Chaitra Powell: Week 5 @The HistoryMakers

The most remarkable moment of this week was my presentation meeting with Julieanna. The situation reminded me of my road trip to Chicago, Illinois from Tempe, Arizona with my sister and niece, last July. East of Sterling Colorado, the air conditioner broke and we discovered that we had been traveling 75 miles in the wrong direction. Instead of being stressed out and angry, we turned the car around, turned the music up and moved into the right direction. Similar to this experience, I had spent 10-12 hours creating a PowerPoint that was not pointing in the right direction.

 I was frustrated that I had so much work to do, but I also knew that there was no sense in wasting time being frustrated. I learned a long time ago that groaning and complaining is never a solution. This blog post could be summarized by a verity of clichés like, if at first you don’t succeed try, try, and try again….get back up on the horse…quitters never win and winners never quit..etc. If I had to choose between clichéd and persistent vs. bitter and disgruntled; I’m going to choose the former. Here’s hoping for a super motivated, hardworking and back on track week 6 at The HistoryMakers! 

This week at the HistoryMakers,   I spent the majority of my time working on finding aids. I finished the evaluation summary for photographer, Eric Werner. I watched the videos, answered the questions, and the made the web clips for San Francisco educator, Bernice Brown and Long Beach dentist, Dr. Ebenezer Bush. The archives lecture was about recent digitization projects, like Hahti Trust project. The history lecture focused on reconstruction after the Civil War. I also talked with my host institution about revising my presentation and checking on some housing options.

Aboutness: Alex Champion's Week 5

Dr. Salvatore doesn't like to lecture sitting down

Too often in our society, perhaps our civilization, we remove the meaning from the action. Looking at our contemporary politics I see many examples of this profound separation. I trust that Barack Obama, an idealist pragmatist, knows the true difference between “outsourcing” to a third party company to handle human resources or physical plant matters, and “off shoring,” which sends the job over-seas. I also trust that Mitt Romney recognizes the similarities between his health care plan as a centrist Republican in liberal Massachusetts and Obama’s plan as a centrist Democrat in a conservative country. The substance of this intellectual debate for the highest, most important office in the United States is not policy but rather who, in the undecided masses, will sway their way in 2012. That is the “aboutness” of their campaigns.

This week at The HistoryMakers I thought about this topic extensively. All information regardless of setting has “aboutness.” In our weekly archives lecture with Cecelia Salvatore we talk of aboutness in some detail. The HistoryMakers collection is unique from a descriptive metadata perspective and our circumstances here--as recently graduated archivists or librarians--is even more-so. Every interview is treated as an archival collection with its own finding aid (and various administrative accoutrements) yet the entire HistoryMakers collection, which includes interview related paper materials, scans of said paper, tapes, high density magnetic tapes, and server data in various formats will be part of one collection when it is donated to the host repository.

“How do you think The HistoryMakers would fill out this form?” Cecelia asked when she handed out the Hathi Trust submission sheet. In as many words the form asked to describe the collection as a whole rather than by the interview. Every week Dr. Salvatore asks us to consider the aboutness of the collections of interviews we are describing. During the appraisal lecture we were asked to consider how our processing work was similar to MPLP; this week it was digital preservation and we told her how (as far as we knew) THM digitally preserved their collections. Beyond formats and off-site server back-ups, THM follows a digital curatorial model that adheres to strict identifiers and naming conventions for all files. So sophisticated is this methodology that THM server may extract and manipulate particular information types for all collection; this also makes selection and appraisal much easier and reliable when the collection(s) is donated to the host repository.

It feels strange that Microsoft Word, the application I am composing this blog on, accepts “curatorial” but not “curation" as valid. Similarly I see the pale, squiggly red line beneath “aboutness”; even in the information management world of libraries and archives the terminology escapes a 2007 vocabulary. I have had similar troubles with my own words, albeit figuratively. I acknowledge that I am not an archival scholar; I will never be a Schellenberg, Gracy, Greene, or Duranti (to name a few) who will profoundly affect the intellectual development of the profession; I am open to that outcomes because, as my HistoryMakers interviews tell me, even persons like Valerie Jarrett were unsure about their abilities and desires well into their 30s. In Jarrett’s case that happened in the 1980s so factoring for inflation I have—realistically—my early 40s.

