Archives Found

One of the more exasperating things about travel (and particularly holiday travel) is the dearth of time that I seem to have for sitting down and thinking (and then posting) about things that I want to discuss– and I’ve been doing a lot of traveling over the past few months.  Something that I’ve been thinking about in both a general, and more specific sense is the access and use of electronic records. I don’t have time to get into my own project and thoughts now, but I wanted to share a general article about the transfer of the Bush documents to NARA. The AP article really doesn’t get into the ingest process and anticipated entry into the ERA, but a I wanted to share a quick quote that I found to be really interesting:

 ”The electronic-records archives system may be able to take in a tremendous amount of e-mail and other records,” Brachfeld said. “But just because you ingest the data does not mean that people can locate, identify, recover and use the records they need.”

Full article from The Columbus Dispatch:  Bush’s electronic data a major archiving task

Hope everyone had a safe and lovely holiday break– and I’m hoping to be back on the blog more often once I make it home!

As I suspect many others are doing, I’m still trying to catch up on sleep and work backlog from my week in San Francisco. I’m hoping to post more about sessions and roundtables later, but for now,  some highlights from the Preservation Section meeting on Friday (8/29).

Announcements and Updates from consortiums and funding agencies:

Ann Russell, Executive Director, NEDCC, talked about their recent initiatives: dPlan, the online Preservation 101 course, and a digital preservation toolkit.  All of these tools could be useful for planning and understanding the scope of various collection-related issues, particularly at smaller and less-funded institutions.

Peter Wosh, SAA Publications director, spoke about a proposal for the development of a preservation manual in the same vein as the SAA Archival Fundamentals series.  There was some discussion regarding single author vs. multiple chapters/authors under a single editor, with the conclusion that either model would work for this type of manual. Contact Peter if you’re interested in working on this project. Additionally, a document that was originally intended for archivists looking at building/renovation projects is available in draft form/PDF on the SAA website. Link here.

Kathleen Williams, Executive Director, NHPRC, discussed the current funding situation. Basically, funding for NHPRC must be reauthorized every five years by Congress. It has been approved by the House, and was supposed to be introduced in the Senate sometime after Labor Day. However, being an election year, it’s possible that funding will fall under a continuing resolution (with the previous funding amount) in order to operate while everyone is out there on the stump. While I was looking for the above legislation, I found a bill introduced in the House to strike a commemorative coin for the 75th anniversary of NARA and NHPRC in 2010– HR. 6300. It’s interesting to realize how young our National Archives really is, particularly in comparison to those of other countries.

After all of the announcements, there was a panel titled “The Drive to Digitize,” which was followed by some discussion. My notes are a bit scratchy at this point, so I’m hoping that others will help fill in any gaps.

Thomas Clareson, PALINET:

-stated that priority to preserve that is driving digitization, and that he felt rumors of the demise of preservation funding in favor of digitization grants were exaggerated

-Trends helping cause: IMLS focusing more on preservation- possibly as a result of the 2005 Heritage Health Index; implementation money

- Concern: current (dormant) status of stabilization grants

-Best way to advocate for more funding is to use currently available $.  Use LoC list of preservation-friendly funding institutions, LSTA library state funding for preservation

Kaye Lanning Minchew, Troup County Archives, GA (funding recipient)

-Discussed digitization project originally slated for access purposes that turned into a preservation project.

Susan Malbin, IMLS:

-Talked about the custodianship of digital surrogates, post-grant project, and the importance of outlining future plans for these in the grantwriting process.

-Mentioned National Leadership & Laura Bush grants (deadline 12/15)

Kathleen Williams, NHPRC:

-Discussed drivers for dunding decisions

-Projects: preservation (archives and manuscripts) and documentary projects; trying to meet goals of preservation and access

-Make case that digitization needs to fall within preservation continuum, not vacuum

Joel Wurl, NEH:

-Digitization at core of institutional debate over preservation and access

-Anecdotally, digital funding has had some impact on preservation funding; not much increase in total agency funding

-Attempting to ensure future availability of resources> challenge: how to best harness interest/resources?

