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Art in the Archives: Doodles, Sketches, and Fine Art

Monday, January 24th, 2011

People often think of archival collections as dusty boring boxes of papers, but even if the boxes are dusty and full of paper, they are rarely (never, in my opinion) boring. Who knows what you will find when you pop open that liquor store or candy bar box ? One of the things that I love finding is artwork, which is very prevalent in archival collections, in varying degrees of artistic quality. Regardless, I love it because it really allows you to see the world through the creator’s eyes. Textual material allows you to discover the way the creator thought , but art allows you to see what they saw (or maybe not … maybe it is what they wanted to see). Fascinating!

The kind of art that our project has revealed was created for lots of purposes: work, clarity, creativity, and boredom (or perhaps nerves—I am a nervous doodler). Workwise, we have found amazing sketches in the Academy of Natural Sciences Exhibit records reflecting the creation of the dioramas with plans for the backgrounds, the foliage, and habitat. A professional artist’s work is represented in the Thornton Oakley collection on Howard Pyle and his student. The John H. Mathis Company records contains ship plans; and when we process the Armistead Browning, Jr. papers at the University of Delaware, we will be working with landscape plans. Natural historians documented their scientific studies as well as amazing new things they discovered: Pierre Eugene du Simitière and J. Percy Moore are notable examples. The Logan family papers include some drawings that show James Logan’s interactions with the Native Americans in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s.

We also have student artists who saved their work—this is evident in the Reinhardt, Hawley and Hewes family papers, the Marvin Rosefield Keck, the Vaux family papers and Nicholson and Taylor family papers. The artwork in these collection is far beyond amateur and both William Nicholson Taylor and Mary Vaux Walcott studied art formally. Taylor and Keck used their considerable talents to draw humorous cartoons of the world they observed. Mary Vaux Walcott created beautiful paintings from her experiences with the United States Board of Indian Commissions.

Others drew plans of their hopes … James Rush has amazing sketches of architectural features for a home he was building on Chestnut Street. In John Dickinson’s papers, there are sketches of a bathtub (introduced by Benjamin Franklin) as well as plans for succeeding in a military battle. I can only imagine how wonderful a bathtub seemed in a time when plumbing was scarce. The Logan family papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania include tons of land surveys—quite beautiful … I don’t know if the Logan, Dickinson and Norris families were planning to buy land or or already owned it.

Finally we have the doodlers … and I love the doodlers! I cannot decide if I like the doodles on the inside covers of Benjamin Rush’s financial books or John Dickinson Logan’s doodles on the list of rules for officers serving in the Civil War. Either way, these doodles are of a most decidedly human nature … I have a strong suspicion that I, and many of the readers of the blog post, would doodle in similar situations. Hopefully, you have not been doodling during the perusal of this post!

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Posted in Academy of Natural Sciences, All Posts, Bryn Mawr College, Free Library of Philadelphia, Haverford College, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Independence Seaport Museum, Institutions, Library Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Project Manager | No Responses »

Ringing in the New Year … end of year report and future plans

Friday, January 7th, 2011

With the end of 2010, the PACSCL/CLIR Hidden Collections Processing Project has successfully processed 83 incredible collections! The project also had to say goodbye to 3 outstanding processors who graduated with their Library Science degrees and are therefore no longer able to work with us. We will very much miss Megan Atkinson, Megan Good and Forrest Wright (our longest-serving processor of 1 year & 2 months) and we wish them luck as they begin their “real” careers as archivists!

With the help of these three processors, current processor Christiana Dobrzynski Grippe, and former processors Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig and Becky Koch, during the first 15 months of the project we’ve processed more than 1500 linear feet at an average of 2.8 hours per linear foot. Many of these finding aids are available on the PACSCL Finding Aids website, and processing at 13 repositories is complete. Garrett Boos, our Archivists’ Toolkit cataloger, has been busy too! So far he has converted 53 finding aids from paper, database or some form of Word into EAD. These finding aids are under revision and should soon be available for research!

While we feel pretty good about these numbers, there is still much to be done … starting January 11, we will begin processing again. We will be at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Presbyterian Historical Society, Temple University Special Collections (we are nearly finished with Temple’s Urban Archives), and the University of Delaware. We still have more than 2500 linear feet to process. (Yes, that number makes me a little sweaty—and my heart is pounding!)