One annoyance to my fragile ego is that many of my peers are already doing well. It is a habit of the intelligent to constantly second guess their own abilities and downplay accomplishments but coupling these feelings with an un-mercenary attitude is a recipe for mediocrity.  The 2011 and 2012 Gerry Ham scholarship winners both come from the UW-Madison library school but the program is hardly to thank for their success. Both men are in their 30s and hold masters degrees from other disciplines; they know what is expected from them as burgeoning professionals and they play the game well. The 2011 winner was cited for writing an essay on the appraisal of queer archives; although I am sure he put quite a bit of thought and effort into his evaluation, he played into a professional sweet spot; homosexuals are the new Negroes. One of our classmates even thought he was gay. The 2012 winner wrote about post-modernism; while I agree with Zinn and Derrida that that all archivists have biases and may simply reinforce the status quo, this mode of thinking reeks of the purely academic “angels on the head of a pin” nonsense that does not go anywhere or ask questions that have not already been asked. Both the 2011 and the 2012 winners are playing to the expectations of their professional betters. They know the aboutness of archives.

I had a similar reaction to Simmons College student Meghan Bailey’s article in the May/June 2012 Archival Outlook entitled “Documenting a Movement.” Ms. Bailey composed a well written article about her experiences as one of the half-dozen burgeoning information professionals involved in the anti-inequality “Occupy” movement that provided an alternative to the anti-tax, so-called “tea-party” movement. I personally participated in similar protests during the Wisconsin collective bargaining battle of 2010 and 2011 and I found her take on the occupy movement from the microcosm of library world intriguing. However I did not come away with a flattering aboutness. 

Her comrades brought order to the chaos of a lefty author library, they created spreadsheets on Google docs, and devised an emergency evacuation plan that—surprise surprise—came in handy when the city followed through on its warning to evict them. All these actions are well and good but they do not strike me as archival. Although it is difficult to know what Ms. Bailey did on her own or as part of a team, the substance of the article seems to be that she created a reference binder of legal documents and printed hard copy backups of electronic records. The archiving that Occupy Boston seemed to undergo sounds awfully similar to work of IT persons or reference librarians; make documents accessible in the likely but rare event someone will need to consult them.

At the close she admits the group, or at least the self appointed inner circle that looks after the records, is mulling over donating their binders and files to a trusted repository because they would lose ownership of its meaning and open it to misrepresentation. Following an easy jab at Fox News’ poor track record with using incorrect or grossly inappropriate juxtaposed B-Roll, she bemoaned that two repositories took it upon themselves to save protest signage; these repositories' behaviors were unacceptable, very un-Documentation Strategy, yet the Occupy Boston collection languishes with persons who feel the self-importance that only dedicated protesters who camp out during the winter. This archival dysfunction reminds me of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment psychological test where, violating scientific common sense, the professor brought himself into the experiment.

For most of my life I’ve periodically read about Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Each time he was honorably portrayed as a kind, conscientious man who was corrupted by the very influences he was trying to understand; I eventually came to disagree with this perspective. The moment Dr. Zimbardo assumed the role as warden he was not conducting an experiment, he was of the experiment.  So too was Ms. Meghan Bailey’s experiences at “Occupy Boston”; regardless of the appraisal of their binders and files their aboutness is too precious to simply give away. Just like President Obama and Governor Romney understand the difference between substantive debate and scoring political points, Ms. Bailey knows the substance of archives--it's aboutness--separate from her experiences' component parts. Just like Obama and Romney she is advocating for herself.

Perhaps there is an advantage to playing their game. Stay tuned.

Skyla S. Hearn: Week 5@The HistoryMakers

Happy, Happy Bearthday to Ardra Whitney, IMLS Fellow, Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture!!!! 

