Not too long ago, I found a map at the Plainfield Public Library, hidden in an envelope of Courier News clippings. It seems that the universe has recognized my love of all things cartographic and sent another great gift of New Jersey history in my direction.
During my first week working at Chester Public Library, Lesley (the library's Director) came into my office holding a long oblong box with an ebony handle poking out of one end, and said there was a map inside. The map had been hidden behind a filing cabinet, and its provenance was a mystery. I immediately rose and said we should go into the big meeting room two doors down and set up a few tables on which to unroll the map.
We each clad our hands in white cotton gloves and gently began unrolling the map. Lesley followed my speed, taking great care since we saw that the map was acidic and quite brittle (see the photo immediately above). Fortunately, the rest of the map was in very good shape for its age and its storage. It had been pretty tightly rolled, sleeved in a cardboard liner, then placed within a cardboard carton with one open end.
As soon as we had it unrolled, Lesley held the bottom ebony roller while I took as many photos as possible. The one directly above was taken from atop a step-stool. As you can see from the photo and the ones to follow, the center of the map is a topographic representation of the state, while surrounding images include small illustrations of cities from elevated views, street maps, and a fascinating time dial.
The border grapevine and flower design, as well as what I'd call "vignettes" of the Delaware Water Gap and Paterson are shown in the illustrations above.
After I had finished photographing the map, I wanted to find out more about it, so Lesley and I began to roll it back up to place back into its original packaging for the time being. During the rolling, we discovered that it had been mounted as two pieces onto a woven fabric that was sewn together (see the photo abov).
As soon as I could, I posted my photos to Picasa and sent out a few emails to the New Jersey State Archives and some contacts at Rutgers Libraries' Special Collections. I heard pretty quickly from archivists at the State Archives who said that they do not have a copy of the map, but that the State Library does (and would we want to sell or donate ours to the archive -- can't blame them really, I'd probably ask the same).
The catalog page of the map states the information found in the title area (shown in the first photo at the very top of this post). If you magnify the image, you can see that it can be dated as 1860 because it states (in rather small print directly above the scale measurement) "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1860 by Robt. P. Smith in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania."
It would be interesting to see which other state offices, organizations, and/or individuals might have a copy of the "Topographical Map of the State of New Jersey, Together with the Vicinities of New York and Philadelphia, and with Most of the State of Delaware from the State Geological Survey and the U.S. Coast Survey, and from Surveys Compiled by G. Morgan Hopkins, Civil Engineer. Adopted for the use of the Geological Survey, authorized by ACTS of the LEGISLATURE passed March 2nd 1854 and March 14th 1860, under the direction of William Kitchell, SUPERINTENDENT of the GEOLOGICAL SURVEY of NEW JERSEY." (The emphasis is not mine.)
If you have any information on the map that you think might be useful, or if you know about the history of this particular map, please let me know. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give.
The Struggles
It’s hard to share good news these days without feeling a little guilty. However I have very good news, and I will share it. But since I’m one of those people who likes to hear the good news last (in a choice of good or bad news), I’ll share the struggles first.
A friend at the Plainfield Public Library who had been living in a Rahway basement apartment lost everything in the flood accompanying Hurricane Irene. She and her little boy are staying with family in a very small space, which means that co-workers and friends can’t supply her with replacement items yet. But we’re planning. For instance, John and I talked about what we could give up from our pile of combined-household items sitting in storage. It didn’t take long for a quick inventory to produce furnishings that someone starting from scratch should have.
Some immediate needs had to be met first. My flood-surviving friend only had the shoes she was wearing when she was rescued; all the others were destroyed. As always, I am grateful for unexpected generosity. When I reached out to my local and Facebook friends, used shoes in my friend’s size were readily supplied. For those who might be interested in making a donation, when a complete list of her needs is available, I’ll post it here and on Facebook. In the meantime, I’ll continue to let her know of donations that will be coming later.
In other Irene news, like tens of thousands of others, my parents’ basement furnishings and appliances were destroyed. Because they lost power, they did not have a working sump pump. Consequently, the water soaked into everything until they could bail out from it. It could have been much worse, but fortunately, they were able to save some books, papers, and old family photo albums.
I escaped pretty much unscathed. My power was out for four days, but I was able to pack up my frozen and perishable food, and bring it all to a pal who made room in his fridge and spare room for me until the power returned. Because my pal lives less than 2 miles from my house in the opposite direction from the worst flooding in the area, I was able to check on the house daily. Here’s how fortunate I am in all this: the worst of my circumstances was having to postpone my trip to D.C. to tour the Smithsonian’s archives and Field Book Project due to all the road closings and the lack of power.
We live close to the Raritan River, and the flooding made getting to the Plainfield Public Library difficult. Easton Avenue, a major artery in the area, became a red-brown river. Today, it’s not hard to see how far up the water rose. For those who might recognize the landmarks, the water line can be seen on the white cement wall by the Stop and Shop, as well as on leaves of the trees opposite Landing Lane.
Usually we expect that Easton Avenue will be closed by the entrance to Route 287 because the Raritan Canal and River provide the northern border between Somerset and Piscataway. South Bound Brook (which always floods) is the next town to our west. But we didn’t expect that nearly the entirety of Easton Avenue would be closed from that point up to the park past Landing Lane. Thankfully, the river receded quickly, and we haven’t yet had any rain (although NOAA reports that we’ll see rain for the next 4 days). By Tuesday, I was able to get to the Plainfield Public Library in about 30 minutes.
The Good News
Before Irene beat up the East Coast, I had been interviewing for a part-time position at the Chester Public Library. I had met with Lesley, the library’s director, and with members of the Chester Historical Society (CHS), all of whom were delightful. So, I was very pleased when Lesley offered me the newly created Local History Librarian spot.
I’ll be building the Local History Department from scratch and working with the CHS’s volunteers as well as library staff. It’s going to be an exciting partnership between the library and the CHS, since the society has been collecting materials for quite some time and storing them in local storage facility. I expect that it will be a bit slow going because I’ll only be there on a part-time basis, but the CHS members I have met have already assured me that volunteers will plentiful. I’m looking forward to this big adventure and will be sure to share it with you here.