However, to help us with all this work, we have hired 7 new processors. We are happy to welcome Celia Caust-Ellenbogen, Dan Cavanaugh, Michael Gubicza, Devin Manzullo-Thomas, Jenna Marrone, Sarah Newhouse, and Brian Stewart who will join our returning processor Christiana Dobrzynski Grippe. We trained these talented (and excited) processors from January 4 to 6 at the Presbyterian Historical Society, and they will jump right into the processing of collections next week … as the numbers above indicate, we do not have a moment to lose. Processing of all collections needs to be completed by August!

So, do we think that minimal processing works? YES! Absolutely—it makes collections available to researchers sooner and faster. Does minimal processing have its drawbacks? YES! Absolutely—while the task of arrangement is frequently not too tricky, thorough description is much more difficult in a minimal processing environment. To be fair, we are working with collections ranging in date from the 17th to 21st centuries—and collections with hand-written documents suffer, in minimal processing, far more than collections with typed documents. We also have a goal of processing twice as fast as minimal processing often recommends. It is very important to note that these collections are “physically processed” in 2.8 hours per linear foot, which does not include the work that was completed by the survey, or the creation of processing plans by Courtney and/or myself. It also does not include the significant amount of time Courtney and I take to edit the finding aids. Without these efforts, collections absolutely could not be processed in the time frame, and regardless, Courtney and I feel strongly that 4 hours per linear foot is a far more realistic time frame than 2 hours per linear foot—but the bigger the collection, the bigger the payoff of processing at this speed.

If two years ago someone showed me the finding aids we’ve created and told me they came from processing at a rate of 3-ish hours per linear foot, I would not have believed it. Our project—and specifically, our processors—have not only adopted the spirit of minimal processing, but have also been working at breakneck speed. Courtney’s and my role has been to provide double (and triple) checks to the process, guaranteeing the highest-quality product in the time allotted. I cannot express how incredibly proud and appreciative I am of every member of the project team for their hard-work, dedication and excitement in the process of making collections ready for research.

Overall, I am happy to say that, with only one or two exceptions, every collection has significantly benefited from our work. If these collections had been traditionally processed, many of them would still be sitting on shelves untouched and unavailable to researchers. At the end of training yesterday, we asked our new processors if they felt that the collections on which they worked had been minimally processed and they all answered yes–they had not had the time to look at every item in the collection and did not feel that they had absolute control over the contents of the collection. However, when asked if their collections were more intellectually and physically accessible after processing, they all responded with a resounding, “Yes!” I am absolutely confident that researchers will be able to use these collections in their minimally processed state, and since making hidden collections accessible to researchers is the goal of this project, I am happily claiming this project as a success!

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Training Non-Archivists in the basics of surveying, minimal processing and the Archivists’ Toolkit

Friday, November 5th, 2010

The Archives for Non-Archivists training session funded by CLIR and IMLS was a success! On October 28 and 29, 2010, Courtney and I trained ten librarians from the Council of Independent Colleges, all of whom have responsibilities for special collections within their libraries, but no formal training. Our trainees traveled to the Bryn Mawr College Special Collections for two days of training from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Tennesee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh and Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Our goals included teaching our trainees to survey collections, create a processing plan, minimally process a collection, and create a finding aid in the Archivists’ Toolkit. It was a lot to accomplish in two days (and as usual, I am pretty sure that Courtney and I learned as much as the trainees), but they were troopers and they stuck with us through an intense “boot camp.” What was great was how excited they all were to learn! Courtney and I were equally excited to learn and were initially surprised to discover that their biggest concerns as non-trained archivists included destroying provenance and original order. I think they were empowered when they better understood the terminology and how to work with it practically.

On the first day, we started with an overview of surveying, creating processing plans, and processing (focusing on minimal), and then moved on to hands-on practice. As always, it is the hands-on that makes all the theory click. Bryn Mawr College Special Collections provided us with four outstanding collections (and the use of their beautiful new facilities), which the trainees surveyed and processed over the two-day period. Courtney and I felt that the trainees were shorted time for surveying, but the processing seemed to be a bit more doable.

