Archives Found

Do you have a disaster plan? When was it last updated? In case of an emergency, how useful would it be? These are just a few questions that apply to the situation in which museums, libraries, and archives found themselves over the past few weeks in Iowa, Minnesota, and other places affected by flooding.

Some photos from the University of Iowa Special Collections taken as they moved materials to higher parts of their building (photos from UI News Services photostream):

Volunteers sandbagging outside:

Moving collections to higher ground:

University of Iowa Museum of Art:

From the University of Iowa Libraries website:

Friday, June 13. Libraries administrators were notified that the Main Library would be evacuated. More than 150 staff members in the Main Library packed their belongings and prepared to disperse to other libraries and locations across campus.

Relocation of Special Collections and other difficult to replace materials continued through the efforts of hundreds of volunteers throughout the day and evening. Handing books along a “book brigade” that snaked down hallways and up stairwells, volunteers were able to move tens of thousands of books from storage including thousands of theses of University masters and doctoral candidates. One volunteer estimated that they were “passing nearly 100 books a minute.”

Sandbaggers built a dike along the west side of the Main Library and around the loading dock entrance.

From the University of Iowa Museum of Art website:

The University of Iowa Museum of Art will be closed until further notice due to flooding.

Working nearly non-stop during the week of June 9, we were able to evacuate artworks totaling approximately 99 percent of the value of our collection. That figure represents nearly 80 percent of the 13,000 works of art in our collection ­– all evacuated in less than four days.

This is an incredible success story, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the proactive planning of the University and the massive outpouring of support from UIMA and Pentacrest Museums staff, student employees, and volunteers.

Water levels have receded and recovery of the building is currently underway. Exhibitions and events scheduled to be held in the Museum during Fall 2008 are under review and further information will be posted to this Web site and to the UIMA blog as it becomes available. Up-to-date flood news is available at the University of Iowa Flood Information web page.

If this kind of threat emerged for your collection/building, what kind of volunteer brigade could you amass without much notice? Do you have contracts with disaster recovery companies as well as local companies to provide assistance? It looks like the University of Iowa had enough time and volunteers to be able to save quite a lot of their collections. However, some other collections were not as lucky. From an art brief in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

For the past 7 days I’ve been in Cedar Rapids, Iowa working on a project and just happen to be here during the terrible recent floods. A brief report about the conditions here of the local museums:

I reported for Red Cross duty last week and have been translating for the Hispanic community and helping where I could. I have to go to another site for work now, so this will be my only report to you about conditions.

Internet service has had its ups and downs. About 4,000 homes damaged, and more rain to come.

The University of Iowa Art Museum took four feet of water. There is major damage on campus, but the art collection is mostly safe, I was told.

Cedar Rapids Art Museum was just above flood plane, the mostly safe Czech-Slovak Museum was 15 feet under water, with major damage, though the collections are mostly safe. Very sad. The African American Museum of Cedar Rapids had 15-18 feet of water and damage. The Seminole Valley Heritage Farm had major damage.

The Marion Historical Society is all safe

The Grant Wood Studio is completely safe.

The Granger House is all safe

The Kalona Heritage Village in Iowa City is safe.

Brucemore House is OK.

I’m sure your assistance will be needed, and I hope this brief report is of assistance to you. I’m exhausted and worn out by the recent events.

They will need your expert help. Pray for these people and these communities.

Tony Rajer, art conservator

While this isn’t strictly archives-related, I think that many of us can empathize with the director and employees here. Moving your entire collection to a new location is one of those things that you hope you won’t have to do more than once or twice in a lifetime. Knowing that it’s worth hundreds of millions on the open market probably adds to that stress a bit…

From today’s NYT:

Yes, the New York Police Department provided an escort, but during more than eight hours on Saturday, one of the great hoards of coins and currency on the planet, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was utterly unalarmed as it was bumped through potholes, squeezed by double-parked cars and slowed by tunnel-bound traffic during the trip to its fortresslike new vault a mile to the north.

In the end, the move did not become a caper movie.

“The idea was to make this as inconspicuous as possible,” said Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “It had to resemble a totally ordinary office move.”

The collection of 800,000 coins, bank notes, medals, commemorative badges, pins, historic advertising tokens, campaign buttons and other artifacts has been amassed during the 150-year existence of the nonprofit society.

It was transported from the society’s high-security headquarters at 96 Fulton Street, in the former Fidelity and Deposit Company building at the corner of William Street, to its future home, a secure $4 million vault and exhibition space 22 blocks away, on the 11th floor of One Hudson Square, at Varick and Canal Streets.

Full article can be found here.

Back in the beginning of March, I talked about records relating to the JFK assassination that were kept by the Dallas DA at the time, Henry Wade, and not made available to the public. Somehow I missed the next twist to this story. Turns out that the DA’s office provided digital copies of the documents to the Dallas Morning News, which in turn, added those (apparently unsorted/non-indexed) documents to their website and invited readers to pour over them and post in their forums in a sort of treasure hunt.

