Week Eleven Auxiliar Post: Keeping Things Interesting with a few Photographs

I decided it was time to jazz things up again with some collection photographs.  Below are a few of my favorites thus far.

One of several fantastic pulp mystery magazines from the 1890s--the oldest items in the collection, which precede all others by approximately 50 years.  This particular example, the Young Sleuth Library, is dated 1894.

Another pulp magazine: Old Cap. Collier Library, dated 1890.  I just love the graphic design style on these!

It probably does not come as a huge surprise, but these pulp magazines are extremely brittle and delicate.  Here you can see the corner of one starting to crumble. (Note the unintentional juxtaposition of the crumbling pages and the character's melancholy face at left.. ha!)

Several photographs from the collection.  Most photographic materials, these included, document Edgar Award Dinners throughout the Mystery Writers of America's history.  The Edgar Awards are an annual event for Mystery Writers of America members akin to the mystery novelist's Oscars.  More details to come in next week's post.

Week Eleven: Go Forth and Process

Technically I am cheating--it's already Monday of week twelve and I'm just now recapping week eleven.  My excuse is that I took a much needed quick trip out of town over the weekend, which pushed back my blog post but helped me start this Monday morning feeling refreshed and ready to face the week.  Just five more left weeks left before the end of the semester, and with it the end of my internship at the Lilly.  Every day I am continually reminding myself of the limited time span that I am working with in processing the remainder of the Mystery Writers of America mss.

For the most part, I am moving along at a good pace going through the collection box by box and assigning each folder to its appropriate series.  While processing the Claxon collections, I sorted all materials by series after which I arranged folders within each series.  With this collection, however, I thought it made more sense to pursue both of these tasks at once.  As I arrange the materials, I am also creating the collection inventory and ascertaining date ranges for each folder.  It is my hope that this strategy will allow me to maximize my effectiveness to save time in the long run.  Once series assignment, arrangement within series, and date range assignments are completed and typed up into a shiny new inventory, I just need to double check everything, talk my work over with Craig and Cherry, and start the refoldering process.  Yes, I still have a bit of a ways to go and still need to look at retention issues for financial documents, but I feel good about where I am and my progress thus far.

One reason I devised this particular strategy is that in the case I do not finish processing, I want it to be relatively simple for my successor to pick up where I leave off.  Rather than having folders in haphazard arrangement somewhere between original order at the point of accession and the finished product, the materials and inventory will either be retained in the order present at collection accession or in finished product form (or as close to it as possible prior to supervisor review).  Both forms should be easily intellectually accessible for a new processor.  I think that foresight such as this is essential in maintaining sanity.  As archivists, we are naturally inclined (or at least trained) to document workflows.  My processing strategy is a way of ensuring that my own workflow and rational is documented.  Of course categorization by series is a bit subjective according to the processor's experiences and understanding of the creator; the person who may theoretically pick up on processing may differentiate between folders appropriate for the correspondence series and folders full of correspondence which relate directly to a subject or event in another series slightly differently than I would.  If that sentence did not make sense, here is an example:

There is a correspondence series for which I have thus far assigned general correspondence, correspondence with specific individuals or organizations/offices, and correspondence related to a specific issue (i.e. specific rights disputes, income tax laws).  However, correspondence is also interspersed throughout other topical folders.  When several folders relate to a single event or topic (i.e. Edgar Awards Dinner, anthology publication, etc.), I assigned folders of related correspondence under the event or topical heading rather than a general correspondence heading.  Craig talked this issue over with me and supported my perspective.  Basically, the reasoning behind this arrangement comes about by thinking as a researcher.  Most often, researchers are not purely searching for correspondence.  They are searching for a topic within correspondence.  It is more logical to streamline access by retaining materials of similar subjects together in the same series.  This decision also reflects respect de fonds and/or original order.  However, if processing is picked up by another individual, my reasoning may not be clear.  There may also be interpretive differences between folder relationships by myself and the successor.  So long as I document my choices and consider a transition of hands with foresight, issues such as these should not be a problem.

Otherwise, my processing is going smoothly.  I started to second guess my choice of series when I noticed a fine line between some differentiations (Events and Subjects, Writings and Printed Material), but Craig thought I should stick with my original instincts, which I too think is for the best.  Because this is a decently sizable collection (31 boxes; not huge by any means, but it dwarfs Claxon mss. II), assigning a higher number of series, comparatively speaking, will be a helpful choice benefiting user navigation.  This is at least the goal.