On the second day, we started with a power point guide to the Archivists’ Toolkit. Pretty much immediately after absorbing the basics, our trainees started entering their collections into the database. This was exhilarating—everyone was so excited when they saw their work turn into a finding aid at the click of a button. The best response (ever!) to seeing a finding aid produced by AT was one trainee (who shall remain nameless) who said, “Wow, I feel like smoking a cigarette!” I LOVE IT!

At the end of the second day, two teams had completely finished entering their finding aids into the Archivists’ Toolkit and had written their scope and content notes and abstracts. The other two teams were just minutes from being finished and Courtney and I will tidy up the loose ends (a benefit of having a local repository host the workshop).

We have encouraged the trainees to send us questions and we are really excited to see how they do implementing what they learned. We have already heard from one person who is installing the Archivists’ Toolkit on her library computers! We also asked the trainees to evaluate the workshop and their input has given Courtney and me a lot to think about as far as training non-archivists as well as our students.

Thanks to Lori Miller from CLIR who organized the workshop and accepted our application; Eric Pumroy, Lorett Treese, and Bryn Mawr College Special Collections staff who generously hosted the workshop and provided collections for practice; and all the trainees who are committed to providing access to their collections!

Posted in All Posts, Bryn Mawr College, Institutions, Minimal Processing, Project Manager, Training | No Responses »

Ladies of Courage: Breast Cancer Survivors Then … and Now

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

I recently finished processing the Dillwyn and Emlen family correspondence at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and while doing a little research for the biographical note on these amazing family members, I discovered that Susanna Dillwyn Emlen was a breast cancer survivor. She had surgery in 1814 and survived for 5 years before her death in 1819. The cause of her death is unknown.

Susanna’s illness is only mentioned in the last few folders of this extraordinary collection of correspondence between Susanna and her husband Samuel Emlen, Jr. and her father William Dillwyn, but the raw emotion in the letters brought tears to my eyes. It is hard to imagine how frightened and worried Susanna, her husband and her father must have been about this mysterious disease. I am sure that today, despite all the facts, the scans and the treatments, fear and worry still rival hope in the day-to-day coping of this illness. For a very detailed overview of Susanna’s experiences, see Women and Health in America, edited by Judith Walzer Leavitt (2nd edition).

Susanna discovered her tumor, the size of a “partridge egg,” in December of 1813, but only told her husband after several weeks and decided to try some treatments advised by her aunt which included a salve. Only after much thought and family discussion did she decide to even consult a physician. Dr. Philip Sing Phyick, the father of surgery in America, was a brother-in-law of Samuel and Susanna; and once he was consulted, he urged Susanna to consider surgery. Susanna did decide to have the surgery which was performed by Dr. Physick and four other doctors. She describes to her father the events which led up to the surgery and how her “whole being was absorbed in pain” which was “severe beyond expression.”

Perhaps one of the factors of Susanna’s recovery was the support she received from her friends and family. One of my favorite parts of this collection is the overwhelming love that shines through the formal writing and the physical distance separating Susanna and Samuel Emlen from William Dillwyn who was living in England. The collection begins with Susanna’s “dear father’s first letter to [her]” in 1770. The first letters are written to a child, but their relationship evolves despite rarely seeing each other. Their letters are full of affection and news of family, friends, and neighbors. Susanna describes in vivid detail the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, her father writes of abolition, and their Quaker beliefs are evident throughout the letters. In 1794, Samuel Emlen Jr. asks William Dillwyn’s permission to marry Susanna and receives it, and thereafter, is included in the correspondence.

With love and encouragement from family, neighbors, and fellow Quakers, Susanna’s support system was strong. However, she also possessed an immense strength of her own which helped her face her fear, address the “momentous question” and opt for surgery, and then fight to survive an operation without anesthesia. Susanna Emlen was amazing! So, I would like to raise an imaginary glass (libations not being smiled upon when working in close proximity to the collections) to all the women of today (especially someone very special at the Library Company of Philadelphia) and yesterday who found, and continue to find, the strength to fight breast cancer … and win.