The last five weeks have been intense, some days more than others, with learning a new work environment, balancing all that I'm learning about the inanimate objects such as the archives, special collections, materials discussed in the seminars and lectures, procedures, practices in addition to applying best methods and the animate creatures such as humans---as I approach completing my work and communicating with my colleagues. Every day that I enter the office, I have a plan that includes completing the tasks on my to-do list and balancing time for executing the untouched tasks that float from list to list. During the course of the week, usually at the end of the work day, I'm visited by or I visit with a colleague (or two) to compare notes, share a joke...share in some form of distraction to pull away from the intensity of the work week and meticulous (detailed) assignments, which brings about a little joy and "personable-ness" to my position as an employee, a worker and contributor of knowledge. I value the developing relationships with my colleagues as much as the relationships with my interviews and special collections. This synergy between the inanimate and animate help to fulfill my purpose within this current stage of my life.

The other day I received an envelope in the mail with the words "Do Not Bend" written on both sides. I was SO sure that it was my Masters degree. Immediately I had mixed feelings--it's just a piece of paper--but a piece of paper I worked really hard for--on a crowded street no one knows, cares or can identify my level of education, etc.--but none the less, I was excited. When I opened the envelope, my feelings of excitement dissipated slightly at the realization that the paper was 'just' my Special Collections certificate and not my Master of Science in Library and Information Science degree. I quickly 'checked' myself and regained my sense of pride. In addition to other studies, I'd managed to focus on Special Collections (development, make-up of, preservation, care and practices) and to carve a niche for myself as an archivist interested and able to represent multiple forms of Special Collections.  In addition to the thirty interviews I am responsible for evaluating, I am also responsible for three Special Collections from the An Evening With... series, one of the projects of The HistoryMakers. The three collections I will be processing are: An Evening with Dionne Warwick, An Evening with Eartha Kitt and An Evening with Valerie Simpson. All three of these women are staples from my childhood so imagine the thrill and silent screaming fit I had (and continue to have) knowing that I will review their interviews, process their collections and learn about their challenges and triumphs. (Dionne Warwick twice over!) 

There has hardly been dull moments over the last five weeks whether shared in office or during lectures. Last week during Dr. Reed's African American History Lesson we discussed the Reconstruction Era, which drummed up a lively conversation between us and Dr. Reed about revolts and uprisings in addition to other related topics. Although we may not all agree, which we usually don't, I look forward to the varied opinions shared during these lectures. I enjoy everyone's ability to openly share their insight and perspectives on the readings. The lectures are truly an experience for growth. 

During Dr. Salvatore's seminar on Reformatting and Digitization, I felt an uneasy calmness as I realized I may be one of the few that are not as concerned about the possible obsolescence of current digital formats. Since I live by "the plan", my idea is to put a plan into place that specifies methods, practices, procedures, resources, and tools to be utilized that are considered as current 'best practice' standards. In the future, update "the plan" or manual as need be to align your organization in preparation for digitization and digital preservation. Obsolescence and finances should not dictate the preparedness of the organization to move into the future. I don't know what the exact answer is but I'm always down to put out an idea. 

As I move into Week 6, my plan is to better structure my time to include room for the floating to-do tasks, process a portion of my Special Collections, and to edit and finalize my Participation Plan presentation. Wish me luck!  

Cynthia Lovett: Week 5 @ TheHistoryMakers

From last Friday and throughout most of this week I got the chance to work on the back end of things.  I finally created EAD and EAC-CPF files for several of my finding aids.  The last few weeks I was concentrating on the evaluations and waiting for the approval on my text. Even though I have a technology background, a good part of the process seemed like a mystery until this week.    Although I had been writing the evaluations and entering data into our FileMaker database, this was the first time I got a chance to export the EAD.  

An interview may have several tapes, and for each tape, we assign several Library of Congress Subject Headings and edit 2-3 web clips. Ultimately, two clips are selected to appear on the website. We also create PBCore records for each web clip we make. As for the subject headings, many of them are not already in the system, so if we are using new ones we need to email Dan Johnson, our Digital Archivist, so that he can add them.  All of this very detailed work will make each story fragment accessible to researchers, so they do not have to search the entire tape.

In our archives seminar we discussed digital archives as it relates to digital preservation, digital stewardship, digital curation, and digital asset management. In our african american seminar we discussed the Reconstruction period.