This week (number twelve), I will continue on with processing, beginning with box 5.  Mind you, this number is misleading of my progress, as I initially processed more than ten boxes at the end of the collection before jumping back to number one.  My biggest problem will be figuring out how to manage the growing number of boxes that I'm actively working with in limited processing space.  Surely this is something I will continually encounter in the future!

You'll hear from me again soon.

Abstract: "The E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory Repair and Enclosure Treatment Manual," text by Garry Harrison

After my last post discussing Paul Conway's 2010 article on the future of the preservation community in light of the ever-increasing shift towards digital information and digitization for preservation strategies, I still think it is important at present to understand the basics of physical preservation.  I highly doubt that in my lifetime, all physical forms of information will become obsolete.  A digital Gutenberg Bible, such as that created through a project at the Harry Ransom Center, is a fantastic scholastic resource which will reach geographically disparate audiences and help to minimize physical wear and material degradation on the original.  However, the value of the tangible object itself remains irreplaceable.  There is some undefined human connection to physicality that cannot be replaced by digital surrogates at this point in our evolution.

A fantastic resource to support physical preservation was produced by the staff at Indiana University's E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory and is freely available to the public online: "The E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory Repair and Enclosure Treatment Manual" (text and images by Garry Harrison, Head of Circulating Collections Conservation, and slide show design by Jacob Nadal, former Head of the Preservation Department).  One attendant at the recent SAA-SC Conference for Graduate Students and Beginning Professionals came to Bloomington chiefly to attend the Paper Conservation workshop at the Preservation Laboratory because she regularly uses the manual as a reference at her home repository.  I suspect that I too may refer back to it when assessing options to resolve my own preservation issues in the workplace.  The manual is easy to navigate, contains a wealth of information, and makes many treatments accessible for real-world application.  Even if one does not go so far as to independently perform preservation treatments, repairs, or build protective enclosures, the manual may serve as a guide for what preservation actions are possible and what resources are required.

The manual opens into a handy and straightforward table of contents.  The first two categories on the table are "repair treatments" and "enclosure treatments".  Each selection under these categories (e.g. cut pages, tape removal, mylar encapsulation, phase box, etc.) includes a step-by-step slideshow detailing the entire treatment, textual treatment criteria, tools/materials used for treatment, instructions for using the manual, and a map image of a generic slideshow, which walks the user through its navigation.  Surely not all of the treatments included will be relevant to archivists, as many are in relation to book repairs, but there is surely still a wealth of information in many of the treatment descriptions.

For example, use of tape for paper mending in years past is something that an archivist is highly likely to encounter.  Under the Tape Removal heading, the manual explains that adhesives may discolor paper, interfere with text legibility, and plastic film may shift leading to exposed adhesive residue that may adhere to and damage neighboring documents.  Rather than merely explain how to remove tape, the "treatment criteria" section explains when and why this procedure should be executed, urging practical choices.  Relatively few tools are involved in this treatment, including a heated microspatula, fume hood, small rush, solvent, and paper towels.  If I were an archivist at a small repository without a preservation department or workspace, the requirement of a fume hood may mean that this is not a feasible treatment to pursue on sight.  Furthermore, after reading through the slide show for tape removal, it comes to my attention that the procedure is delicate and required the confidence and competence of an experienced individual.  Without further training, I don't know that I would feel confident pursuing treatment even with a fully supportive tool supply.  Still, I believe it is helpful to know that this procedure is certainly possible if performed by a preservation professional.  Practically speaking, if tape removal would improve the lifespan and use of a valuable physical object, it may be worth pursuing by an institution's preservation department or contract preservation facility.

Aside from detailed preservation treatment instructions, the manual also includes sections on the table of contents for "hand tools" (weights, bone folders, tweezers), "shop tools" (deacidification system, freezer/dryer, press boards), and "supplies and materials" (adhesive types, tapes, paper, pamphlets/envelopes).  I found all of these quite helpful in understanding what various tools and materials may be used for archival quality treatments and how to visually identify them as such.  Personally, when I open up a Hollinger catalog (which started showing up in my mailbox as soon as I registered with SAA; is it strange that I get almost as excited about sale priced acid free folders as I do about good Groupons or discounts at my favorite clothing store?), I feel a bit overwhelmed by the various options.  Sometimes the mere volume of choices makes understanding for what each item is intended and why that much more difficult.  The straightforward explanations and photographs on the preservation manual are a great reference--I just wish there were more!  Perhaps someday I can make a visual dictionary of archival supplies my own project.

