Elizabethan Renaissance and Sir Hilary Jenkinson

September 25th, 2009

It’s amazing how things seem to line up at times in fun and amusing ways.  This summer, I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Bristol Renaissance Faire three times.  The Faire is located on the Wisconsin/Illinois border and runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day.  I know some of the people who work in the cast as court members and the more I’ve heard about each person’s character, the more I’m interested the history surrounding it.  English renaissance was an era that I was never required to study, so I am quite clueless.  The closest I had come was my Spanish history and a few of the marital alliances mentioned.  The best way, it was explained to me, to get an idea of the Elizabethan time period and the specific era the Faire takes place, was to watch the movie Elizabeth or read The Other Boylen Girl.  Taking this a step further, I started with Phillipa Gregory’s first book in the series, The Constant Princess.

The characters that the actors play at the Faire are historically accurate, they research their characters, their titles and lives.   Each person must know their own rank with their fellow actors and respond with the proper deference or allowance.  Nobility titles, names and dates are all historically accurate.  Even costuming is as historically accurate as possible.  I wondered where they were able to find their information.

Accidentally, I came upon a wonderful source.  While searching for a place I could access an article database for articles to study for Certified Archivist, searching Sir Hilary Jenkinson revealed his works at the Newberry Library.  I feel that we (those in the archival profession) see him as a theorist, but looking at his books, his theories come from practical experience.  He compiled lists of lords and nobles of England from their records.  He organized and published the records.  Titles of his works include:

  • Surrey apprenticeships from the registers in the Public Record Office, 1711-1731.
  • Lambeth churchwardens’ accounts, 1504-1645 and vestry book, 1610.
  • Here may a young man see how he should speak subtly in court.
  • Guide to seals in the Public Record office.
  • The records of the English African companies

Many of these are books, but some are articles.  It is somewhat exhilarating when leisure activities, like listening to The Constant Princess while I drive to work, and my professional activities click together.

Looking at what Sir Hilary Jenkinson did with his time as an archivist makes me wonder where I will end up and what I will do with the collections I find.  Will I be able to muster the time, stamina and tenacity to compile dozens of books for future patrons decades to come?

Does anyone have examples they have come across of institutions or individuals publishing their archival records for ease of research? Or something similar, barring internet and electronic venues?

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Posted in Archives, Archives Related Peripherally, Library related | 5 Comments »

Commercial Photographic Processes: The One-Hour Lab

August 20th, 2009

A photograph is an image, a “graphic” created with light, “photos.” With the advent of digital photography, some of the lines have been blurred and shifted when considering the traditional definition of “photography”. The image that is created in the digital camera and saved to a card still needs the light aspect for its creation. However, the creation of the physical print no longer requires light-sensitive paper, numerous chemicals and arrangements for silver waste disposal.

Finishing my Library Science Master’s degree with the Archives and Records Management specialization in the middle of a tough economic time finds me back where I was before I ever left for college; the one-hour photo lab of a major retailer.  Except this time things are different.  There are no liquid chemicals.  We do not develop film.  There is no light sensitive paper or light-tight boxes to change under a black bag.  I’ve been out of the business for about 3 years and look how much has changed.  Any other 3 years from the 1970s to early 2000 and the only changes would include the speed of the machine, but not the basic process of the printing of the images.

Instead, there are instant print kiosks using thermal ribbon. Most of the prints come of off the laser printer which uses colored toner. Toner, I’ve learned, is colored powder containing polymers (plastics).  It is placed on the paper and then superheated to lock in the image.  It is much like a home color laser printer, only industrial-size and uses black, yellow, magenta and cyan toner cartridges. Other new additions to the previous lab I worked in are an in-house wide format color photo laser printer and Xerox color printer which assists in making more complicated products such as photo books and scrapbook pages.
When I learned that we were to have a dry lab at the store, I was thoroughly disappointed.  I enjoyed working with the chemicals and the challenge of loading paper or working with a complicated roll of film by depending on my sense of touch only.  Now, essentially, we literally only print pictures. Without the light-shining-on-chemically-treated-paper method, I’ve had to re-work my definitions in my head. While it may sound incredibly picky and insignificant to some, I do not believe that “we” at the lab create “photos” for customers anymore.  The customer creates the photograph that is saved to the digital media.  We create prints for them.