But that’s not the end of my good news. After a year of volunteering at Plainfield Public Library, I’m now a grant-funded, part-time archivist there. I’ll still be an all-purpose archivist (not assigned to a specific project, as you might find with many grant-funded positions), processing and describing collections, but I’ll also help patrons with their wide ranging requests and handle some administrative archives tasks.
The way this all worked out is pretty fantastic. My work at Plainfield dovetails very well with what I’ll be starting at Chester. Plus, my long-time mentor at Plainfield, Sarah, continues to help guide me in ways that will be key to building a successful department. There are great resources closer to Chester in the Morris County Library system that I can turn to, as well as online resources. Among the helpful list servs of the Society of American Archivists is one for solitary practitioners cleverly named “Lone Arrangers.” It’s a great group of folks, and I’ll have to see if there are T-shirts or bumper stickers for a newly minted Lone Arranger like me.
Introduction
Recently, I had the great pleasure of spending the day at Cornell University, where I interviewed Peter Hirtle, visited Curtis Lyons at the Catherwood Library), took a tour of the Rare and Manuscript Collections (RMC), and visited the Preservation department. My host for the RMC tour was Elaine Engst, whose entire title is Director and University Archivist at the Kroch Library Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University. It was enormous fun seeing some of Cornell’s treasures, and I hope you’ll enjoy the photos and videos below, and be inspired to visit the collections yourself.
About the Archivist
Elaine Engst has been with Cornell for the entirety of her career, 32 years. She received her master’s in History from Cornell, returning to the Library in 1979.
She says that her favorite part of her work is “bringing the collections to students and scholars; the ‘puzzles’ of people’s research interests.” Of all the collections, she enjoys the Ezra Cornell Papers and the Willard Straight Papers the most. Cornell’s top her list because the University’s founder’s papers “cover the whole range of 19th century American history,” she explains. Straight’s papers “document China from 1901-1912” and include a “wonderful love story,” says Elaine.
About the RMC
Elaine (shown above with Ezra Cornell’s safe) says, “RMC was created in 1992, with the merger of the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, the Department of Rare Books, the History of Science Collections, and the Icelandic Collection.” The first librarian of the university, Daniel Willard Fiske was an avid collector of Icelandic literature, and now the collection which bears his name is one of the three largest of its kind in the world.
If you have never been to Cornell’s RMC, you might find it a little challenging to find it because it’s located in a library within a library. Which is to say that RMC lives in the Carl A. Kroch Library – built as an underground addition to the John M. Olin Library.
When visitors first enter the space, they are embraced by open, airy spaces and modern architecture, with natural light provided via skylights rimmed with reflective mirrors. On one side, the skylights are blocked to control light in the area for archival displays, while unblocked skylights on the other sheds more light for reading and research
Within its very large, climate-controlled vault, the RMC holds approximately 430,000 volumes (measuring about 46,000 cubic feet); more than 80 million manuscripts; and another million photographs, paintings, prints, artifacts, audio visual and electronic media. In this short video, Elaine talks to me about the vault.
RMC is staffed by 22 full-time employees and 5-6 part-time working students. Eight archivists/librarians are on staff. Patrons run the gamut from serious scholars and students, to journalists, genealogists, and enthusiasts (like me). The archives are being used by long-term researchers currently exploring the history of home economics, as well as city planning. The RMC sees from 5-20 visitors per week, and the staffers give frequent tours, as I saw from the numerous signatures in the visitors’ book in front of the vault’s entryway.
The most heavily used collections are the Cornell Alumni Files. These are created by the Alumni office and are only open after the person has died. John Nolen’s papers also are used fairly frequently. Nolen was a pioneer city planner during the early 1900s. Cornell’s finding aid for the collection is here. The item with the greatest impact on visitors is the handwritten manuscript of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, dated February 29, 1864. According to the RMC Lincoln Presidency exhibit, the “Cornell University Library’s copy of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is one of five known copies in Lincoln’s hand, and the only copy owned by a private institution. The four other copies are owned by public institutions: two at the Library of Congress, one at the Illinois State Lincoln Presidential Library, and one in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.” I had the opportunity to see a facsimile because as Elaine says, “taking out the real one would require a Cornell Police presence.”
In the photo above, you can see five different tablets. The large one in the middle was an example of an adoption record from ca. 2250 BCE. In the short video below, Elaine explains why these tablets are so important, especially in teaching about archives.
Sometimes RMC receives donations from faculty members that represent moments of our more recent history. Below is a series of photos I took of RMC’s 2000 General Election Palm Beach County voting machine that Professor Stephen H. Hilgartner, a faculty member in Science & Technology Studies, purchased on EBay for his teaching research into voting technologies and later gave to the archives for posterity.
From the outside, the machine looks like a steel briefcase.
If you use the magnifying function in Picasa to take a look at the example punch cards, you can see that the demonstrator card was punched for several presidential candidates.
One of the most appealing aspects of visiting Cornell’s RMC is the great variety of the types of materials kept in the archives. Elaine showed me some Asia Collections records that were printed onto palm leaves. She also displayed an early example of a book that used both single and double column moveable type printing. Below, the photos show a 1495 book of sermons bound with a chain binding, the medieval security system.
Another type of record we hear of often in our field is lantern slides. You find them in pretty much every archive, and in the case of the Plainfield Public Library, they show up prominently in the photograph collections of local photographers. However, at Cornell, Elaine explains (in the video below) a completely different usage.
Elaine was very generous with her time and showed me many more treasures than what I’m sharing here (due to limited space). I hope that you will go visit her at Cornell and see some of these marvelous historical items for yourself.