The Preservation Manual contains one more section on the table of contents: Glossary and Appendices, perhaps my favorite section.  Here users find a glossary of terms (some of which point to hyperlinks connected to further explanations and images), though it is primarily in relation to book terminology.  The appendix also includes easy to follow instructions for making a casebound book from scratch (something I did last summer during a Conservation Workshop course), dealing with mold, attaching book plates, and a special projects section.  The final section in the manual's glossary, Special Projects, includes several preservation procedural examples which likely have value to archives professionals: creation of an analog disc sleeves, paper deodorization, Sanborn Maps, and giant encapsulation.  I will keep all of these in mind for the future.

The portion on mold is fascinating and, I imagine, extremely helpful in orienting ones own mold problems in relation to preservation decisions made in the example cases entailed in the manual.  The examples are oriented toward real-world mold cases encountered by the IU preservation staff, all of which deal with books.  However, treatment decisions and options are similar for archival materials, especially those used in the example "Mold, decision to restore (example 1)".  The delicate and laborious treatment used to salvage a bound book of newspapers from the 1940s is a true testament to the laudable skills of preservation professionals.  I may be on the verge of waxing poetically here, but it really is amazing that mold-ridden materials are, in some cases, able to be restored and remain usable for patrons.  On the other hand, if moldy materials are encountered at present or several years in the future, I am inclined to believe that digitization for preservation may be an easier, more cost effective mode of information preservation.  In the case of a small portion of Sermons I encountered while processing Claxon mss. II, I detected a musty, possibly modly smell.  The tactile quality of the paper was also somehow "off".  Following a materials assessment by Doug Sanders of the IU Preservation Department, it was decided to use the lab's deacidification system to treat the papers.  Though deacidification isn't necessarily a thrifty procedure, the unique quality of the materials merited preservation action.  This procedure is much less involved than those detailed in the manual, which helps me put its condition into perspective.

In reading through the Preservation Manual, it is clear to me that no treatment decision is black and white; every action depends on a repositories unique collections, resources, objectives, and values.  The manual elucidates the decision process as executed by staff at Indiana University, gives real-world examples, and makes clear that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong decision for all preservation cases.  In the case of several mold treatment examples, the Harrison (the manual's author) admits that his own treatment decisions were a bit experimental.  Choices were made based on experience, knowledge of past treatments, available resources, and physical artifactual value.

Overall, the E. Lingle Craig Preservation Repair

Publish Post

and Enclosure Treatment Manual was an interesting and engaging read.  Author Garry Harrison created a colloquial text with un-intimidating language and humor, which makes complex procedures and concepts accessible to the everyday archives or library professional (or graduate student!).  I already have the site bookmarked on my home computer and can only hope it remains publicly accessible in the future.

Article Abstract - "Preservation in the Age of Google: Digitization, Digital Preservation, and Dilemmas," by Paul Conway

When I Shadowed Doug Sanders in the IU Preservation Lab a couple weeks back, I wanted to follow the experience up with some readings on preservation and/or conservation. Admittedly, I remain a bit unclear on the differentiation between conservation and preservation. According to A Glossary of Archival & Records Terminology, by Richard Pearce-Moses (from the SAA Archival Fundamentals Series III),

Conservation is defined as:
n. 1. The repair or stabilization of materials through chemical or physical treatment to ensure that they survive in their original form as long as possible. -- 2. The profession devoted to the preservation of cultural property for the future through examination, documentation, treatment, and preventative care, supported by research and education.

Preservation is defined as:
n. 1. The professional discipline of protecting materials by minimizing chemical and physical deterioration and damage to minimize the loss of information and to extend the life of cultural property. -- 2. The act of keeping from harm, injury, decay, or destruction, especially through noninvasive treatment. -- 3. LAW - The obligation to protect records and other materials potentially relevant to litigation and subject to discovery.
preserve. v. 4. To keep for some period of time; to set aside for future use. -- 5. CONSERVATION - To take action to prevent deterioration or loss. -- 6. LAW - To protect from spoliation.

If you ask me, the difference still isn't entirely explicit in looking at those definitions alone. In a successive note, however, the author elaborates in saying that conservation is sometimes considered treatment for damage repair. Alternatively, preservation activities are considered a subdiscipline under the responsibilities of the conservator. That said, I will refer to preservation throughout this post rather than conservation, as I believe it more accurately relates to my intended idea of preservation as minimizing information loss and extending the life of materials.


Getting back on topic...

In response to my curiosity about the conservation profession and preservation activities, Cherry suggested that I look into Conservation OnLine (COOL), a resource for conservation professionals operated by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC). The site is a great resource which contains information pertinent to various facets of conservation and preservation work according to types of cultural property, materials, and subjects. It includes a news section, a directory of conservators and allied professionals, and links to other related groups which may be of use and interest.