I haven’t gone through the document pdfs myself, but according to several of the articles, many of the documents cited by the current DA as possibly new material were already included in the Warren Report files (accessible through NARA here). I’m much more interested in the way that the documents were provided and displayed online, and the implications of the way that they can/are accessed and used by readers of the paper.

Some related links:

My original post, which asked some questions about provenance and preservation: Dallas DA documents to be donated- but where?

Dallas Morning News story announcing the digitized groups of records and providing links to the pdf’s: Exclusive: Help us examine the lost JFK files

Dallas Morning News forum to discuss the documents

Related articles from the Dallas Morning News: Newly discovered JFK assassination items revealed, Dallas County DA’s office finds cache of JFK memorabilia, When DA spoke of JFK, he misspoke for Dallas

From a statement by the Society of American Archivists on International Archives Day:

The International Council on Archives at 60

 

Sixty years ago, the archives of Europe were just starting to recover from World War II. Records were destroyed, damaged, and displaced; archives buildings were dark and cold if not partially in ruins. In Asia, too, records and archives had suffered grievously during the war, but that story was not yet well known in the United States.

 

The years before the war had seen sporadic attempts to create an international association of archivists, but none was successful. Now, in the wake of the massive damage of the war, the time had come.

 

As the 1946 president of the Society of American Archivists, Solon J. Buck used his presidential address to call for an international association of archivists. “Civilization,” he said, “rests squarely on documents,” and archivists everywhere should be concerned with the preservation of the “archives of mankind.” With the support of SAA, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress, Buck proposed to the then-new UNESCO that it call a world congress of archivists to establish an international association. UNESCO agreed, and the organizing meeting took place June 9–11, 1948. The group, which included representatives from Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States, with observers from Australia, UNESCO, and the military occupation authorities of Germany, founded the International Council on Archives.

 

Today the International Council on Archives is exactly that: international. It has branches throughout the world, and now has as members professional associations such as SAA, archives other than national archives, and individuals. It is a resilient 60-year-old.

 

The Society of American Archivists, as in 1946, is committed to cooperation in support of archives throughout the world. Although the situation that led to the founding of ICA—the massive damage of the Second World War—is long past, archives today remain threatened by war, natural disaster, and the unwitting actions of people. On this 60th anniversary of the ICA, the Society of American Archivists marks its unshakable conviction that, as Buck said, civilization rests on documents and archives truly are the heritage of humankind.

The International Council on Archives XVIth Congress will be held in Kuala Lumpur from 21-27 July, and is titled “Archives, Governance, and Development: Mapping Future Society.” Most of the sessions sound extremely interesting. Because the philosophies and histories of archival development vary between countries (and in some cases, vary quite a lot), conferences like the ICA can be valuable tools for sharing best practices across cultures. I’m hoping to make it to an ICA conference in the next few years… perhaps when it’s a bit closer to home than Malaysia.

One of the most popular questions that I’ve been asked is “how can I preserve this newspaper clipping?” In fact, I suspect that if I polled archivists, I’d hear that it was easily in their top ten. So, I thought I’d share some of the resources and information that I give patrons and researchers (as well as reporters, neighbors, relatives, and passerby).

Some of the questions that I ask first:

-How old is the newspaper?

-Why do you want to preserve it?

-How has it been stored? What do you plan to do with it?

While I dislike giving advice on physical preservation without seeing the document in question, there are some things that I can do with the bare minimum of information above. The treatment can and usually does vary based upon the userand the information.

How old is the newspaper? This is important because not all papers are created equal. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, the news was printed on cotton-based rag paper. Rag paper was expensive to manufacture, but it is much more stable than newspaper, and papers from the pre-1880s tend to be in generally good condition. The cost of manufacture was a primary reason for the switch to what we know as newspaper, a wood-pulp based medium. Newsprint has a high lignin content, which speeds the yellowing and deterioration of the paper. Traditional newsprint is a highly unstable medium which reacts negatively to excessive moisture or dryness.

Where has it been stored? What are you planning to do with it? Why do you want to preserve it? Because paper is hygroscopic and responds to moisture (or lack thereof) by swelling or shrinking, one of the desires of an archivist or institution charged with preserving paper-based collections is to control the temperature and relative humidity of the storage environment. Many times I hear from people that they have a newspaper clipping that has yellowed and started to flake apart, and they would like to preserve it. I usually ask “why?” not because I’m nosy, but because the answer is related to the treatment. In any case, I usually start by recommending that they make a copy– scan it, photocopy it, or take a photograph in order to preserve the informational content, which is generally the goal, anyway. After a copy has been made, future intent should be assessed. If this will be stored somewhere, it should be kept in an area that is not subject to wild fluctuations in temperature or humidity– in other words, not the basement or the attic, and not next to a source of heat, light, or water. Some preservation experts advise keeping cherished newspapers and photos in a lived-in area of your home that is generally temperate, such as your bedroom or living room.