Contact Information
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
2B Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607) 255-3530
rareref@cornell.edu
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu
Introduction
Curtis Lyons has a three-line title on his business card: Harriet Morel Oxman Director of the Catherwood, Hospitality, and Management Libraries at Cornell University. I’ve abbreviated it a bit for the title of this entry, but suffice to say, the man has a very big job. A genial fellow, he has a wonderful Tennessee lilt that can be heard as he speaks about the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives at the Catherwood. In late July, he generously gave me a tour of the archives and talked with me at length about the history of the collections and the importance of Kheel Center projects now underway.
About the Library and Archives
The Catherwood Library serves the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) at Cornell University. The ILR school was opened in 1946 as an effort to help management and labor set aside their differences and work together to train union and management arbitrators. The Kheel Center was opened in 1949 as the Labor-Management Documentation Center, and was renamed in 1996 to honor New York City arbitrator Theodore W. Kheel.
The Center’s holdings include approximately 23,000 linear feet of paper, audio, video, film, electronic records, textiles, buttons, ribbons, and other objects. In the photo below, in the middle shelves, you can see garment workers unions' banners preserved in archival wrapping.
Most of the banners have been digitally photographed and can be viewed in color here.
The archivists collect primary source materials about American labor unions, management theorists, and arbitrators and negotiators. Alumni in unions have helped to persuade their unions to preserve their records by giving them to the Kheel Center. The most popular collections are the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Ted Kheel’s papers. Curtis points out that the Center holds “almost all of the U.S. garment workers’ unions records,” allowing the archivists “a unique opportunity to give access to the history of an industry that was a cornerstone of the economy for decades. It also allows researchers to track the migration of jobs first within and then outside the United States.”
The ILGWU is a very large collection (more than 2,500 linear feet) in process. In a move away from the More Product, Less Process methodology, Cheryl Beredo was hired as the ILGWU Project Archivist to process the collection on a very deep level. She also is describing it in detail to help researchers learn more about this very progressive union. For instance, the union provided housing and healthcare for its workers, which means that researchers studying inner-city housing could use these records to learn more about the topic. A short piece by Cheryl Beredo will be appearing in this month’s Archival Outlook, and I'm looking forward to reading about her work with the collection. Soon, the Kheel Center will launch a preliminary web site on the ILGWU records, including digitized photos from the files. But, until then, you can view many of her finding aids on the ILGWU here.
The collection with the greatest impact on patrons so far has been the Triangle Factory Fire. An online exhibit on the fire should not be missed. The site commemorates the centennial of the fire (March 25, 1911) that killed 146 mostly immigrant workers in a sweatshop in lower Manhattan. It is extensive, to say the least. Visitors can view historical narratives, letters, testimonials, photos, and much more. “We hear many, many stories from people who are overwhelmed by the material we have on our web site. High school kids who realize many of the victims were their age, descendants of victims, witnesses, [and others] see the connections between this tragedy and eerily similar tragedies happening right now in Asian sweatshops,” says Curtis.
The materials at the Kheel Center are processed, described, and maintained by 5 full-time archivists, 2 full-time staff, and 1 part-timer. Below is a photo of the well-sized processing room.
The Kheel Center is patronized by Cornell students and faculty, academic and independent researchers, high school students and teachers, and documentarians. Although they see 5-10 visitors a week, the Center’s staff works to a large degree with off-site researchers. Next to the visitor’s reading room is a large enclosed area where some of the digitization takes place and where many of the paper-based records were previously stored. In the short video below, Curtis talks about the move to digital records and what it means for this space.
Although most of the collections are too “young” to be digitized and made available due to copyright concerns, the Kheel Center is posting some photographs on the Labor Photos site and on Flickr. The Center’s list of EAD finding aids may be viewed here.
About Curtis Lyons
Prior to becoming Director of the Catherwood Library, Curtis was Head of Special Collections and Archives at Virginia Commonwealth University for 9 years. Previously, he was at the University of Tennessee (UT) Special Collections and Archives for 10 years first working with their manuscripts and later the University Archives. Like many of the archivists I have met during my tours, he “fell into” the field of archival science. “I got a job at UT Special Collections as an undergraduate, used it to fund my graduate degree in history, and along the way decided that I liked archival work more than I would like to teach,” he explains. His favorite part of the work is “vicariously sharing the ‘Ah-ha!’ moments with researchers.” Curtis continues, “Playing a teeny-tiny part in the creation and discovery of the world’s knowledge,” is one of the many ways that his work at the Kheel Center is rewarding.
Contact Information
Kheel Center
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901
(607) 255-3183 Kheel_center@cornell.edu
Recently, I had the great pleasure of meeting and interviewing Peter Hirtle, Senior Policy Advisor of Cornell University Library. For my readers who may not recognize his name, Peter served as President and Vice President of the Society of American Archivists (SAA); was an active member of the Section 108 Study Group, Library of Congress/Copyright Office; and co-wrote with Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Those are just a few aspects of his notable service and professional work. Please visit his VIVO page to learn more about his background, experience, and publications.
Over the past few years, Peter has unwittingly become my copyright mentor, answering my emailed questions when I was an MLIS student at Rutgers and providing checklists to follow in Copyright and Cultural Institutions. When I cannot untangle a copyright issue, I turn to Peter Hirtle to help me make informed decisions. So, when the opportunity arose during a recent email exchange, I asked if he would be willing to be interviewed for this blog. Not surprisingly, I was thrilled when he replied that he would be honored to be interviewed for Here and There.
At the time, Peter was in Oxford, England, visiting his wife, who had been Cornell University Librarian prior to her current gig – Bodley’s Librarian. He offered to have the interview via Skype, but since he would be returning to Ithaca in a short time, I offered to visit him at Cornell instead and hoped I could tour the school’s legendary Special Collections while I was there. Peter very kindly set up a series of excellent tours (which will be covered later this month), and was generous of his time, giving me two hours for the interview and a lovely visit in the Olin Library cafe.
Because Peter has been actively involved in the archival community since the mid-1980s, especially in the areas of digital archives and copyright issues, I was looking forward to hearing his thoughts on a range of different topics. Below are a series of videos that represent the breadth and depth of our discussion. I've set the volume at it's lowest setting, which means you'll need to adjust it to your comfort level. The originals were shot in HD, and these all may be viewed in HD by adjusting the setting in the lower left corner of each viewer.