The site also links to the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC), which hosts a wealth of articles from the journal's publication run dating 1977-2005 (only articles three years old and older are accessible in a digital format; others are available to AIC members only in print format). Journal articles are freely accessible to all site visitors. Though I browsed through the full run of titles and read a number of article abstracts, my lack of training in conservation and preservation made most topics slightly intellectually inaccessible. As I mentioned in a previous entry, the conservation/preservation field is a small one which requires years of specialized trainings through extensive coursework and hands on experience. In searching through various journal databases to which IU subscribes on a quest to find more generalized articles on the topic, I came across "Preservation in the Age of Google: Digitization, Digital Preservation, and Dilemmas," by Paul Conway, as originally published in The Library Quarterly, Vol. 80, No. 1 (January 2010). Conway, a researcher and professor at the University of Michigan and has been heavily involved in the archives, preservation, and technological dialog for more than thirty years.

Though I am certainly aware of the shift to digital in all facets of life, both commonplace and professionally, I remain curious as to various opinions on how the archives community will prioritize and integrate this change. Conway's article presents an excellent introduction to the changing face of information with respects to the interests and practices of preservation professionals. It was published just over a year ago, but I think Conway's points are still quite valid.

The article looks at both "digitization for preservation" and "digital preservation," explaining that these are two separate concepts with entirely different actions and objectives. "Digitization for preservation" is explained as "digitizing" a tangible/physical resource as a way to prolong the life of information potentially even beyond that of the object itself. The articles does not give examples of this practice, but I assume any digital curation of a physical collection may fall under this heading. If I understand correctly, examples of digitization for preservation include some archival collections at IU (e.g. Herman B Wells speeches and the Andrew Wylie papers)content on the UNC's Southern Historical Collection, the University of Michigan's massive Google Book digitization project (of which IU is also a participant), and the wealth of digitized historic records available through Ancestry.com.

Alternatively, "digital preservation" means ensuring that born-digital information remains viable for the enduring future. This sort of preservation includes any and all content in digital format (including the digital products of "digitization for preservation"). Not all digital information is necessarily worth saving, but any that is requires a plan to make sure that information remains accessible. It cannot be assumed that just because a document, site, or application is accessible now means it will be accessible one, five, fifty, or a couple hundred years down the road.

Conway frames his discussion in the context that nearly all information is now going digital, yet the concept of prolonged preservation of said information is still not configured into the cyberinfrastructure plan. This is likely because those working at the front end of technological development consider the product but not its broader, long-term implications. In the present, we do not often think of the products of our daily interactions as being part of our cultural heritage--newspaper articles, advertisements, modes of entertainment, music, photographs, etc. However, all of the aforementioned items are commonly present in archival collections. Our daily interactions and modes of information sending, retrieving, and exchanging are our unrehearsed, authentic cultural heritage. At present, many of these things are increasingly present in our lives in digital formats. Without a foresighted preservation plan for this information, decades of cultural insights are threatened.

While those pioneering cyberinfrastructure, informatics, and information systems may have thoughts of longevity on the back burner, Conway poises preservationists to reconsider the realities of their professional future and take part in the digital dialog in the interests of making preservation a priority. Throughout the article, he speaks to the preservation community in terms of fundamental values and reconfiguring priorities. Conway discusses two reports on these matters: Preserving Digital Information and Preservation in he Age of Large-Scale Digitization (both affiliated with the Council on Library and Information Resources). He also touches up on traditional preservation practices and a basic history of the discipline's major trials and triumphs, cost effective prioritization, financial strain, and the impending crisis of material degradation affecting audiovisual formats.

The discussion narrows down to five poignant recommendations that Conway suggests to the preservation community. These include prioritizing for preservation quality environments (i.e. dark, cool storage with relative low humidity), shifting resources toward audiovisual digital migration, accepting digital technologies and embracing them to build collections, digitizing materials based on assumed impact (looking at a home institution's collections independently as well as in tangent with digitization projects pursued elsewhere), and come together to formulate standards and best practices for digital collection building. He encourages preservation professionals to learn new technological skills in the selfless interests of preserving cultural heritage resources.

My only hesitation with Conway's recommendations lies with what I interpret as Conway's belief that technology will settle and become to some degree static; he makes several statements to this effect. However, I do not know that anyone can predict technology will reach a state of complacency. For this reason, I expect that digital preservation strategies will always be, to some degree, in flux. Furthermore, computer science is not finite in the fashion of physical material science; material composition can be definitively broken down to each specific molecule. Digital data is based on a system of interpretation and requires the aid of a machine to be intelligible by humans. Each additional change in technology requires a new form of computer mitigation. The only hope for long term preservation lies in a collaborative effort between those interested in information creation and those devoted the information preservation.