A range of other options: libraries generally microfilm many of their newspapers not only because of fragility, but also for ease of use and space considerations. This has been controversial in the past, particularly relating to Nicholsen Baker’s indictment of librarians in Double Fold; if you decide to read that, also consider reading the rebuttal Vandals in the Stacks? by Richard Cox. Clearly microfilming is probably not an option for the casual user, but understanding the reasons and process of preservation microfilming is useful for many archives patrons.

Other options: encapsulation, which consists of enrobing the document in a polyester sleeve, is generally not recommended unless the newspaper has been deacidified or is in really bad condition. For the latter, after making a preservation copy, inserting the paper into an L-sleeve along with a piece of alkaline-buffered paper can help to protect the newsprint from further damage by handling. Complete encapsulation of newsprint that has not been deacidified is not recommended. Additionally, lamination is not recommended as a preservation strategy (though it can extend the life of the newsprint) because it can damage the paper and is irreversible. Digitization, while not considered to be a preservation medium, can be useful for accessing the informational content of the document, and is useful for the casual user.

Storage and use: to keep your newspapers long-term, store them flat in an appropriately-sized archival box. Keep them in an environment that does not fluctuate much, and that does not reach extreme highs or lows, or have excessive humidity or dryness. Newspapers can be interleaved with buffered paper or tissue to counteract some of the acidity. Keep them away from light and heat, and try not to handle them too much.

One of the things that I find myself thinking and talking about a lot is the future of archives, of the research process, and of the different levels of access that continue to evolve with the internet. I recently stumbled across the blog of Dan Cohen, and this post from April really grabbed me. Dan is talking about a discussion  at UNC-Chapel Hill where a group of historians shared their thoughts about research and digitizing the Southern Historical Collection. A snippet:

In other words, in the age of Google and advanced search tools and techniques, most historians just want to do their research they way they’ve always done it, by taking one letter out of the box at a time. One historian told of a critical moment in her archival work, when she noticed a single word in a letter that touched off the thought that became her first book.

So in Chapel Hill I was the pirate with the strange garb and ways of behaving, and this is a good lesson for all boosters of digital methods within the humanities. We need to recognize that the digital humanities represent a scary, rule-breaking, swashbuckling movement for many historians and other scholars. We must remember that these scholars have had—for generations and still in today’s graduate schools—a very clear path for how they do their work, publish, and get rewarded. Visit archive; do careful reading; find examples in documents; conceptualize and analyze; write monograph; get tenure.

Read the full post here.

 
When I started to blog, I decided that I wouldn’t try to post just for the sake of having something new up. I’d guess that this is pretty evident to anyone reading along, as I haven’t been on the blog much lately. I’ve been traveling, mostly for fun, over the past few weeks. Since my return, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to unearth my inbox and putting out fires; you know the drill.

I’ve found over the past few years that when I need a break from whatever I’m writing/working on, cooking/baking/doing something physically helps me to refocus my energy. I’m not talking about procrastination (though I’ve done my fair share of that), but rather working on something that allows me to see immediate results and doesn’t require too much mental exertion. Often I find that I come back with a fresh perspective on the issue, as well as fresh baked goods.  Everyone wins!

In that spirit, I try to assign each of my students at least two projects at a time; generally a main project– refoldering/removing staples from a particular collection or something in that vein; as well as a secondary project– data entry, box lists, making preservation photocopies of newspaper clippings. The main project tends to go much more quickly, and the secondary is handy for the days when they’ve finished a box or a collection and are waiting for new instructions, or just need a break.

Without getting too far ahead of myself, I’m thinking about setting up a new secondary project that involves map encapsulation, and I’ve been concentrating on ways to do this in an organized and efficient way. I’d like to set up an encapsulation station using dual rolls of Melinex somewhat near the heat welder so that the maps don’t need to be carried across the room and can hopefully be handled less.

There are approximately 3-4,000 maps that will need to be evaluated (and possibly treated) before encapsulation, and hopefully cataloged in the process. I’m still looking for information about large-scale encapsulation projects that have gone before– so drop me a line (or a link) if you have any insight.

A fire at Universal Studios in Hollywood this morning was finally contained after 4-5 hours of burning. From the LA Times article:

At least 300 firefighters battled the blaze, including with water-dropping helicopters. The fire, which started at about 4:30 a.m., was expected to burn into the afternoon, although it was contained. Four firefighters suffered minor injuries.

The flames tore through a cavernous, two-story video vault containing video and copies of film, some dating to the 1920s. At one point, firefighters hastily removed canisters from the building by hand, but Universal officials said that the archives were copies and no original works had been lost.

Based on the dates mentioned, I’m guessing that their film vault contained nitrocellulose negatives, which are known to be highly flammable, unstable, and almost impossible to put out once a fire starts. Though the article states that all of these were copies, I really hope that everything has been backed up somewhere– not only additional nitrate copies, but copied onto a stable medium.

So far, I haven’t seen anything that talks about the origins of the fire, but it seems to have eliminated several sets, including those of “Back to the Future,” “Dick Tracy,” and “Ben Hur,”, as well as the building containing the film.