I met with Dan and Julieanna about the kinds of projects I may work on this year.  We discussed the possibility of editing a video for an upcoming public program, learning some of the database programming, as well as developing a social media plan.  Later in the week, Julieanna met with Skyla Hearn and I to begin planning the public program for February 2013 that will provide the opportunity for people to learn more about what archivists do. 

Each of the fellows will be doing presentations in the coming weeks on work they will do at their host repository. My presentation will be on the HistoryMakers, of course.  I will be working on a draft this week in either PowerPoint or Prezi.  The presentation will discuss our participation plan as well as introduce another African American archive to the group.  Each fellow will choose a different archive or collection.  It will be interesting to learn about other African American archival resources across the country.

Ardra Whitney: Week 5 @ The HistoryMakers

Yay! Today is my birthday and I am proud to say that I am not only one year older but one year wiser. Happy birthday to all the people celebrating their birthday in the month of July and go Cancers! Fun fact: director and television producer, Stan Lathan (MediaMaker) was born on July 8^th in 1945. Lathan directed numerous hit shows, including The Redd Foxx Show, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and Martin. He went on to become the executive producer and director of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and served as the co-creator of Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam. He is the father of actress, Sanaa Lathan, who has starred in films like Something New, Brown Sugar, Love & Basketball, and The Best Man. She also received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway.

This week I did a lot of editing. I revised the Library of Congress Subject Headings for previous interview evaluations I transferred into FileMaker Pro and I also reviewed and amended interview evaluations for HistoryMakers, Frank Lumpkin, Russ Mitchell, Zenobia Washington and Suzanne Malveaux.  In addition, I processed five boxes from the Special Collections Processing Project: “An Evening with B.B. King”.

My host institution conference call has been postponed for the moment; however Julieanna Richardson, Founder and Executive Director of The HistoryMakers, provided me with great feedback on my PowerPoint presentation (which will accompany the conference call) when I presented it to her on Tuesday, July 3^rd. For example, she recommended that I use clear and concise text, and add more photos and pertinent video clips regarding Avery Research Center’s facilities, collections and staff. Additionally on Tuesday, fellows met with Dr. Cecilia Salvatore for a seminar on the topic of reformatting and digitization of archival material for the purposes of preservation and electronic access. Her lecture and handout, illustrating an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) information model, reminded me of an article I had read about how two librarians and an archivist worked together to build a digital collection in the Archives and Special Collections Department at Colorado State University Libraries: http://bit.ly/LWCn5K. The article’s three authors, each with a distinctive role in the digitization project, use this experience as a case study to demonstrate the distinctive professional/technical skills and perspectives that each brought to the project— as well as what they learned from collaborating with one another.

At Dr. Christopher Reed’s African American history lecture—which was moved to Friday, July 6^th, due to the holiday— we learned about the ineffectiveness of the Reconstruction Era to disturb the racial status quo and implement a successful plan for the advancement of African Americans with regards to citizenship, land ownership, economic stability, education and civil rights. Dr. Reed’s lecture concerning the dismal failure of the Reconstruction brought me back to a statement he made in his very first lecture: “The only good thing about slavery is that it ended.”

An archives intern I had supervised at Weeksville Heritage Center, before coming to The HistoryMakers in Chicago, sent me an e-mail this week. She wanted to check up on me and see how my fellowship was going. I was very happy to hear from her and about the progress she was making with processing her archival collection on the Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn. It is always nice to know that you had an impact on the people you worked with and that you have their continued support. Hearing from her, as well as some of my other former co-workers and interns during the course of this fellowship has meant a lot to me and I appreciate it.