One thing I was slightly disappointed by in this article was its fleeting mention of Google and its various initiatives and developments toward user-centered, unmitigated information seeking, fluidity vs. fixity of information, and instant gratification. Conway did not elaborate on how Google's anonymous style of all-encompassing information access will affect preservation priorities or infrastructure, and I am sure that much more can be said on this topic, however I also understand that this topic is at the same time entirely broad and still not entirely defined.

The content of this article was certainly different to what I learned out at the Preservation lab. Here at IU, digital and physical preservation are not interrelated departmental bodies. I suspect this is the case at present for most large institutions, and I am certainly curious to learn how such arrangements will develop in the coming years. Still, call me a luddite, but I cannot imagine that someday, I may have the good fortune to browse item-by-item through the Mystery Writers of America mss. on the Lilly's website. Manuscript collections are, in my mind, much too gargantuan to make item level digitization feasible. I know that this merely means repositories will prioritize digitization projects, as they do already, but I am also comforted in my belief that the physicality and connective nature of "traditional" archival collections will likely not become obsolete--if only for the reason that digitization for preservation is not feasible given financial, temporal, and data space constraints, but also because the archives may well be one last place where a person may revisit a past before digital information proliferated. There will still be fragile pages to turn, rusty paper clips to remove (or not), and enigmatic handwriting to decipher on coffee-stained letters. Technology may be changing, but human nature and the value of tactile connection will surely not change quite as fast.

Week 10: MWA and a bit of a break

Happy St. Patrick's Day, blog readers! I aligned with my inner librarian today and decided to geek out in green for the occasion. It's only a matter of time before I start wearing eccentric holiday-themed brooches. Haha. To be fair, I saw the Madeleine Albright Brooch Collection exhibition at the Smithsonian over the summer, and it was nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, it actually made me consider donning a brooch every now and again, though I don't know that I could find or afford any like those on display. In any case, perhaps I'll keep channeling my inner librarian to see if I get the courage and inspiration to go for it.

This week at the Lilly, I continued to process Mystery Writers of America mss. All is going well, but because the collection is so large, it feels like slow going. I've had a relatively easy time assigning series for each folder I encounter, though there are of course a few enigmas. Right now I'm considering the difference between "Writings" and "Printed Material". Perhaps these two series should be joined into one, but when I defined each series individually, there was a definite differentiation. "Writings" was meant to contain manuscript material for books, poems, short stories, screen plays, and other writings written in affiliation with the MWA. "Printed Material" was to contain promotional documents and more ephemeral material, such as brochures, flyers, newspaper clippings, and newsletters. These two categories are clearly related in some sense, and I plan to talk with Craig and Cherry about how to proceed with them next week.

I am also curious as to a small detail when naming files related to a specific event. For example, should a folder be named "Awards dinner 1987" but contain documents dated in the range between 1986-1988, how should the folder be labeled? Should "Awards dinner 1987" remain the title with the 1986-1988 range like this: "Awards dinner 1987, 1986-1988, " or is this too confusing for a researcher? Is it more important to give as much information as possible, accurate dates, or the name of the precise event and corresponding date held? Like I said, small details, but something I'm curious about. If I had no supervisors to turn to and were processing this on my own, I would use the full title plus date range, but this is because I like to include as much information as possible. If, as a processor, I know something about a collection which would be easy to pass on to future users, I generally want to include that information in the inventory or collection description. At the same time, I know that too much text makes a finding aid difficult to browse and mentally digest. Providing over-information may also be a bad habit to start, as though it may be valuable, this practice will likely unnecessarily slow down processing. Given MPLP's proliferation, it's probably safest to err on the side of being a minimalist. Again, something to talk about with Craig next week.

One thing that I really enjoy about keeping this blog is that it forces me to rehash my day-to-day duties and reflect on my strategies, problems, and questions. I often set things aside to revisit later, and reflection helps bring everything back into perspective. Often merely thinking about an issue again once I am outside the context of processing makes me see the potential solutions, reasoning, and repercussions more clearly.

Anyhow, I took some photos of some MWA materials this week. I will share them once I sit down at home with my camera.

Week Nine: Delving into Mystery Writers of America mss.