A question that may arise at this point is: “Is it possible to create “photographs” from digital media using the light sensitive process?” The answer is yes. It requires a hybrid machine, which was one of the first considerations of the lab I first worked at from 2001-2006. We used a Fuji machine that could accept digital files and print them onto light-sensitive photo paper, in addition to printing images from film negatives.  The current lab I’m at has the capability to create reprints from negatives as well as from slides, but the machine was not created nor set up with those original image-holding media in mind. The film scanner is now an accessory for the machine, whereas in the past that was the only way of getting an original image from the media to the paper.

Now, my curiosities are to test the longevity of each type of print processing and find the best in the long term.  In the near future, I hope to obtain prints from both processes, as well as from different types of machines and subject them to the elements in various types to assess their durability, paper quality and color fastedness.  That is for another time.

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NoClone: Identifying and deleting duplicated records

June 28th, 2009

My records management class, although now over a month completed, has still got me thinking in the ways of my personal file management.  My computer has about 180GB of memory in its harddrive.  While at the time–2006– it seemed like it would last forever, the advent of larger and larger files such as MP3’s and Photoshop documents have already brought me to about 50%. I finally decided to look for a program to help with the process.  Searching “duplicate files” in Google lead me to NoClone 2007, which advertises itself with the following capabilities

Downloading the 30-day trial, I decided to use it on the music files first.  I inherited the music library of one of my friends, so the content is mostly unknown and I have noticed duplicates.  My first pass resulted in 22 files to be deleted.  This freed up approximately 60MB of space, over half a GB. I was impressed.  I then sent the program in the direction of the My Documents folder, which ends up being where I put files when I’m done wth them. The trial version only lets you delete 30 files at a time and I had selected over 150 when I realized that I would have to do this in stages.

Activities such as moving files from one computer to another, using a flashdrive and editing and creating drafts are main causes of the duplicate files on my system.  Creating folders that have similar uses, different names and the same files is another.  This program shows you the name, location, file size and file type of each of the files that it believes are duplicates.   I found the file location to be most helpful, especially when choosing which of the 2 or 4 files did not need to be present. In some cases, all 4 copies were kept.  Identifying the files can be, and probably needs to be, an automated process, but the decision on what to be kept or deleted needs to be a human-made choice.

noclone_filelist

What I’ve found from this is not only do I have duplicate files, but I have duplicate folder types.  Folders I created with similar purposes, similar documents, but they don’t need to be two separate entities.  I like how simple this is. It keeps track of cumulative statistics and so far I’ve deleted over 220 MB or 2.2 GB of dulplicate files.

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Posted in records management | 5 Comments »

The Purpose of an Archive

May 14th, 2009

I have finished most all of my requirements for graduate school.  My final archives research paper was on visual literacy and I discussed important angles to consider win the process and the context when looking at visual materials.  There was a section where I was able to include a type of personal statement.  It flowed from what I was writing and is the lens I look through when considering what to do and how to process a collection. The following section was included as an explanation of how I viewed the purpose or responsibility of an archive.

I look at all aspects of archival work as pointing to an end goal of getting people interested in what the institutions hold and secondly a certain degree of customer satisfaction. In order for interest to be created—in a collection, in an institution, in anything—they need to it exists. This step in awareness is extremely important and it seems that is it often viewed as cursory or even completely overlooked. As Joyce Gardella has stated, “Being a ‘Good Thing’ is not the protection it once was.[1]” Although she was referring to museums, it is true for all cultural institutions. Providing unique materials, creating exhibits and programs that offer experiences that are irreplaceable are only useful to the sustainability of the institution if people know about it. While this may sound childishly simple and obvious, much of the available literature seems to focus on theory and technique. By no means am I saying that there is no more room for theory in archives, but I am wondering where the practical information resources are. Where and how do people find out about your institution? Where is advertisement, or, if that term is too commercial for the cultural institution, where are the awareness materials located to showcase your events? I recently had to register my car with the state and receive my stickers from the Department of Transportation that get placed on my rear license plate. Included with my sticker was a one-sheet envelope-sized “brochure” from the Wisconsin Historical Foundation, asserting their value in the community and promoting their museum and information about the foundation. Every car owner in the state of Wisconsin was exposed to the mention of the Historical Foundation and what the society and the museum have to offer. Exposure is a first step, wide exposure is a bonus.