Ardra Whitney
IMLS Fellow
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

Amanda J. Carter: Week 5 (July 2-6, 2012) @ the HistoryMakers

4th of July Fireworks at Navy Pier

As July begins, week five ends.  It was an interesting week somewhat offset by the fact that Independence Day fell on Wednesday which split up the work week.  I spent much of the week preparing my participation plan presentation which will include information on the following topics:

• ·         Fisk University
• ·         Fisk University Special Collections and Archives
• ·         McKissack and McKissack Architects (in relation to the McKissack collection I will be processing)
• ·         Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card File Database
• ·         HBCU Library Alliance
• ·         Meharry Medical School Special Collections

After sending my presentation to Dr. Jessie Carney Smith and Ms. Christyne Douglas, I made some revisions and then gave a preliminary presentation to Julieanna Richardson.  After my preliminary presentation, I found that while I had adequately revised my presentation, there was still much information that I needed to add. One of the missing pieces of information is what I will be doing for a public programming event that helps promote African American archives.  Since presenting information at a conference does not fill my public programming requirement, I got nervous.  This whole “it’s up to me” thing is a lot of pressure.  Where do I begin?  I need a topic, I need an audience, I need a venue.  Fortunately, I had been brainstorming with another fellow and had come up with an idea that might be a little far-fetched, but it sounded fun and it involved the architecture built by the McKissacks.  Julieanna approved of the idea so now I have to get approval from Dr. Smith and Special Collections Librarian Beth Howse.  Once it is approved, I will tell you more about it but I am much calmer about having to organize this public programming now that I have some idea of an event that could be fun and educational.  Working on this presentation has really helped to encourage and excite me about processing the William McKissack Papers at Franklin Library, Fisk University.  While I am not educated in architecture, I have admired it since I first stepped foot in New Orleans, so I am thrilled to be able to process a collection related to the first African American architectural firm in the United States.  I am doubly thrilled that many of their buildings still stand in Nashville.  You can bet I will be finding as many as I can!  I am also excited to have the opportunity to work at Fisk University.  Not only is it a very prestigious HBCU (Historically Black College and University), but the library is very involved in and around the campus so I will be able to participate in events around campus as well as library and archival conferences.  I am looking forward to learning so much from Dr. Smith and Beth Howse.  In the meantime, I now only need to add an origin story of Fisk and Meharry’s archives and a more detailed schedule of my participation at Fisk.  Needless to say, this appears to be where I spent the majority of my time this week. 

While I thought I would finally be diving into the file sorting needed for my three “An Evening With” special collection projects, Colin Powell, Della Reese, and Richard Parsons, I remained distracted with my participation plan presentation.  I will have to begin setting aside times to sort these collections next week.  In other news, I finally finished the Bonita Gooch interview evaluation and so I was able to move on to Joe Rogers, whose evaluation I had hoped to finish on Friday.  I am sure I will be able to tie up the loose ends by Monday morning, though, so that I can continue to move forward.  We were all asked to momentarily cease our progress so that we could complete EAD (Encoded Archival Description) and EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context-Corporate bodies, Persons, and Families) finding aids for all of the evaluations we have completed. Therefore, by Friday I had a total of nine completed EAD/EAC-CPF finding aids.  Yay!  It feels good to be nearly caught up. 

We did also have our Tuesday Archival Sciences lecture with Dr. Cecilia Salvatore.  We discussed digital preservation which, in my opinion, can sometimes be an oxymoron.  The key for digital preservation is not so much to be able to preserve it in its original form since technology frequently forces changes such as upgrades in software or platforms that can make older versions unusable.  The key to digital preservation is to ensure ACCESS, which is the main purpose for preservation of records.  I am a traditionalist in the sense that I like my records to remain original to a fault, but I am beginning to understand the danger in hanging on to that ideal when it is detrimental to access.  Access is the main purpose of preservation.  Access is the main purpose of archives in general.  What other reason have we to save all of these records?  However, it is imperative that future researchers understand that these digital records are not always preserved in the original format so that they can better understand the context of the material.  Digital preservation is essential for born-digital records and will continue to be a major topic as technology evolves so quickly.