After the ninth week of my internship, I find myself in the glorious throws of spring break! This doesn't actually mean much to me this year, as I'll spend my week working, catching up on internship hours that I missed in previous weeks, and applying for jobs(!). Still, there is certainly a different vibe and rhythm to the town this week with most undergraduate students off to warmer climates or heading home for a change of scene. The grocery store was practically empty when I stopped by on Saturday afternoon--a true attestation to migrating populations. I'll enjoy the comparatively empty streets and bus rides to campus in the coming days. The break is also a great forced reality check, making me step back to consider exactly what I need to accomplish in the quick six weeks to come post-break. After the break week's change of pace, I hope to start up again with renewed energy--something quite realistic considering the longer days and gradual greening taking shape in Bloomington.

Enough chatter, back to internship business! The week leading up to spring break was a good one for me at the Lilly. I'm changing gears and diving headfirst into processing the Mystery Writers of America mss. (find the current collection description here). I may refer to the organization as MWA in future references. To quote from the organization's website, the Mystery Writers of America " is the premier organization for mystery and crime writers, professionals allied to the crime writing field, aspiring crime writers, and folks who just love to read crime fiction." On Tuesday, I finished assessing the collection; in physical terms, it includes 31 boxes, some of which were partially processed by the archives at Boston University--the collection's original home. There is already a partial inventory that includes content lists for items in boxes 1-25. Though almost all files are present, organization within boxes does not match that as it appears in the inventory.

While taking my own inventory of MWA mss., I noted some obvious series into which the collection may be organized. At present, materials seem to be inventoried according to some of these obvious series (correspondence, subject files, financial, etc.), however materials often overlap categories. It also seems that the collection came in through several accessions over time, since many of these series are repeated as box numbers progress. I posed this supposition to Cherry, who confirmed that this was indeed the case. The boxes lacking representation in the existing inventory, number 26-31, contain manuscripts (drafts for publications) as well as newsletters, all of which will be simple to itemize and organize into series arrangement.

I submitted a series proposal to Cherry and Craig on Tuesday afternoon, and I received confirmation that most of my ideas are satisfactory. The only thing that we'll need to explore in more depth is the Financial series. At present, we have a number of check stubs, item level receipts, and other similar minute financial documentation not ordinarily retained in institutional repositories, such as the Indiana University Archives. However, because the Lilly's general collection policy and specific MWA mss. acquisition agreement states that no "weeding" (my apologies for using this contentious term!) will be performed on the materials, we may indeed retain these documents. From my initial assessment, it seems that we have at least one or two full cartons containing such documents. It certainly should not be a problem to process these along with the rest of the collection, but then again, should my supervisors and the active Mystery Writers of America group decide that there is low evidential and informational value in the documents, it will be more space effective to remove the items from the collection. The Lilly has an ongoing acquisition with the MWA and will receive future materials at later dates, thus the retention of financial materials in the current collection may well affect what the library acquires in the future. Again, this will not be my decision to make, though I am of course curious as to what the ultimate decision will be. Cherry and I will look at the materials after she returns from a week out of town.

Otherwise, on Thursday I got to processing initial portions of the collection. I decided to start with a box full of Audio and Video materials--cassette tapes, VHS cassettes, and one Beta cassette. I created an inventory for them, as none existed beforehand, and I will deal with proper housing later on. At present they are organized in alphabetical order by title and format. In the past, I've left items such until the tail end of my processing endeavors. This time, I wanted to give them the attention that they deserve at the outset of processing, perhaps because of a recent presentation in my Manuscripts class by IU Film Archivist Rachel Stoeltje. Rachel addressed various material formats and degradation issues that archivists may encounter when processing collections. She also discussed a potential project in the works for Indiana University to build a media preservation laboratory. How exciting! The idea is that IU may become a regional preservation hub for audio and video materials preservation and digitization. Professional consensus is that audio and video objects are not static, and they will not last forever. In order to remain viable and retain content, which lends a unique component to cultural heritage documentation of places and traditions throughout the world, audio and video materials must be continually migrated to usable mediums. At present, transfer to digital media and capturing/linking thorough metadata related to sound/visual content as well as original physicality is the best option for preservation.

Priority for audio and video preservation is something I learned about in-depth last semester, through a great Audio Preservation Principles and Practice course. In case all of my chatter made you curious, you can visit the Sound Directions Project website to learn about a collaborative project jointly pursued by Indiana and Harvard Universities; it provides a great introduction to the state of audio preservation and provides access to specially developed FACET software--potentially a great resource for repositories of all sizes and budgets when analyzing preservation priorities. To quote the website,

"The Field Audio Collection Evaluation Tool (FACET) is a point-based, open-source software tool that ranks audio field collections based on preservation condition, including the level of deterioration they exhibit and the degree of risk they carry. It assesses the characteristics, preservation problems, and modes of deterioration associated with the following formats: open reel tape (polyester, acetate, paper and PVC bases), analog audio cassettes, DAT (Digital Audio Tape), lacquer discs, aluminum discs, and wire recordings. This tool helps collection managers construct a prioritized list of audio collections by condition and risk, enabling informed selection for preservation. Using FACET provides strong justification for preservation dollars."