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Does Love Lead to Madness?

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Some days this job seems too good to be true … and today is one of those days. I am in the midst of processing the Rush family papers at the Library Company of Philadelphia and I will admit that I am a bit daunted by Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), a renaissance man who appears to have dabbled in an inordinate number of activities. Upon closer examination, however, it is obvious that this man did not dabble, he did. He was a doctor, a patriot, a soldier, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a founder of Dickinson College … to name only a few. On occasion, it is difficult to remember that he was a real person. As I process, though, I find many little indications that Rush was a real person: a father, a husband and a friend. There is note about his grandchild being stillborn, letters from his wife while she traveled to Canada, notes from his friends who valued his opinion and judgment, and criticisms of his medical treatments, especially during the yellow fever epidemic in 1793. And then you have those who sought his advice … on all sorts of topics.

The following is a transcription of one of my favorite letters I have ever found in an archival collection. Upon receipt, perhaps Dr. Rush laughed, or perhaps he responded with sensitivity and saw signs of madness in this fellow … certainly Rush’s work with the mentally ill is legendary, and as you can can see by the final document … in the late 1700s, love COULD lead to madness!

“Dear Sir,
I am now in a most dreadfull dilemma, will you be so favourable to give me your ingenious observations on the passion of Love, it will tend to extricate me from the dreadfull Situation.
To love and be disappointed [illegible] most unhappy dreadfull state! Advise how to forget a lady whom for years (think it not recent for it has subsisted four years) I had the most ardent passion. I enjoyed every promise and privilege, save only I can say we were not united? Teach me the noble science to forget? Teach me how to conduct myself when frequently in her company, she appearing in tryumph at my mortification.

Her company an arrow dipt in poison to my heart. How must I conduct myself? Can I hate when I once so passionately loved? Can I seek revenge? Or is it the refuge of a narrow depraved mind? Will it give any satisfaction?
Think not, Dr. Sir, my subject too frivolous for an answer, for remember what Solomon the wise man says: ‘Love is as strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the flood drown it, if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be be contemned.’
Now, Sir, if you will be so kind, Mr. Cary’s Museum is where I wish to read your thoughts–if you will oblige as long as life remains a student of medicine and one of your class.”

From a quick Google search, I learned a few things … Mr. Cary is Matthew Carey (1760-1839), an Irish immigrant to Philadelphia who became a prominent publisher. His magazine American Museum is almost certainly the one in which the Student of Medicine wished to have Dr. Rush publish his response. He is also quoting the Song of Solomon 8:6.

Not long after finding the above marvelous letter, I found a “List of Lunatics in the Pennsylvania Hospital on May 1, 1784.” At least two of the twelve “lunatics” listed are considered to be insane/manic because of love. Since our Student of Medicine does not give his name, and his letter is undated, who knows? He may be included on this list! I hope not … I hope he wrote many more letters to Dr. Benjamin Rush and they are just waiting to be found!

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PACSCL Finding Aid Site is LIVE!

Monday, August 9th, 2010

The PACSCL Finding Aid Site is live! You can search across repositories, you can search by keyword, or you can browse using facets. And the best part is … it is only going to become a better and richer resource as more repositories and more collections are added!

Right now, the site includes ten repositories–and largely, only the collections that have been processed via the PACSCL/CLIR project. However, each repository has the mechanism in place to add collections that are already processed or will be processed in the future. Half of the repositories have already added additional finding aids. The collections available for searching provide a glimpse into just a few of the amazing primary sources available in the Philadelphia area. Topics that are best represented are medicine, religion, science and women’s history; although other strengths include business and commerce, education, family histories and genealogy, history of Philadelphia cultural institutions, maritime history, military history, and the arts. Each and every collection is incredible … the research potential is huge and now students, scholars, enthusiasts, and genealogists can get started, using the collection guides to discover new facets of our known history.

