Comments on: Tales from the archives

By: John S.

John S. — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:21:44 +0000

Late addition: just finished a brief colloquium with the archivists at the Society where I am doing my research. (All of the short-term fellows are required to give such a talk.) The questions ranged from excellent to amazing. The general depth of knowledge on my larger research topic didn’t surprise me, knowing that the jack-of-all trades skill that archivists have. But wow–there is just something really awesome about getting questions from the person who actually processed the collection you’re using. There’s nothing better than learning from that expertise when it comes to trying to figure out what might be there (but is undiscovered!) in the sources.

By: Tim Lacy

Tim Lacy — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:00:47 +0000

The story by Austen and the comments to this thread signal, to me at least, the virtues of the ongoing professionalization of the archivists/public history world since the 70s and 80s. As libraries and archives hire more and more thoughtful, up-to-date, trained professionals—as opposed to some of the past illiberal occupants of those positions (and admitted-but-informed generalization on my part)—we’ll see increasing numbers of discovery stories like Austen’s. I find the younger set of archivists to be more ethically aware and open to researchers. Even as I say that, I know of one younger (late Boomer/early Gen X’er) archivist (a XXer, you might say) who somehow imbibed the “I’ll-scrutinize-your-worthiness-based-on-my-petty-criteria” attitude. Who says “selection and emphasis” apply only to story writers holding the title of historian?

I haven’t been able to spend much time in the archives, recently, with regard to my chosen dissertation (now book) topic. But I’ve thanked God many times in the past few years that I gave myself a liberal copy budget back in the day. – TL

By: Historiann

Historiann — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:51:07 +0000

I hear you, Paul. I think many historians are of the same bent! When I read Austen’s description of MPLP, I wondered how hard some archivists must have to work to overcome their previous training and natural inclinations to thoroughness. . .

And thanks for the link to Kentuckiana, Jacob!

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:41:21 +0000

The question of making detailed records of a small part of the collection vs. brief records for a larger part seems to be something that bedevils most archival institutions. I think that the majority of archivists, by training and personality, tend to be somewhat perfectionist, so there is a tendency to want to get every detail correct. I think that most archivists realize in theory that creating slightly less polished records for a larger percentage of the archival material is actually more beneficial to researchers, and a better use of time and effort – but perfectionist habits die hard. I have to remind myself (often multiple times) on just about every document and record that I work on that I don’t really need to be spending time making sure that every line is in perfect accordance with cataloging standards when there are still thousands of documents that either have no record at all or only the sketchiest of records.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:55:03 +0000

Historiann – I know that the Kentuckiana Digital Library, which includes the holdings of institutions across Kentucky, has a large number of oral histories available, both transcripts and audio (also, video when available). I’m sure that other institutions are working on similar initiatives.
Here’s the link to KDL’s oral history page: http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/b/bib/bib-idx?c=oralhistbib;cc=oralhistbib;page=simple

By: shaz

shaz — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 01:41:39 +0000

Historiann — I completely agree with you. I have often talked about (in my spare time) wanting to write an article on the impact of structural differences (funded archives of private Important Papers v. under/unfunded archives of state documents, like court records, where marginalized people tend to appear. With the advent of digitization, this has increased the gap between the accessibility of different kinds of documents.

Yes, the Huntington has some stuff — but the reason for using print (or even digitized) is also that it allows for a quicker dissertation, and when you are supporting yourself and have little guaranteed funding, quick is essential. Not good for the field, but good for the individual, often.

I also agree on microforms — LDS have done a great job filming manuscript records!!

By: Historiann

Historiann — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:09:05 +0000

LMC–your comment makes an important point, which is that trips to the archive need not be months long. I think it’s easier for an experienced researcher who’s been to the archive before to get the most out of them in compressed periods of time. This goes back to Janice’s comment–a lot of people are unable for a variety of reasons to spend several months or a year at an archive. Doing the researcher version of MPLP, and bringing home microfilm or photocopies, is much better than nothing, and usually works pretty well.

(I have myself found that photocopies of some 18th C documents are pretty inscrutible, and prefer to work with manuscripts, but that’s highly contingent on the kind of records one uses. I, too, have had to do more with less time in recent years, so I get where you’re coming from completely.)

Western Dave mentions oral history–now, that’s something that it seems could be made readily available to researchers via podcasts or MP3s–or just putting them up online for all to hear. Are there any archives that are doing this with their oral histories?

By: Little Midwestern College

Little Midwestern College — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:56:42 +0000

Finances are definitely a huge problem, especially at SLAC’s like mine that want us to produce high-quality scholarship without funding it. But I have found some workarounds–for example, microforms, which haven’t really been mentioned on this thread. I have reels and reels on my shelves at home in addition to all the photocopies I’ve made during my 1-2 week summer forays into the archive during the summers I can afford it, and I’m able to do some good work on my subject this way. It seems Cengage especially is making more collections available all the time. Some archives will even allow you to request to have a collection filmed–although often at the researcher’s expense, which can still be cheaper than multiple trips to that archive, especially if they don’t allow xeroxing.

By: Western Dave

Western Dave — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:40:51 +0000

My own “why I love archivist” story involves the Doris Duke Oral History collection at UNM. The project coordinators indexed for stuff they were interested in and left out everything that they weren’t. The archivists at the Zimmerman library tipped me off that the index was shoddy, so whole interviews were tagged with “nothing of significance.” “You’ll have to read them all,” they told me. By now you know that those interviews were filled with the most fascinating and relevant materials for my project. And all because what was “significant” to the archivists was old Navajo myths and legends. Anything that showed Navajos involved in the cash economy, acting politically, or as not “Navaho” (to echo Erika Bsumek’s usage wherein Navaho connotes the idealized Indian created for market purposes) was ignored.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:52:30 +0000

Janice and Shaz make great points about the difficulties–personal and financial–that are making time in the archives even more elusive for many of us. (Like both of you, my time in the archives has been very limited in the past few years, for reasons having to do with distance, an absence of funding, and personal reasons.) I think some of these things are cyclical or life-stage related. Most people–unless they remain unmarried/unpartnered/child-free renters and/or happen to find jobs very close to important archives for their research–spend a lot less time in the archives proportionally speaking than they did for their dissertations and/or first books.

Shaz, I do think it’s possible for individuals to write interesting history without months and months in the archive/s. I’m just against the profession giving up on archival research wholesale, when there’s so much out there left to be re/discovered. I can’t tell you how many of my friends who told stories like Austen’s of going into archives and unfolding trial records that hadn’t been unfolded since they were originally folded and tied up neatly in the eighteenth century. (Offhand, I’m thinking of John Sweet and Kirsten Fischer, people who published two very innovative studies of race, slavery, and sexuality in the past decade. Both of them have told me identical stories about showing up at small, provincial archives and being handed bags of previously unopened 18th C court records.)

What I would also say is, who says you’re on the “wrong” coast to do early American history? What about mission records (I presume they’re Archdiocesan records kept locally?) Your students have close access to the Huntington, for example. Is there not (in Ned Blackhawk’s terms) an “early American West?” All it takes is a few years of intro Spanish and maybe a summer course in Latin for reading knowledge, if they don’t have it already. . .