Day 5: The Processing Plan - Original Order vs. Imposed Archival Order

As discussed in the last post, the collection's administrative documentation is vital to future archivists' handling of a collection. There is always the fear of super-imposing one's own bias over a collection being processed.

For this reason, original order is always attempted to be preserved whenever possible. A collection can always be reordered by record group and series in the future; however, once the original order is altered, it can never be reestablished. There is always that possibility that a researcher would come in and be able to make inferences about the creator's by the order of the collection's files and folders.

There is really only one way to know for certain if a collection's original order has been maintained: if we are told this is the case.

Original order in personal papers inevitably is more challenging than original order for institutional papers (now compounded in the digital age). Institutional papers are generally ordered by their type and function and then either alphanumeric and chronology--in some form. Usually, personal paper collections become a hodge-podge of items some in topical order, others and chronological order and others in record type order.

The case of Clarence Gordon Campbell's papers is no different. the organization scheme is partially topical and partially chronological and partially material. For this reason, I decided to maintain the original order and process the collection down to the item level--allowing a researcher to do a crtl-f function to locate relevant materials.

A later archivist may disagree and reorder the collection by record series--my second choice--but that is for posterity to decide. I am hoping that a research will come along, and receive valuable information from this collection's organizational scheme.

Day 4 : Creating a Processing Plan

The first step in developing a processing plan involves:

1. reviewing the subject matter of the collection and its creator
2. reviewing all documentation relating to the accession
• this includes the deed of gift/purchase/transfer, the accession register, the provenance, and any correspondence that took place between the organization and the donor.

Firstly, you want to review the subject matter of the collection so that you will have a working knowledge of the collection's subject matter and be able to identify key ideas, dates and phrases. You need not be on equal footing knowledge-wise with the collection's creator; however, understanding the creator's passions will aid in understanding the collection's order and goal.

The documents relating to the acquisition, accessioning and processing will also become part of the collection--the administrative record for the collection. This portion of the collection helps document the archivist's reasons for giving the collection a particular order and hierarchy. It will also document if the  collection remained in its original order or if the archivist imposed a new order on the folders and documents.

Information from the deed of gift, correspondence leading up to the gift and the accession register will determine whether or not the collection retained its original order. An this will determine how the collection is to be processed.

Day 3: Digital Davenport

Today began with a tutorial on how to digitize photos for inclusion in CSHL's digital collection.

 

The set up was pretty impressive. I was expecting a scanner and photo processing software. Boy was I surprised; as you can see below, there is quite a bit more to digitizing documents and images.

Canon EOS-5D Mark III | Sydercheckr Color calibrator and Spydercube |
Color corrective lamps | Low light monitor



First thing, no scanner. Instead of a scanner, there was a professional camera mounted on a track (looks like a big black yard stick in the photo below). The trick with the track is that the distance of the camera from the object determines the resolution (again, I was surprised that this was the method used as I am used to resolution being saved in the processing program).

 

 

The monitor you see in the back is synced with the camera to display the image according the camera settings.

IOW: hit zoom on the camera and the monitor view will zoom.

This becomes insanely useful in checking the focus. You can zoom and focus the camera to the point where you can actually see the grain of the medium being digitized.

 

The best part? the monitor does not emit a significant amount of light and does not interfere with the two lamps.

 

My favorite tool is the Spydercheckr (that thing resting on the black matting and displayed on the monitor in the back). No it is not a watercolor painting pallet; nor is it a makeup pallet.

 

The Spydercheckr is a color calibrator used to check the camera and monitor's color settings against the actual document. Attached to the top of the Spydercheckr is the Spydercube. This nifty little gadget's purpose is to calibrate white, silver, black, ultimate black and chrome/reflective surfaces.

 

You always take a photo of this tool before digitizing actual images. This image can be used to send to a printer (should one of the images need to be sent to a printer for printing). What the printer does is use the image combined with the camera model's information settings to ensure that their printer and computer have the same color calibration. This is follows the old adage of measure twice, cut once.

 



Let the Digitization begin!!!



The digitization station in action!
P.S.: Those sandbag-esque sacks are to keep the black mating in place
while moving images, documents and objects.

Day 3 Take-away:

• Digitization is very detail oriented and a good work station flow is essential to achieving maximum productivity.
• I have a bad habit of forgetting to take the lens cover off the camera lens...
• I have a new obsession and want to start learning how to attach the metadata for these photos. 

Next post will focus on Lightroom. I keep calling it Lighthouse... and LightBox... yes issues... I know. :)

 

Day 2: Clarence Gordon Campbell

With day 1 under my belt and all administrative paperwork completed, I was able to look forward to a full day of working with the Clarence Gordon Campbell. The collection is comprised of 1.25 linear feet of files and dates range from 1920 to the late 1930s. It was donated by Dr. Campbell's grandson in 2009.

My task for the next few weeks is to

•  review the collection and 
• create a detailed inventory and a processing plan and 
• compile a finding aid for incorporation into the archive's larger collection

Following typical processing procedures outlined in LIS 714 and LIS 721, I began with a review of the collection's provenance information to have it handy for later use in the collection's finding aid. Thankfully my day-job as a prospect researcher aided me in my efforts to confirm the spelling of the grandson's name (which had two different spelling on the provenance paperwork and deed of gift documentation).

After this, I began to delve into the contents of Box 1 which consisted mainly of manuscripts and typescripts of speeches and article drafts, some article reprints and some correspondence which illustrates the variety of societal impacts (both good and bad), which resulted from the popularization of Eugenics.

Day 1 Take-Away:

• Most scientists have abhorrent handwriting.
• The learning curve for eugenics lingo is not too bad. My favorite phrase is "horrible Eugenics Baby" (referring to a series of "Better Baby" and "eugenics Baby" contests that swept the nation in the mid 1920s, once the idea of eugenics had been popularized).
• I need to speed up my processing time. Two folders in 6 hours of work is VERY slow.

Day 1: What is Eugenics?

Today's activities centered around orientation, paperwork and laying the groundwork for an awesome internship. After a group meeting, it was agreed upon that I would take on three projects:

* a soup-to-nuts accession project culminating in the creation of a machine readable finding aid

* a photo digitization project for inclusion in CSHL digital collection of events photos. 

* work with the grant writer to complete work on an IMLS grant project by identifying eugenics resources for inclusion in the repository's collection

After a morning of paperwork and running around campus for IDs and permits, I was STARVING, so a nice quiet lunch was totally in order.

My ID makes the internship feel so official!!!

The afternoon was focused on familiarizing myself with the topic of eugenics--it's history, key players and it's role in starting the quantitative biology movement. 

The first collection I am working with is a small collection on Clarence Gordon Campbell, one of the past presidents of the Eugenics Research Association and a prolific contributor to Eugenic News. So applying best practices learned in Intro to Archives, I took to researching a basic history of eugenics and the key players using resources available through CSHL collections and then external sources (the notes taken will be included in the finding aid as a historical note). Check out a brief history of the Eugenics Record Office at CSHL (f.k.a. Carnegie Institute of Washington Station).

It is amazing how quickly eugenics was turned from science into an outlet for racism. As a result,  many organizations changed their names repeatedly to distance themselves from those individuals who caused eugenics to become synonymous with racism. 

Tomorrow's activity:  review and examine the contents of each box and folder for contents, condition and structure.

See y'all tomorrow!

LT

Kickstart

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