The creation of this site actually started before the PACSCL/CLIR “Hidden Collections” Processing Project began. The University of Pennsylvania created their site on which the PACSCL Finding Aids site is modeled. The PACSCL Finding Aid site would not be possible without the hard work of UPenn folk Delphine Khanna, Patty Lynn, David McKnight, Rachelle Nelson, Leslie Vallhonrat and IT staff, as well as UPenn archivists Maureen Callahan, formerly of the Penn Museum Archives; Michelle Chesner, formerly of the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Nancy Shawcross of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library; and Jordon Steele, of the Biddle Law Library. After their site was live, the PACSCL group began tweaking the site to suit 23 (and hopefully more) repositories. Thanks to David Conners, formerly of Haverford College, Margaret Graham of Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center, Eric Pumroy of Bryn Mawr College, Nancy Shawcross of UPenn Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Rob Sieczkiewicz of Drexel University Archives and Special Collections who volunteered their insights, time and energy to making the site work for the unique PACSCL group.

Thanks also to our Project Team who created the finding aids for many of these collections: Courtney Smerz, Project Archivist, whose work is essential to the success of the project; student processors Megan Atkinson, Megan Good, Becky Koch, Leslie O’Neill, Laurie Rizzo, Eric Rosenzweig, and Forrest Wright, whose energy and dedication have contributed greatly to this accomplishment; and Archivist’s Toolkit cataloger Garrett Boos, whose efforts have resulted in legacy finding aids available for research.

Visit the site and start your research … I am so excited to learn more about these collections from the researchers who will use them.

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RBMS 2010 and the Pure Joy of Old Stuff

Friday, June 25th, 2010

I was honored to present the progress of the PACSCL/CLIR Hidden Collections Processing Project at this year’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Pre-Conference which was held in Philadelphia from June 22-25, 2010. I find that the pressure to get this project done and done well sometimes overwhelms the bigger picture. So on Wednesday, after the talk, in which I followed Derick Dreher of the Rosenbach Museum and Library and Eric Pumroy of Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, there was a question and answer period which I found to be most enlightening. It was really exciting to learn what parts of this project raised warning flags for those in the field who are not personally involved in the project, as well as what seemed to interest them most. Questions addressed issues such as user studies to determine the success of the project, sustainability of the EAD site following the completion of the project, authority control, and how to reduce time in acquiring collection information at the time of accession. While all of these issues are on the project’s radar, it was great to learn that these are the topics in which colleagues are most interested. Thanks to all those who asked questions! I have just uploaded my presentation in case anyone is interested in perusing it more deeply.

As usual, at a conference, the most fun is learning what others are doing. While I enjoyed and benefited from all the sessions I attended, the seminar on “Quick Innovations for Teaching with Special Collections” (a pet area of interest for me) reminded me of all that I love about archival materials. Mattie Taormina, Head of Pubic Services and Manuscripts Processing Librarian at the Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University, stated that you can get 90% of the information from a book or document when it is digitized, but 10% can only be discovered when you actually see, touch, and smell the actual item. I was all about this … finally a justification for behaviors that many of my friends and family find to be positively bizarre–such as inhaling deeply when I walk into a room full of old stuff, sticking my nose into every book I see, and the desperate need I have to touch paper. Really, I am just getting 100% of the book/manuscript experience.

But what I loved about what she said is the reminder that these materials housed in “special” collections and “rare” book and manuscript libraries are really and truly special and rare … not only because of the content they hold, but because they are artifacts from our past and allow us to connect to the people, places and events that have made us, as a nation and a culture, who we are.

Digitization is amazing for access and the more that is available online for researchers the better. And for those researchers who truly cannot travel to a repository, thank goodness they can find and use the amazing material that archival collections hold. But researchers out there: if you can get to a repository, don’t let the convenience of the online version keep you from experiencing the scents, sights and feel of the real thing …

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The name is Bond, James Bond

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Processing the James Bond collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia was fun—I felt like I was hobnobbing with a spy, even though the “real” James Bond was not a spy at all, but an ornithologist. I would be lying if I said that Sean Connery’s visage did not swim before my eyes a few times, but truth be told, the “real” James Bond is pretty dashing himself.

“How 007 Got His Name” is a great story and the best part about it is that it is true! Ian Fleming, the author of the popular novels that were adapted for film, was familiar with James Bond’s book “The Birds of the West Indies,” and apparently believed that the name James Bond was brief, unromantic and masculine. Once his novels acquired fame, the real James Bond and his wife Mary Wickham Bond felt the effect.