In this first clip, Peter discusses Encoded Archival Description (EAD), the semantic web, linked open data, and other solutions for presenting archival information online in a more meaningful and wide-reaching way. This clip is little over 3 minutes long.
Next, Peter speaks about partnerships (or, if you prefer, collaborative relationships) between cultural heritage institutions, the Hathi Trust Digital Library, and the work involved in identifying potential copyright owners for orphan works. This clip runs for approximately 5.5 minutes.
As a follow-up to the copyright discussion, Peter talks about risk mitigation as it applies to digitizing collections. He also gives tips on what cultural heritage institutions should know when dealing with copyrights. His examples make his points in a very practical way. This clip is a bit over 6 minutes long.
Since I’m still relatively new to this career, I was especially interested in hearing what Peter had to say regarding the “must-have” skills, experience, and attributes every newly minted archivist should have. A deep knowledge of the fundamentals of archival theory and practice may be key, but he wants folks to have a solid foundation in IT and technical skills. Watch the clip to see why (it clocks in at a little over 4 minutes long)
Following along the lines of archival practice, here we talk about the More Product, Less Process methodology. A good portion of our discussion isn’t included here (because we talked about it for a considerable time), but Peter does an excellent job of weighing the pros and cons of MPLP and summarizing the methodology. The clip runs for almost 5.5 minutes.
Finally, we have a short, but powerful clip of Peter explaining the importance of archives and why being an archivist is the best job in the world. I agree with his sentiments and add that being able to discover something different every day is one of my favorite parts of the work. This clip runs 2.5 minutes.
Peter Hirtle’s complete contact information can be found here.
My July has been filled with adventures, excitement, and new experiences. For example, earlier this week, I had a marvelous time in the Finger Lakes district of New York. In addition to hiking the beautiful gorges and viewing the enticing waterfalls (days in the 90s and very high humidity), I had the great fortune of visiting with Peter Hirtle and some of his wonderful colleagues at Cornell University's Special Collections and Preservation. Next week, I should be able to share my videos and photos of the interview with Peter as well as the tours.
As far as the other adventures and exciting events go, I'll have to keep those under my hat for at least a month, but I'll be posting about them as soon as I can.
Lately, I've been answering my share of questions on the topics of challenges in processing collections, managing projects, and promoting collections. This morning, I turned the questions on their heads and thought "Wouldn't it be nice if I were asked about the benefits of this work." With that in mind, in no particular order, here are some musings on why I find working in museums and libraries so inspiring.
1. The materials -- A great example is the project I'm working on these days at the Plainfield Public Library. The thousands of architectural drawings kept in the local history archives represent a century of architectural styles in the town. The collection also shows trends in architectural drawing as a field -- from lettering and drawing styles to the types of materials used to produce the drawings. But as far as inspirations go, it's pretty high up there for me. When I drive through Plainfield on my way to the library (along 8th and other streets in historic neighborhoods), I see some of the homes depicted in plans from the turn of the last century. I also learn about the different classes in the town from the mansions with gorgeous libraries drawn into the blueprints to the 4-family apartment houses drawn by Charles Detwiller in the 1950s. While I'm still impressed with Adam Winger's cuneiform tablets, I'm also pretty fortunate to be exposed to so many different types of historical records at the Plainfield Public Library.
2. The archivists, librarians, curators, historians and other cultural history pros -- I like working with folks who get as revved up about copyright challenges, historical items, and ephemera from personal collections as I do. It's even more fun when we gather for conferences, or when I have the opportunity to tour a cultural heritage institution. My tour hosts are enthusiastic evangelists for our work, and I can't help but admire them and the work they do. Sometimes, I get to watch conservators think through how they will handle various challenges. I'm in awe of the pros who labor for a year or more on one item to delicately remove a harmful coating or repair beautiful plates in a damaged Audubon book. Recently, a classmate of mine from the Rutgers MLIS program landed a great job in a library at a California university. While I will miss her being close by, I'll get to hear new stories about her exciting work as a faculty liaison (among other fun work). And, I have yet another reason to go back to California!
3. The patrons -- I know a few people who would much rather be behind the door with the treasures than working with patrons, but I'm not one of those people. I like doing both. Just two days ago, a man and his adult son came into the local history room looking for information about a particular building in town. A librarian began to work with the son while the elder man watched me doing some preservation work at the large table in the room. I had two boxes of architectural drawings ranging from the 1860s to 1911 that were particularly interesting examples of mansions. The man began to edge closer to get a better look at the drawings. I looked up and smiled at him and he smiled back. I explained what I was doing and why, while I unrolled one of the precious blueprints for him. It was the front elevation of one of the town's beauties. This fellow lit up and started asking questions. I answered as many as I could before he had to go, feeling that I was probably as entertained as he was by the exchange.
4. The opportunities -- The biggest is the opportunity to learn. I am constantly learning something new, whether it's an historical fact, the proper way to preserve an item I haven't yet encountered, a better way to write or say something, a new software package, or any number of other things. Being able to put these new things into practice is a bonus because then they become what I can teach others. Another great opportunity offered by this field is being able to network easily. Whether it's through member societies, list servs, blogs, Facebook, conferences, or simply by writing a fan email to tell someone you appreciate they work they do (I'm inspired to write these all the time), making new contacts and friends in this field can be done pretty easily. Most of the folks in the cultural heritage fields want to be helpful and tend to be friendly people. How can you not like someone like that?
I'll probably think of a few more inspirations and put them aside for another post. In the meantime, please comment on your inspirations. I'm very interested in what you have to say.
My apologies to the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts for clipping off the edge of their signage in my photo.
Last week, my mom and I had a lovely time visiting two Morris County museums, the one profiled in this post and the Morris Museum, where she's a member. (We also enjoyed a very tasty lunch at the newly re-opened Sirin Thai restaurant.) We hadn't originally planned to visit the trades and crafts museum, but we usually pass the building, so we decided to visit this time.