-Caution in thinking of granting agencies as drivers rather than listeners/facilitators

I’ve been recently reading about copyright law as applicable to libraries and archives. My interest in this was partially sparked by a recent patron request for original drafts of materials that may or may not have been published prior to 1923 (still researching on that point). Under the 1976 US Copyright Act, the “fair use” doctrine (section 107) and the exemption for libraries & archives (section 108), and assuming that we won’t turn up another copy of these materials (so far a safe bet), I feel fairly confident in making a copy of the materials for this visiting scholar. A glance at this copyright chart from Peter Hirtle at Cornell’s Copyright Information Center was useful in determining whether this document potentially stands in the public domain or not, and how long it might be until that day arrives (check it out!)– really quite useful.

This is a fairly cut-and-dry instance, but my recent poking around has uncovered some other potential “land mines” that should be addressed within our collections. Some of the resources that I’ve found to be useful:

The Law of Libraries and Archives by Bryan M. Carson

The Stanford Law School Fair Use Project

Mary Minow’s LibraryLaw blog

While I was perusing the last of those, I saw a post of interest– titled “Free the Founding Fathers,” it discusses NARA’s report to Congress on planning for digital access to the papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. The NARA report can be found on the NHPRC website (pdf here), and I encourage you to read Peter Hirtle’s take on the situation at the LibraryLaw blog here.

Other tangents of interest: the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CETA)/“Mickey Mouse” Protection Act, Eldred v. Ashcroft, Public Domain Enhancement Act(PDEA), Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K.Rowling vs. RDR Books

A Fair(y) Use Tale: A short film by Eric Faden discusses copyright using clips from the work of a company who has lobbied hard for extended copyright terms.

On the front page of today’s Dallas Morning News, the discussion continues over whether documents from the Dallas DA’s office that relate to the Kennedy assassination in 1963 will head to the National Archives in Washington D.C. (where the Warren Commission materials and the other assassination-related documents are held), or whether they will be donated to the Sixth Floor Museum in the former Texas School Book Depository building.
I can understand the desire for Dallas residents to keep as much of the local history and information about the assassination in Dallas as possible. Furthermore, NARA has not yet examined the documents to appraise whether or not they would fall within their collecting scope; ie. whether there is information of historical or evidentiary value that belongs with the other related collections. It’s possible that NARA might pass on this particular collection, anyway. But I think that there are a few more questions to be raised, particularly:

-to whom do these documents currently belong? The creator of the documents (DA in 1963)? The Dallas DA’s office? who has the authority to donate records that belong to the city of Dallas?

-what is the provenance of these records, and why are they just coming to light now? is the collection complete, or has it been ravaged/damaged by souvenir hunters or others?

-what does the collection cover? how much related information is contained, and how much of it is unique versus copies of documents held elsewhere? how much was originated in the DA’s office?

One of my other concerns was also shared by a federal judge by letter to the potential donor and quoted in the article, namely the conditions and continued existence of the Sixth Floor Museum.

The National Archives’ JFK collection “is a treasure trove of information, preserved under ideal conditions and accessible to the public,” Judge Tunheim wrote in a Feb. 22 letter to Mr. Watkins.

He also argued against giving the documents to The Sixth Floor Museum. “I have always been concerned that it may not be a proper archival facility, particularly for documents, and may not continue into perpetuity,” the judge wrote.

From my own visit to the Sixth Floor Museum and a subsequent visit to their website, I noted that many (if not most) of their materials appear to be copies of material held elsewhere or widely available, with the exception of their oral history collection. Without having been there in a research capacity, I obviously cannot comment on the storage of their materials, but I hope that the potential donor/s have been able to view and understand the conditions under which they will be cared for, available for use, and handled. The expectations under which materials are given should be understood by both donor and institution before anything else happens.

Full article here: Dallas DA says unearthed JFK documents will likely be given to Sixth Floor

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.

NARA announced yesterday that they are opening approximately six million veterans records at NPRC. This is exciting news for veterans, genealogists, and historians. The original records can be viewed at the NPRC reading room in St. Louis. Honestly, understanding which military records reside in various NARA (and other) facilities is somewhat confusing, but there’s a handy grid here that helps to clarify which records are available at NPRC. This batch of OMPFs (Official Military Personnel Files) corresponds with individuals who served in the Army, Army Air Corps, Army Air Forces, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard and left the service (discharged, retired, died) prior to 1946. However, additional records are also available at NPRC. Note: the DD 214s (OMPFs) will not be available online, and will require authorization from veterans or kin for third-party release. More information available through NARA.