Many of the issues affecting audio and video materials are similar, though digital audio preservation is, at present, more realistic and "do-able" for most institutions; digital video preservation, on the other hand, requires massive data storage space, making it more difficult for many repositories to pursue at present. Thankfully Indiana University is a large institution with a fantastic computer science and data infrastructure program, meaning such an endeavor may be possible in the not-so-distant future.

And that, readers, is what we call a tangent. I think that means it's time to close. More adventures in processing to come next week as I take on paper-based records!

Best,
Amy

Access Alert: Claxon mss. II

Let the bells sound, it's what I can only hope many eager researchers have been waiting for! Claxon mss. II is ready and waiting on the Lilly Library's Manuscript Collections page (search "Claxon" or click "C" in the browsing list)!

Browse through the Claxon mss. II Collection Description and Inventory to see what you and the rest of the world have been missing.

The MARC record should be up and searchable through IUCAT--IU's online library catalog--soon, as should the finding aid. The finding aid will be linked through the Collection Description page as well as the Indiana University Finding Aids site (likely to be renamed in the near future, but it will remain the same resource).

To access the physical collection, you'll need to visit the Lilly Library and inquire in the reading room.

In case you missed it a few weeks back, Claxon mss., the small collection of Claxon correspondence, is also up and available online! See the Collection Description, Inventory, and Catalog Record (by searching "Claxon" in the title, author, or keyword search fields in IUCAT).

Seeing some of my work up online always provides satisfying closure after the separation anxiety prompted by completing physical processing. Archival work is clearly emotionally taxing. (haha)

Week Eight: Preservation Tutorial...plus a recap of our IU SAA-SC graduate conference

Unfortunately this post is late in coming. Last week was an absolute whirlwind and time became increasingly amorphous as of late. The Society of American Archivists IU Student Chapter graduate conference, for which I was co-coordinator, was Saturday and Sunday, and I also co-sponsored a Society of American Archivists (national organization) workshop on Friday--long days, and I haven't slept past 6:30am since the weekend before. Complaints aside, everything turned out wonderfully. As with any event, there were some minor last minute issues to settle, but we emerged Sunday afternoon proud and relatively unscathed. I am excited to stay involved in conferences in the future, as an attendee and maybe down the line as an organizer once again; learning the perspective from the planner's point of view makes me much more appreciative of all the work which must go into larger regional or national annual gatherings such as MAC (Midwest Archives Conference) and SAA. Though I won't make it to MAC this year--St. Paul, MN is a bit too far and it's scheduled a bit too close to the end of the semester--I will be making my debut appearance at SAA. I thought it wise to take advantage of the student registration rate while I can, plus it takes place in Chicago this year, meaning I can weasel my way into free lodging with my folks! Additionally, I just found out yesterday that the Student Poster Session proposal I wrote up and submitted to represent the IU SAA Student Chapter was accepted for presentation! Work and projects never end, but I definitely think that's a good thing in this case. I cannot wait until August!

I think those last several sentences just put me over my exclamation point quota for this post. I will try to tone it down from here on out.

Back to my internship: this past week was the eighth week of the semester, meaning my experience at the Lilly is already halfway over. Every semester seems to fly by for me here at IU, but I think this is especially the case at present. Because of some last minute conference planning insanity, I only came in to intern on Tuesday and plan to make up the day I missed over spring break (i.e. next week). Even so, Tuesday was no ordinary day of processing. Similarly to my day with Dave in reference, I spent the morning in the E. Lingle Craig Preservation Lab at IU's Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library Facility, or ALF, shadowing paper conservator Doug Sanders. The experience was fantastic in terms of exposing me to preservation issues faced by archivists and ways in which these can be handled.