We had to wait until Friday to have our African American history lecture with Dr. Christopher Reed.  This week we spoke about how Reconstruction and its promises decayed into the Jim Crow era.  The chapters that I read all mention the South quite frequently, of course, so I am often faced with the history of my home state of Mississippi and I am somewhat haunted by the knowledge that I had at least a few ancestors there during that time period.  What haunts me more is the realization that the terrorizing treatment forced upon African Americans (all over the U.S. but especially) in the South lasted for nearly a century.  I remember growing up in a town with way too many school houses due to previous generations of segregation.  We even had two city pools, but that segregation went on during my own lifetime.  I never realized why there were no black people at the city pool I would occasionally go to as a child until I attended an elementary school next to a city pool I had never seen before.  I do not recall if I asked someone or if the realization just hit me like a ton of bricks, but I knew at that point that there were different areas for us even if signs did not designate them.  I can report with relief that the pools were shared by the time I was a teenager but that was nearly into the 21^st century.  I am glad that these ridiculous ideals are slowly fading away but I am sad that it has taken 100 years.  I hope that as we continue to struggle globally with racism across all cultures, we embrace the lessons we can learn from our history so that no one has to live through eras of racial terrorization ever again.  Is that wishful thinking?  Maybe, since it seems we so rarely learn from our history, but I will never give up hope that it is possible.    

4th of July Fireworks at Navy Pier

Until next week… 

Amanda J. Carter

Franklin Library, Fisk University

2012-2013 The HistoryMakers IMLS Fellow

Skyla S. Hearn: Week 4@TheHistoryMakers

THEMES, TERMS, METHODS & SOUL

Stage 2: The Crawl (from the Crawl Before You Walk series)

When I was an undergraduate at SIUC, I took a series of courses with Dr. Brown, head of the (now) Africana Studies department, for many reasons but primarily for enrichment, to help me better understand my past and map out my continued existence and to fulfill the Black American studies minor. He had a running theme, in the form of a question, that he posed to every class in which he expected a complete, thoughtful response. His question was 'Who defines the terms by which you live?' Now that I'm well into my adulthood, I realize the one response I gave in ever course is the same response I live by today. Although my response seems simple, I unpack it whenever the opportunity presents itself. I define the terms by which I live. With that being said, everything I do is with the knowledge of who I am (by external and internal definition). Therefore, when I represent myself to the world or when the world sees me (I think) this is how I'm viewed: (1) Black/of African Descent/African American, (2) a Woman, (3) Character Traits, etc. With this being said, my work, thoughts and actions are cognizant that I am a representation of/and for my ethnicity, race and gender. This appointment, to increase diversity in African American archives as an African American archivist, is a proud moment in my professional development and scholarship. 

In last week's discussion on The Civil War and African Americans, 1846-1865, during the African American History lecture with Dr. Reed,  I was reminded of arguments on the concept, purpose and meanings of race. Is race a contrived concept, which has been utilized to impose and support economics, division within society and hegemonic practices? Do the bearings of your race determine the resting place of your soul? 

The Historian Master Scholar & His Archivist Pupils

                                                                                           

The latter question overlaps with the African American History lecture with Dr. Reed; between a conversation with my fellow IMLS Fellows on the practices of how certain clergymen within certain religions are appointed to the positions of ministers, reverends, and pastors; and an oral life history  interview with Reverend Marion Roddy-Hart. Rev. Roddy-Hart is an African American female minister for the Albright-Bethune United Methodist Church in State College, Pennsylvania. There was a time when she would have not been able to minister because of "place" in society due to her race, ethnicity and gender. Dr. Reed provides the platform to fuse our lecture discussions and readings with contemporary issues.

The Antiquarians

UNABRIDGUED. Last week I was overly consumed with METHODS about the best way to get myself "caught up to speed" with the number of evaluations and finding aids needing completion, the best ways to process archival collections--Traditional Processing Methods vs MPLP, the best way to prepare information to represent/present the information to the public, etc. What I realized is ______________________. Exactly, I'm still working on it hence, the "The Crawl". Working as an archivist entails that every step has careful consideration but when met with the responsibility of fulfilling deadlines as well as ensuring accuracy our challenges are intensified. I met a group of archivist who work at the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago Library who have figured out best practices, for their group, to meet the challenges of providing their researchers and patrons with requested information on their vast body of Collections. 

Columns and Columns of Knowledge

I was most impressed by their relationship with patrons, accessibility to collections (fully and partially processed) and the amount of collections they are able to process in addition to the heavily populated staff. There is a revolution in thought and practices taking place in the world of archival sciences. How exciting to be a part of the new wave of contemporary archivists, incorporating antiquated, contemporary and hybrid methods as we move into the future of the Archives.

Ring the Alarm!