Second is access. In regards to access, mostly I have been concerned with improving electronic access versus physical access. Suitable hours of operations and providing a clearly stated use policy to your constituents[2], whether it is a public facility or a restricted access archives, is important and is probably already determined in an established repository. With electronic access, I have encountered so many frustrating sites and databases; I can’t imagine what a novice computer or database user would feel or how they would begin to search. What would be the motivation for returning to the site if they received nothing but frustrations and unhelpful results?

I really do see archives as a “customer service” type profession, however the commercial idea that “the customer is always right” should never apply to archives. (As a personal note, I have seen “the customer is always right” mentality abused many, many times and I am quite jaded towards it.)  Unlike a specific brand of cereal that is not on the shelf the last day of a sale, one cannot give a raincheck for archival materials. They might simply never have existed in the first place, were destroyed and never made it to the archives, or perhaps they are restricted.  Restrictions are particularly frustrating when it come to that commercial attitude.  If we have it, why aren’t we letting people see it?  Protecting other people’s rights and wishes–not only the donor’s, but anyone else who may be referenced in the collection–is of utmost importnace.  If we desire our archives to be of lasting value, than lasting ethics should be attached to the institution to maintain its integrity.

[1] Gardella, Joyce. “Surviving the Perfect Storm: Branding, Positioning and Differentition.” History News. Summer 2003. Page 22.

[2] I use the term “the public” to refer to the specific users of a repository, whether is actually the public or a restricted access archives. “Users” and “researchers” may also alternatively be used to refer to the people allowed to request, refer to and use the materials.

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What’s in a name? Silly Musings on a Pencil and “Knowledge”

April 15th, 2009

Consider these well-known adages

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

and

“Knowledge is power.”

I find it amusing and appropriate that the pencil I’m using (or used to write the first draft of this) is called Mirado Black Warrior.  “Mirado” mean “look,” as a noun, in Spanish. (i.e. “She’s got the look.”)  The Black Warrior seems to imply that this black pencil is to fight.  While “warrior” does not have a code of ethics associated with it like “samurai” does, “warrior” also seems to emit the ideals of honor, integrity and fighting for the truth.  This requires strength, conjures images of swords and glorious battles, the gain of ruling power.

Often, written and saved content is seen as researchable, a document or record where one gain gain knowledge.  With this pencil, you could create knowledge.  I wonder if the these ideas were all concocted in the advertising/marketing room of the Papermate company.

So, putting all of this together, the message on the pencil seems to say

“Look! I’m powerful!”

and additionally implies that

“Wielding me, you can create and become powerful!”

—— —— ——

In searching for an image to include in this post (which I will hopefully supply my own at a later date), I came across someone else blogging about the Black Warrior pencil.  I was unaware that pencil blogging occurred, but then again, I’m sure not many people know about archive blogging.  This is a fascinating entry and short blog on the components and comparisons of different pencils. Enjoy!

Pencil Grinder’s Weblog: For the love of a wooden pencil…

And apparently my interpretation of “mirado” is incorrect.  A bit of history on this pencil can be found at Pencils.com, at the specific link below.

Mirado Pencils…Rich in History, from Eagle, Berol, Sanford and now Papermate

One final thought…

While reading the Pencil Grinder’s About section, it makes me wonder how many places keep archives of pencils? Aside from the pencil creators and the specifications of the types of wood and lead to use, who keeps examples? Is there a pencil musuem? An archive of past pencils?  They have been around for decades and still are necessary in education settings for any Scantron-based test.

Oh yeah, and archivsits use them all the time.

For a funny and even sillier interpretation of the pencil, or anything else, the Uncyclopedia has some articles to make anyone smile and nod.

Pencil: The Uncyclopedia

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Posted in Archives Related Peripherally | 1 Comment »

Blizzard’s April Fool’s for Archivists

April 3rd, 2009

I fell for it. Fully and completely. And I’m sad that it isn’t a playable class, I was ready to purchase the game at that second.

Diablo 3’s new character class was announced on Wednesday April 1, 2009 as the archivist.

Diablo 3 Archivist

The character description can be found here, as long as Blizzard decides to keep it up: Archivist character class

The narrative from someone discovering the Archivist is as follows:

In my writings, I have recounted stories of the barbarians and their endless battles with the demons of the frozen north, and devoted pages to the wizards of Caldeum who harness the primal forces of reality. But the might of these heroes is nothing compared to the power of the archivists of Westmarch. These brave souls wade into battle wielding tome and quill, armored not in ensorcelled plate or links of chain, but in the knowledge of generations past. These archivists fight not only for our future, but for our past as well.