This collection is actually a lot more about Mary than it is about James Bond whose ornithological papers can be found at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Mary, an author of quite a few novels, appears to have had quite a sense of humor and enjoyed the wacky and sometimes annoying results of her husband sharing the name of a dangerous and suave British spy. She wrote her anecdotes in the book, “How 007 Got His Name,” followed by “Far Afield in the Caribbean” and “To James Bond with Love,” so that the story of the “real” James Bond might be told. This collection really documents the publishing and promotion of her books—there are drafts and proofs of her writings; correspondence with her publishers; and clippings regarding the “real” James Bond, the fictional James Bond, and her books.

Two scrapbooks which she titled “James and Mary Bondiana” span their entire marriage and are among my favorite items in the collection. Mary collected clippings, saved invitations and memorabilia, and pasted photographs into these scrapbooks. They tell the story of Mary and James’ careers and their marriage. What is astounding is the scope of Mary’s career. She founded, wrote for, and edited the Chestnut Hill Local, authored quite a few novels, and wrote poetry. After her marriage to James Bond, she traveled with him across the world while he studied birds. She seems to have been tireless and full of enthusiasm. At the age of ninety, she wrote her autobiography, “Ninety Years at Home in Philadelphia.” She and the “real” James Bond were clearly extraordinary people.

My guess is that if Ian Fleming had not appropriated the name James Bond, we would still know about James because he was a prominent and influential ornithologist. We might not know as much about him as we do today, but his ornithological career would still be documented at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. I am not sure, however, if we would know much about Mary Wickham Bond! So thanks, Ian Fleming, for making it so we can learn about this amazing woman.

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Spring 2010 Boot Camp at Independence Seaport Museum

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Knowing that we will be losing 3 of 4 of our original student processors at the beginning of June, Courtney and I began planning for an almost entirely new team and revisited our training scheme armed with the knowledge and experience that comes from working with collections and our processors for eight months. Needless to say, we approached this training session a little differently.

Courtney worked on our slide presentation, fine-tuning and further developing ideas and issues that we realized we had not covered fully enough in the first training session. She also developed a training slide show on the Archivists’ Toolkit which I think will be useful not just to our student processors, but to the larger archival community.

One other thing we had decided immediately after the first training was that we really needed to find training collections that were small enough to complete in the two-days of hands-on training. We asked Matt Herbison, Director of the Independence Seaport Museum J. Welles Henderson Archives and Library, if he was willing to host the training, and he generously agreed and helped select collections for processing. Our wish list for the collections included: size (the collection needs to be small enough that a two person team can process the collection and enter the finding aid into the Archivists’ Toolkit in 2 days) and complexity (the collection needs to be complicated enough to serve as a real-life example of any collection that our processors may encounter in the next few months). I made processing plans for six collections, all of which fulfilled our wish list.

On May 18, we started our training at the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt – Dietrich Library Center in an electronic classroom and we covered the basics of the project as well as what minimal processing means for the project, and how to process collections for this project. In the afternoon we addressed the Archivists’ Toolkit. We hope that the classroom day provides a sound foundation for what our processors will need to know when they start working in repositories.

So after spending a day talking ABOUT processing, we met on May 19 and 20 at the Independence Seaport Museum so that our processors could DO processing. We started with the Marvin Rosefield Keck papers which we processed as a group. This allowed our processors to really have a conversation about what was in the collection and how to move forward. We followed the steps in our processing manual; we familiarized ourselves with the collection, we arranged the collection intellectually, we arranged the collection physically, and we talked about the description of the finding aid.

After we finished the Keck papers, we divided our processors into teams of two and gave each team another collection. Becky Koch and Jennifer Duli worked on the Independence Seaport Museum Collection on the New York Shipbuilding Corporation; Megan Good and Megan Atkinson worked on the Pollack collection of Ocean Liner ephemera; Jack McCarthy, an archival consultant, and Leslie Willis, the archivist for the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University worked on the George F. Sproule papers; Matt Herbison worked on the Ward collection of New York Shipbuilding Corporation records; and Courtney worked on the Red D Line records.

