Archives Found

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.

I’ve been poking around in the public beta sandbox of Archivists’ Toolkit in the past month or two, and I’ve found a lot to like there. While I don’t have a local instance installed with our data just yet, I think I/we may take the leap towards further testing on a dedicated server soon. So far, I’m the only one playing with this, but we’ve initiated the hiring process for some actual IT support (fingers crossed). I’ve only glanced at Archon and ICA-AtoM so far, but I haven’t been as impressed. I’m thinking about trying out a trial version of Past Perfect this week, and I’m also trying to look at less-discussed software like Re:discovery’s Proficio. Any insights would be useful! I’d like to find something that integrates accessions, donor letters and files, catalog records, processed/unprocessed collection lists, provenance and condition reports, and other stuff, and especially allows export of finding aids in XML/EAD.