I completed a Conservation of Circulating Collections workshop over the summer as taught by General Collections Conservator Garry Harrison, through which I gained hands on experience creating preservation housing (i.e. pamphlet binding, custom phase box creation, and clamshell box building), doing basic book repairs (i.e. spine replacement), and basic paper mending. The workshop, taught through IU's SLIS program, was quite helpful in introducing students to tactics for dealing with fragile book materials. Students also had the opportunity to take each project home to use as a reference tool in tangent with the fantastic preservation manual available publicly available online here. However, the experience left me wanting for more in terms of archival preservation. Manuscript and other archival collections contain a wide, ever-surprising variety of materials which can not necessarily be dealt with in a "by the book" sort of manner. My day with Doug gave me an in depth perspective on just how specified archival problems and solutions can be.

Doug was gracious enough to let me follow him around the lab as he tended to the day's projects. He kept a rolling explanation going in reference to each of his tasks and answered my seemingly ever-flowing round of questions with ease. From my perspective, it is quite obvious that Doug is adept at assessing various conservation/preservation issues and has a thorough grasp on the field and climate for related trends in thinking. He shared with me his education and work history--something I always think is interesting. So many library school students and prospective students that I have met express an interest in preservation, though it is rare that any of us follow through with preservation as a career path. We all seem to be interested in enabling the longevity of materials, but once we learn how much actual chemistry and concentrated education is involved to become a conservator or preservationist, it seems many of us opt to follow alternate professional paths. The field of preservation is a small one, and though there are several fantastic programs in the U.S. and Europe, these are highly selective and only for the most dedicated. Through past conversations with Jo Burgess, current Director of Wylie House Museum and formerly Assistant Head to the Preservation Department and Head of General Collections Conservation at the IU Libraries, I gather that in past, preservation was often a career learned through apprenticeship. However, there has apparently been a shift more toward educational programs for training, and for a time there existed a contention between the two schools of thought (Note that this is a generalization).

Either way, it is certainly understood that one cannot become a conservator or preservationist simply by taking a class or two through a standard Library Science curriculum. This is something Doug and I discussed in reference to his hesitancy to teach a semester-long IU SLIS course on preservation, though this is something urged by the department. I still think that such a course could be quite valuable, if only to teach students basic preservation identification, terminology, and instruct on real-world handling of various issues--be it through working with a connected preservation/conservation department at a large institution or contracting out to a regional work center. Because so much chemistry is involved and precise preservation treatments depend upon material composition, it is rarely advised for anyone not thoroughly trained in preservation to independently pursue treatments.

Some of the tasks that I watched and discussed with Doug included immersing a scrapbook page in water to release photographs and news clippings from adhesive (something I could never do myself--water and archival materials? I'm scared just thinking about it!), Mylar enclosures for fragile materials, issues surrounding iron gall ink and paper deterioration, de-acidification measures on modern newspapers from Ostrom, Elinsor mss. (IU professor and 2009 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics), creating string mats/mounts (I think I am getting that term wrong) for medieval manuscripts, and assessing preservation measures for well-worn Sanborn maps. We also talked about equipment and supplies common in preservation, managing priorities in a multifaceted institution such as IU, and the preservation/conservation department's present system of materials tracking and data management.

I will not elaborate on all the minute details here, but suffice it to say that I emerged with a deeper perspective on what preservation activities may involve, options for addressing problems, more knowledge concerning what problems may or may not be treatable and how cost effective treatment may be, and what sort of background may inform a conservator's decisions. It is also interesting to consider the topic of documentation as it relates to preservation and conservation treatments. Apparently, for many years, preservation measures and procedures were not regularly documented and put on file to inform repository staff and users of their occurrence. I am not speaking merely in terms of Indiana University library and archives; from what Doug said, it seems that this was not standard practice in the conservation/preservation community in general. Art museums may have maintained better track records for such actions due to the extreme importance of each piece's individual materiality for interpretation as well as future preservation, but it is still generally the norm that meticulous tracking of preservation for library and archival materials is not done to a thorough extent. I know that some collection management software, such as PastPerfect used for museum collections and employed at Wylie House Museum at present, includes a Conservation or Preservation measures section where changes can be tracked by type, date, and person making changes or doing assessments. Because treatments may affect the physical nature of materials, I feel that this is an important thing to think about for my future career. If preservation decisions are not documented (i.e. if a photograph was removed from what was once a scrapbook, but not marking it as such), users may misinterpret material relationships and provenance, which may interfere in representative authenticity.

Overall, the time I spent in the preservation lab really got me thinking about how we as archivist prioritize, address problems, and maintain records in relation to preservation and conservation. It was an eye opening experience which I expect will inform my thought pattern in practice in the future.

After spreading my efforts through various components of archival work outside of processing, I'm ready to get settle back in and delve into Mystery Writers of America mss. It's a fun collection that I will be talking about quite a bit in the coming weeks! Stay tuned.

Archivally yours,
Amy