As soon as the physical processing was completed, our processors began working on entering the data into the Archivists’ Toolkit, gaining hands-on, real experience with the database. When they were finished, they completed the worksheets we require at the end of the processing each collection. As they finished their finding aids, Courtney and I tried to do quick proofs so that we could provide feedback. All in all, we tried to make the training as similar to their future jobs as possible.

Were we successful? Well, Courtney and I felt that the training went really well and was much more successful than our first attempts. And, we processed six collections in a day and a half, so a good bit of work was accomplished. I think we will know for sure once our student processors start working and we can see what we need to do differently next time.

Thanks very much to Matt Herbison for hosting the Spring 2010 training session!

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E.R. Fenimore Johnson–a potentially explosive collection at Academy of Natural Sciences

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Last week I finished processing the E.R. Fenimore Johnson photographs at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. If ever a creator of a collection should have been an archivist, it was E.R. Fenimore Johnson, the son of Eldridge R. Johnson, founder and President of the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, NJ. Fenimore Johnson was a documenter. He took photographs of everything–and even more importantly–he took notes on and identified the subjects of his photographs which make this collection an amazing resource.

Fenimore Johnson owned an underwater photography supply company called Fenjohn. He sold diving suits, cameras, tripods, exposure calculators, and turbidity eliminators, to name just a few. And he took pictures of these products–lots of them. He also used all of those products to take pictures of other things … fish, boats, people, underwater gardens, places he visited, animals, and oddly enough, air conditioners. As I said, he documented his world. Happily, he identified the air conditioner as an air conditioner, as I am not an expert on either air conditioners circa 1930-1935 or underwater photography equipment. An interesting component of this collection is his series of test photographs in which he documents two photographs of the same thing taken with different equipment. For someone in the know, I believe these photos would be amazing. His use of film formats is impressive–included in the collection are prints, negatives, lantern slides, and motion picture film.

Also included are some pretty amazing scrapbooks of Fenimore Johnson’s experiences on an expedition to Matto Grosso, Brazil. His captions are indicative of the time and are, occasionally, a little on the shocking side, but the images present a world that probably no longer exists today.

I was a little worried about minimally processing an image collection, but I had nothing to fear thanks to Fenimore Johnson and his archivist tendencies (high compliment, as you might imagine!). He created an organizational scheme that I used for processing … every print is stapled to an index card with identification and reference to the negative number … he even provided my series and subseries titles. As a result this collection really worked for minimal processing.

I processed this collection in a lot less time than I anticipated because it is possible that about 2/3 of the negatives in the collection are on nitrate film which is not something with which archivists or researchers should spend much time working. How do we handle a problem like this in the minimal processing at 2 hours per linear foot world? Well, we box them up and put them in cold storage until an expert can examine them.

By comparison, in a full processing world, I would have gone through all the negatives, identified the negatives that were absolutely NOT on nitrate film, and processed them. Fully processing this collection would have included removing the negatives from their original sleeves and placing them in mylar sleeves, at which point the processor would have looked for the the magic words: “safety film.” Even with unlimited time, boxing up the potential nitrate negatives and placing them in cold storage would probably be the best temporary solution. Nitrate film is highly unstable: it is flammable and can explode with a shock … so if you have a box of nitrate negatives and you accidentally set the box on the table a little harder than you intended or if you store it near a heat source, you could have a problem. One piece of nitrate film is a problem and this collection contains almost 4,000 negatives, about 2/3 of which I anticipate could be nitrate. That is a lot of nitrate.

Despite putting roughly half the collection in cold storage, researchers still have full use of the content of the collection, arranged quite tidily via Fenimore Johnson’s organizational scheme. The only reason a researcher really would need access to the negatives is for reproduction. We don’t know that the negatives are on nitrate, we just are not sure … and experts say that if you are not sure, you should treat the film as nitrate. We know that these negatives are all from the “right time” for nitrate film, that very few have any kind of markings (certainly not the “safety” designation), and that Fenimore Johnson used nitrate film–one of his motion pictures was recently saved by reformatting. Clare Flemming, archivist at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, plans to seek help from a film expert, so if our fears prove unfounded, the rest of the collection can be processed.