The Museum of Early Trades & Crafts started as a way for Edgar and Agnes Land, who lived in Madison and collected thousands of 18th and 19th century objects, to share their collections and educate people about the lives of the early artisans, craftspeople, and farmers in New Jersey. The building housing the museum is nothing short of gorgeous. It is often mistaken for a church, but carved into the stone over the entryway is the word "Library."
Opened on Memorial Day 1900, the Madison Free Public Library was a gift to the town from D. Willis James, a wealthy New York (originally from Liverpool, England) industrial capitalist. James had a summer estate in Madison, now known Giralda Farms (you may know it as the estate of Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge). We need another James today. He was so invested in the financial well-being of the library that he set up a trust fund for it based in the income raised from a commercial building he owned across the street from the library.
In the photo above, you can see one of the many beautiful architectural elements of the building. The archway to the Trustee Room shows seven seals from some of America's earliest colleges. Included are Queen's College (later Rutgers College, and eventually Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey), University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Harvard University, College of William and Mary, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Above the wood with the embedded seals you can see hand-painted designs that continue throughout the building.
In each room with stained-glass windows are beautiful glass-art medallions or plaques within the windows that display inspirational quotations. I can only imagine how stirring it must have been to have sat in the building when it was a library, surrounded by all of the grandeur. It made me a wee bit jealous of the folks who have the good fortune of working in it today.
Below are just a few of those windows that I photographed while walking around the exhibits.
As we explored the building, I was particularly impressed by the main exhibit "Mariners, Merchants, & Pirates." The clever curators use mock magnifying glasses to spotlight items found at the port of Perth Amboy. They also use rope to frame educational materials. It is one of the niftiest exhibits I've seen.
In the exhibit, there is a wealth of information about the tools sailors used to navigate, keep time, build ships, and generally do their work. There also are facts on pirates and privateers (separated only in category by a legal agreement). The exhibit will be featured at the museum until September 4, so add a visit to your summer calendar.
If you can't make it now, the museum has permanent exhibits and changing exhibits, as well as a research library worth exploring if you're interested trades and crafts topics. The permanent exhibits show how craftsmen and artisans created everyday objects like barrels, shoes, cabinets, and more. There also are exhibits on printing (complete with a large press) and other trades.
As always, the Spring Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference held in Alexandria, Va. was more than worth the price of admission. My previous post hit the high notes of Rand Jimerson’s amazing plenary, and this entry will spotlight the incredibly useful Improving Grant Writing Skills pre-conference workshop.
MARAC’s organizers provided a great service for those of us who attended the workshop. They gave us access to leaders in the field, who actively engaged us in discussions and exercises designed to increase our grant-winning success. Our speakers were Lucy Barber, Deputy Executive Director of the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC); Elizabeth Joffrion, Senior Program Officer, Division of Preservation and Access at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); and Christa Williford, Program Officer at the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). In these days of economic challenges, when many cultural heritage institutions are depending on grants to support their work, I cannot overstate the importance of this workshop and the ability to meet and learn from these three key women.
Prior to the workshop, we were sent three sample grant proposals, one from each organization represented by the speakers. They were not full proposals, but enough material to gain an understanding of what would make a successful submission. At the end of each proposal was a list of criteria for review. I was pretty critical in my review of each proposal so that I would have questions for the workshop. It was interesting to see what was required by each organization, and how detailed (or, in some cases, brief) the proposals were.
The handouts we received at the workshop were particularly helpful. We were handed a sheet providing an overview of what each organization does and does not fund. Further, we received a booklet that goes into much greater detail regarding the organizations’ exact grant programs, awards granted in 2010, and grant evaluation materials, among other handy facts.
During the workshop, each speaker described her role in the organization and how she helps grant applicants. Projects that tend to succeed as well as excellent tips were shared during their introductions. The speakers also talked at length about the importance of applications that lay the groundwork for best practices in the field (especially in the areas of digitizing collections (NEH); more product, less process (NHPRC), and cost control (CLIR).
I was very impressed by how invested they were in the applicant’s success. Christa Williford (CLIR) explained that her organization requires a pre-proposal as well as a final proposal in order to give applicants a chance to make corrections during the process.
After a break, we split into three groups. Each focused on one of the organizations, and was facilitated a speaker. Because I was particularly interested in the “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” program at CLIR, I chose that group. We reviewed the sample proposal and looked at the scholarly value of the collection, viability of the project plan, and technical approaches. Then we determined whether we would recommend the project and why, as well as suggested improvements.
It was a useful exercise because we were able to speak with and ask questions of our speakers in a small group. Afterward, each group shared their lessons learned, and the speakers gave us even more great tips. These are my favorites:
1. Make the project compelling – entice the reviewers to visit the collection and help them visualize the outcome.
2. Be explicit in explanations – spell out the innovation(s) in the plan; how is it a model for other organizations?
3. Work out as much detail as possible in addressing all the points, but be succinct.
4. Remember that you are writing for other archivists and curators in the field.
5. Collaboration is a winning strategy (work with other organizations to achieve the goal together).
6. Cost-sharing proposals tend to receive funding.
Finally, our speakers encouraged us to contact them during our grant writing process. They welcomed questions and made themselves available after the workshop for one-on-one conversations. Overall, I left the workshop feeling much more comfortable with the task of writing a grant application, and feeling much more likely to succeed.
The recent Spring Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference held in Alexandria, Va. had many useful and interesting things to offer its attendees, but my favorites were the “Improving Grant Writing Skills” workshop and the plenary by Rand Jimerson. This post will hit the high notes of Jimerson’s talk, while the next one will spotlight the workshop.
Jimerson, Professor of History and Director of the Archives and Records Management MA Program at Western Washington University, is a very well-known figure in archives and special collections circles. In fact, it was pretty exciting to hear him speak after having read some of his papers for MLIS courses at Rutgers. Jimerson spoke at length about the role archives play in the area of social justice. Afterward, he signed copies of his latest book, Archives Power: Memory, Accountability, and Social Justice.
