ava Weiner and Rabbi Kenneth Roseman gave a rousing description of their process in compiling the source materials for this book (part of the Brandeis series on American Jewish History) that so moved me to run down to the B&N tent, purchase the book, and be the first person standing in line to have it signed. During the short talk, Weiner showed off her custom-made boots (shown on the cover of the book), and Roseman compared his theory of the melting pot/Jewish & immigrant assimilation to chocolate-chip cookies; eg. the chocolate chips are part of the batter and of the finished cookie, but they remain separate from the batter, unblended but still adding something special to the whole. I’m looking forward to settling down with the book once I have a spare hour or two.

Just a few of the other highlights: Kinky Friedman, the Cast-Iron Cookoff, and Elizabeth Samet. Of course, the weekend would not have been complete without some good BBQ, great Mexican food, and fantastic Indian food. Mmm. Books and good food– what more could one want?

Well, I’ve already missed the first six days of the month, but I have good intentions: I want to jumpstart things around here, so I’m going to try to complete National Blog Posting Month by posting an entry each day during the month of November. It’s a takeoff on National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which I completed in 2004 by the skin of my teeth, literally moments before midnight on November 30th. I’m hoping that I can tame the “skidding in by the seat of my pants” procrastination a bit more this year, in part because I have lots of things to say. At least I seem to have lots of profound ideas when I’m trying to go to sleep and the ideas are buzzing about like a swarm of extremely angry bees. We’ll see how that translates to paper, or really, 1’s and 0’s.