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
No comments:
Post a Comment