In these days when electronic records are disappearing so quickly without a thought to their future usefulness, Jimerson reminded us of Enron’s shredding and Oliver North’s record destruction. I sat in the audience remembering when I worked for a company that didn’t keep files older than three years. Even then, not knowing I’d later choose a career in archival science, I didn’t understand how we could simply throw these materials into the recycling. They had value.
I fear that our collective history (especially the present) will not be as richly populated with archival materials as our past because the evidence no longer exists. That’s the problem with these remarkable MARAC speakers – they get into my mind and rattle around for a while, calling me to action.
Jimerson spoke about archivists having the power to shape collective memory. He moved us with stories about how archival work in South Africa is a process of reclamation and restoration. “Archivists cannot remain neutral or passive,” he said. Archival activism requires that we, as workers in that field, be more responsive to social needs.
He focused on nine ways we can be responsive and ensure archives by and for the people:
Ensure diversity in the archival record.
Welcome the stranger into the archives, seeking especially to include previously marginalized groups. “Records become witnesses to a silent society,” Jimerson said.
Document our decisions regarding the acquisition and appraisal of materials, and make these criteria available to donors and the public.
Provide oral testimony by creating oral histories. These incredibly valuable records provide intimate accounts of a large part of the world whose history only exists in oral form. Importantly, make the audio/video available, not just the transcription. Collect generations of stories from descendants, if possible, to preserve the oral tradition.
Make archival description systems sensitive, meaning that we need to be more sensitive to social construction and think more about the way we present our finding aids.
Provide inclusive access and be sensitive to culture, especially when it comes to reference service.
Embrace new technologies. Promote openness and flexibility.
Support open government, accountability, and democratic societies.
Support public advocacy in support of the broader interest, and become whistle blowers, if need be (within a self-preserving construct).
Jimerson’s talk inspired me to take action where I can. He also helped me realize how fortunate I am to have “cut my teeth” at a place like Plainfield Public Library, that seeks to increase diversity in the collections, and is actively collecting oral histories from community members. I hope that in my future work, I can continue to follow Jimerson’s instructions above to be a better archival activist.
This Book Is Overdue is more than a year old, but was new to me when Sarah, the archivist at Plainfield Public Library handed it to me and said, "You will love this." She was right.
I enjoyed Johnson's book because it is a candid look at librarians and archivists from the view of a writer who adores libraries and people who work for them. (I nearly typed "people who work in them," but she writes extensively of the librarians who work within Second Life and who provide web-based services, so that terminology wouldn't be entirely accurate.)
The book focuses on exactly what library folks do to serve their patrons. Johnson relates story after story of how librarians and archivists go to great lengths to locate information, books, manuscripts, and more for writers and ordinary people who might not exactly know what they need. She gives high praise to helpful reference librarians, and well she should. The reference interview is not only a great tool, it is one that can be customized by its gifted user to yield world-changing results, as Johnson demonstrates throughout her book.
Among other topics, the author covers the eternal battle of IT vs. everyone else, but increasingly, I see job ads for "digital librarian," "electronic records manager," or "information systems librarian." As budgets continue to tighten, and because library schools are now "i" schools (she did mention the Rutgers name change that happened during my first semester in the MLIS program), we all must have some grounding in digital applications.
One topic that Johnson did not discuss in depth is the movement in the archives and special collections communities to use EAD (encoded archival description) in collaborative ways to bring more collections into the view of potential users via their online finding aids. The Online Archive of California is a great example of that EAD collaboration. On the other hand, I am very glad she wrote about the virtues of WorldCat, one of my favorite tools for locating materials.
Of course, I am biased, but I thought perhaps the world of the archives and special collections might deserve its own book (and maybe I need to write that book, as Mom often prods me to do). But it was interesting to read about David Ferriero's work at NYPL prior to his current post as the 10th Archivist of the United States (AOTUS). And, it was touching to read about how an archivist processed her late husband's papers for inclusion in Rutgers' special collections (although I would have saved the ephemera because I love the kind of snapshot in time it gives a collection).
If you are a librarian or archivist, like me, you will recognize your friends, former classmates, colleagues, and library bloggers in this book. But we are not the only ones who should read this work -- I'd recommend pointing your local congressperson to its catalog page in the local library and not-so-subtly suggesting that he/she check it out and read it. This Book Is Overdue is a quick read because Johnson is a fine writer and tells an engaging story, but it's an important read because she goes a long way to provide valuable library advocacy in her book with the hero librarian on the cover.
Introduction Note: For a short history of the University of Arizona in Tucson, please refer to the previous post.
When I travel, I research local cultural heritage institutions to visit. It is my great fortune to tour some of them specifically for this blog. Still others remain lovely memories of a visit to a unique place. For example, I recently visited two spectacular museums in Phoenix -- the Musical Instrument Museum and Heard Museum, as well as the Desert Botanical Gardens. If you are interested in seeing some of my photos of those great institutions, visit my Picasa site.
In Tucson, I already knew that I would be visiting the University of Arizona because it is home to many cultural heritage institutions. But when I began to dig a bit deeper, I found that the school’s Museum of Art was about to begin construction on its Archive of Visual Arts. This I had to see!
I contacted the Museum’s Executive Director, Charles Guerin, who graciously invited me to visit and tour their collections and new facility (previously the home of a local blood bank). He gave me an excellent guided tour of the museum’s current exhibits and drove me to the site of the archive-to-be. When we visited the archive building, I could see its potential for long-term storage of valuable holdings and a sizable reading room.
The construction workers were taking a break from demolishing the interior walls and repairing portions of the building as Guerin and I walked the length of the building from the back to the front. I saw immediately the appeal of using a former blood bank for the archive – a big cold storage vault for photos and other preservation needs. The team has a big job ahead of it to modernize the building and its HVAC system to protect the art archive, but they are definitely on their way. I decided not to photograph the building during its construction, but promised to return after the archive was up and running to take another tour.
About the Museum's Executive Director
Charles Guerin’s background in printmaking and painting no doubt informs his work at the Museum. Prior to becoming Executive Director of the Museum, he was Acting Director of the Center of Creative Photography at the University of Arizona (located more or less across the street from the Museum). He also served as Director of the University of Wyoming Art Museum, and consulted on the design of the American Heritage Center at the U of W as he built the Art Museum.
During my visit, Guerin was very generous with his time and spoke with me at length about why the museum created the archive.
He also talked with me about how he obtained the Museum’s first record collection, the papers of Robert T. McCall, arguably one of America’s most important illustrators. He is best known for illustrating and documenting much of the American space program. One of McCall’s most famous works hangs in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington , D.C., where a collection of his drawings also can be seen online.
McCall, an Arizona resident, passed away in March 2010, but before he died he had served on the board of the University’s Department of Astronomy. Guerin mentioned that he had been looking for a place to house many of his illustrations because although he had been selling the copyrights to use the works on postage stamps, etc., he did not sell those actual pieces. Guerin was very happy to accept the donation of McCall’s illustrations because illustration is an important field of study at the University’s area of Visual Communications. He also had the foresight to ask McCall for his archive of correspondence. Now, 20 cubic feet of McCall’s papers are waiting patiently for the new archive to take shape.
Guerin’s long-term vision is to target major artists, mainly in Western states, for inclusion in the Museum’s collections. He also wants to avoid circumstances where an artist passes away, and his/her children have all the artist’s boxes, which they might not want to keep and simply bring to the dump. Presently, Guerin has convinced several artists to leave their records and/or art to the Museum.
About the Collections
The best part of having a guided tour of a collection (especially by the institution’s Director) is having an expert on hand to answer all kinds of questions. But, when a cultural heritage institution uses archival records, such as letters, postcards, prints, and sketches, it helps put that artist into context and helps explain why these people are important. For example, in the series of photos below, you can see the exquisite photorealism of Audrey Flack’s work, Marilyn (Vanitas) II. The original transparency for the work was made in 1976, but Flack recently uncovered the study in her archives and made a Cibachrome print of it. The first image shows how the museum mounted the print on the railing above the painting hung in the main staircase. The second image shows the painting, and the third shows the print. All photos are displayed with permission of the Museum.
At the time of my visit, the Museum also exhibited a collection of works by Arthur Diehl, a late 19th/early 20th century “speed” painter who happened to be the grandfather of a Museum board member. The collection is on loan from a private family collection. Guerin pointed out how the Museum uses the family’s archive to further shape the exhibit. Below, the series of photos show the archival displays accompanying the Diehl exhibit.
Conclusion
The University of Arizona Museum of Art has many claims to fame, including the remarkable Fernando Gallego and His Workshop: The Altarpiece from Ciudad Rodrigo exhibit. Arizona Public Media produced a great documentary on the conservation of the work. However, my favorite part of the Museum is its curators’ use of archival materials to better tell the story of the artist and his/her work. I look forward to returning when the Archive of Visual Arts has been completed and populated with artists’ archives.
Contact Information
Charles Guerin
Executive Director
The University of Arizona Museum of Art
1031 N. Olive Road
P.O. Box 210002
Tucson, AZ 85721-0002
(520) 621-7567
caguerin@u.arizona.edu
http://artmuseum.arizona.edu/archive/index.shtml
Introduction
During my April trip to Arizona, I looked forward to touring the University of Arizona’s Special Collections (in the Main Library whose exterior is shown above), especially the school’s book collections and the photographs. However, my time to visit shrank to 30 minutes due to an accident on the only major road between Phoenix and Tucson. An overturned tractor trailer had spilled a container-load of strawberries onto the freeway and caught fire about two miles ahead of me.
Once all the local radio stations had announced that the freeway was closed and I had been sitting in the desert sun for 25 minutes, I took out my cell phone and hoped for coverage. I saw a single, small bar on my phone and called my tour host, Chrystal Carpenter, who was very gracious and understanding. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived in Tucson (more than 2 hours late for our appointment), we didn’t have much time because her guest speaker for that night’s event was about to arrive at the airport and she needed to leave to collect him.
Despite the major snag, Chrystal gave me a great short tour and inspired me to return when we both have more time for a visit.
Background on the School
When I read the early history of the University of Arizona, I thought, "This is a story of the wild, wild West." It begins in 1885, when the Arizona Territorial Legislature convened in Prescott, the then-capitol, to discuss a variety of topics including where the territory’s insane asylum would reside and where the University of Arizona would be established. Those early settlers must have been very confident that Arizona would eventually become a state to start planning its university. Statehood didn’t occur until 1912.
The Tucson delegation intended to petition the Territorial Legislature to have the capitol moved from Prescott to Tucson. However, their wagons had gotten stuck in the mud from torrential rain, and they didn’t arrive until after the monies had already been divided. (Today, it takes between 4 and 5 hours to drive north from Tucson to Prescott – imagine how long it must have taken with a horse-drawn wagon on dirt roads and paths.) Because the Tucson delegation was so late, it missed out on the $100,000 that went with the asylum, and instead received $25,000 for the University of Arizona. Six years later, the school’s first student (a 14-year-old girl) signed her name in the registration book. Special Collections contributed materials to an excellent video about that girl’s experience with the school. Watch Clara Fish’s story here.
Allow me to introduce my affable and accommodating tour host, Chrystal Carpenter, the Manuscript & Congressional Archivist at the University of Arizona’s Special Collections. Chrystal has been in her current position for three years. Previously she served as the photo archivist at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, and an archives and library assistant at the Arizona State Museum. She earned her Master in Information Resources and Library Science from the University and later obtained her certification from the Academy of Certified Archivists.
She fell in love with the profession as an anthropology/archaeology undergraduate student at the University. Chrystal explains, "I had the opportunity to work at Special Collections, and it is here that I developed a passion for archives. I found that an archival career would be similar to an archaeological career except I wouldn’t get as dirty!"
While she knew she wouldn’t get as dirty, Chrystal certainly didn’t expect that she would be called in to oversee the collection of mementos and personal tributes to the victims of the January 8th attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Arizona Public Media’s interview below shows Chrystal describing her process of working with the many volunteers who helped collect and package the materials, as well as decisions she made about how to handle this collection. She also does an excellent job of explaining the archival process and Special Collections without being technical or jargony.
I asked Chrystal about her upcoming and current projects. She told me about some of the fascinating work she’s doing and the big projects on schedule for the summer.
A priority for Special Collections is our Borderlands Cultural Community project. With this in mind I have been working toward acquiring collections that fit its scope, as well as prioritizing our processing activities. This summer, we will be processing the Humane Borders archive as well as a bilingual education collection. I also will be integrating the Arizona Architectural Archives (AAA) into our collection. The AAA materials contain about 600 linear feet of architectural and business records and include over 22 collections that were curated by the University’s Architecture department.
I found Chrystal to be particularly impressive in the area of training. In an innovative move, she trained a subset of catalogers from Technical Services to provide archival processing services as well as their regular work. This initiative allowed her to add 100 hours a month of processing to Special Collections and yielded 2.5 full-time processors. Her work, as well as that of her colleague Erika Castano, also helped add value to the metadata of the digital collections and taught the catalogers highly marketable skills.
Whenever I visit an archive, university special collections, or any other cultural heritage institution, I am often intrigued by the displays and exhibits. The University of Arizona’s exhibit space (renovated in 2001) shown above and immediately below provides the archivists with a great deal of attractive, modern space where they show the role played by archival materials in history.
The Special Collections department changes its exhibits every six months. At the time of my visit, the exhibit space focused on the life and impact of Stewart Lee Udall ("I’m for Stew" was its apt title). According to the Special Collections web site, he was an Arizona congressman who also served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961-1969 (under both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson). Udall was "a champion of civil rights, an avid conservationist, a lawyer, a B24 gunner during WWII, and a University of Arizona alumnus," says Special Collections. The next exhibit will focus on Arizona history from 1600-1912 in commemoration of the 2012 Arizona Centennial.
Remember Chrystal’s guest speaker for the night of my tour? He was the second speaker in a three-part lecture series on "Stew." Robert G. Stanton, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and Director of the National Park Service from 1997-2001, spoke on Udall’s environmental work and how he became a leading voice in American environmentalism.
The photo above shows the public reading room used for lectures like Stanton’s. There also is another large space inside Special Collections that is frequently used for meetings and other University events.
About the Collections
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections was established in 1958 to house materials on Arizona, the Southwest, and the U.S./Mexico Borderlands. Today it includes audio; video; film; cassettes; electronic records; photographs; and paper-based collections including personal and corporate records, sheet music, maps, and blueprints in a wide variety of areas.
The processed manuscript collections come in at about 12,000 linear feet and growing. The unprocessed materials are about 3000 linear feet and shrinking. Below is a photo of Special Collections’ unprocessed stacks.
Because the University also has a library school, Special Collections makes use of paid graduate and undergraduate student assistants as well as interns to help the seven full-time and two part-time employees accomplish their work. Three of the seven full-timers are archivists.
Most of Special Collections’ patrons are associated with the University, whether undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and/or visiting researchers. However, Chrystal notes "We also have a number of researchers from around the country and internationally, as well as local users." They see approximately 50 visitors per week, and host a long-term researcher utilizing the political collections. "More often than not, our long-term researchers are working with our political collections, University-related materials, or early Tucson research," explains Chrystal.
Because the school is renowned for its astronomy, among other research areas, the Special Collections reflects that focus in its rare books holdings. Chrystal showed me a particularly interesting volume by Galileo, published in 1610. (She holds the volume in the photo above in "About the Archivist.") A researcher, who had located the book in World Cat discovered through his descriptive bibliography work that the book was one of three existing hand-edited works by the astronomer. Below are three photos of the book (the first is the title page, the second shows a hand-edited page, and the third is a close-up of the edit).
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections also contain a small percentage of three-dimensional objects such as wigs, trunks, costumes, and paintings. Below are two examples of objects that are part of the school’s very popular American Vaudeville Museum collection and related vaudeville collections. First is a pair of pants decorated with shell buttons, worn by a vaudeville actor.
Chrystal also showed me some of Special Collections’ Western Pulp Fiction holdings. Below is some of the creative labeling used for that collection. Following the photo is a very short video of Chrystal in the stacks talking about the Western Pulp Fiction.
Other popular Special Collections at the school include the Josias Joesler collection of architectural renderings and blueprints and the Stewart L. Udall and Morris K. Udall political collections. Chrystal’s favorite collections are the Stewart L. Udall and the Don Alonzo Sanford Collections. She likes Udall’s because it contains so much documentation "from his early life growing up in a rural Arizona town and his life as a WWII B-24 bomber, to the vast documentation on his eight years as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior," she says.
Chrystal is especially interested in the Don Alonzo Sanford collection because it "provides a snapshot into the everyday life of a pioneer businessman/politician and his family in the Arizona Territory--from what it would cost for Tucson to install street lights to what it was like for a Eastern woman to travel across country and take up residence in an unfamiliar western territory."
Some of the undiscovered or underutilized gems of the collection include the incunabula holdings (books that were printed prior to 1501), science fiction and fanzines collections, and de la Torre family collection which focuses on the Cristero Movement in Mexico.
Conclusion
The University of Arizona’s Special Collections makes significant contributions to the effort to preserve the region’s collective historical memory. Its acquisition, processing, and digitization programs related to projects like the Borderlands Cultural Community program allow its archivists and librarians to work with community groups in the borderland region to acquire collective histories. With proactive and innovative leaders such as Chrystal Carpenter, the future of Special Collections looks especially bright.
In fact, it was pretty exciting to hear him speak after having read some of his papers for MLIS courses at Rutgers. Jimerson spoke at length about the role archives play in the area of social justice. Afterward, he signed copies of his latest book, 
.
is more than a year old, but was new to me when Sarah, the archivist at Plainfield Public Library handed it to me and said, "You will love this." She was right.