I first encountered an archivist in the ruins of the great city of Travincal. While exploring one of the long-abandoned temples, I was drawn by the flickering of faint torchlight through a distant doorway, and then, as I crept nearer, by the sound of a voice. There was a feeling in the air of danger near at hand, an electricity that made the hairs on my neck rise. I inched forward, breath caught in my throat, grateful for the safety of the hallway’s long shadows. Then I saw him.

He was surrounded, the looming shapes of his foes bearing down upon him. His hair was unkempt and frazzled, his calloused hands cut and stained. But he had an air of supreme confidence, of a submerged violence that threatened to explode into being. He leapt forward, his hands grabbing for the leather bindings of his nearest enemy.

The archivist’s eyes searched for an opening, a weakness. His hands wrenched suddenly about his adversary and a sickening crack pierced the still air. Its spine broken, the book lay unmoving in the archivist’s now gentle grip. As he lifted its lifeless form into the dim light, the pages of the ancient tome fell open, the secrets of the text laid bare. I remember the words he read, the religious fervor of his voice: “Here begins the first chronicle of the life of holy Akarat, prophet of Zakarum….” And on the shelves that stood all around him, tome after tome waited.

I have the utmost respect for the archivists, these warriors of myth and legend. We know their names: Alimet Two Quills, master of illumination with both left and right hand; Morienne the Scrivener, a midwife whose poetry stole the hearts of kings and brought tyrants to tears; and Salazar Cid, the Master Transcriber of Gea Kul, whose bombastic penmanship is known in all the lands of the Twin Seas and beyond. But these are only a chosen few. The members of their honored fraternity are many, and their numbers grow every day.

In the dark days that I fear are yet to come, much will be decided by sword and axe, with steel and spell, but I believe that in scroll and tome our survival lies.

Some of the spells and abilities that the Archivist would have are:

Lorenado (like Tornado).
Quest Bolt. The video on the site shows the Archivist throwing “!” (the symbol for a quest giver) at enemies, turning them from a hostile target into a quest-giving, neutral NPC.
Shush. This calls forth a voice from the past to cause the ears (and bodies) of enemies to explode.
Book Vision. Highlights the books and bits of lore in the room the character is in.

This even sparked conversation on the Society of American Archivist’s Archives & Archivists listserv.

Congratulations, Blizzard.

(Also posted on www.meplayinggames.com)

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“The Art and Science of Seeing: Applying Visual Literacy Interpretation in Natural History Museums” by Johanna Jones

March 18th, 2009

I have altered my topic for my final term paper on “value” to be more geared towards visual literacy, which is what I was trying to express in the first place, but the term was eluding me.  The “value” topic was becoming so massive and what I was trying to cover was becoming more and more expansive that I just couldn’t handle it.  I will be including my reading on value when talking about visual literacy, but the paper will be split into to parts. The first part will be analyzing the applicability of the following theories from textual to visual collections: Schellenberg’s infomational and evidential values, Greene’s MPLP and post-modern thoughts. The second half of the paper will be exploring visual literacy, its impact on archives (how it could be used as outreach, perhaps?), and how archivists can learn to read visual materials (VM).

In looking at the art database and the available literature there, I was surprised to find aritcles dealing with museums and curation, mostly because in the seminar course, we are using the Museum Strategy and Marketing text by Kotler and Kotler and I would have thought that library, archival and museum literature would be in the same same database for searching. I digress.

This particular article is from the Curator magazine, issue 45, no. 4 from October of 2002.  While this looks like a promising article, I was sorely disappointed in its execution.  The author continues to pose questions which she doesn’t follow up with answers or suggestions.  The best feature about the article is the section with the definition of “visual literacy” and the providing link to Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). I was hoping from such a title that this would be more than just a call to action.  It seems as if the author is promoting visual literacy as a cheerleader helps its team to victory.  There are few examples of visual literacy awareness in various musuems, but then the author seems to belittle their use in other locations:

How can visual literacy be applied to the interpretation in natural history museums? In the past, discovery rooms, hands-on carts and other staffed programming somewhat addressed these questions [...] On the practical side, many small institutions financially cannot afford adequate staff to conduct the programs or manage floor staff.  Even large institutions that have many offerings still do not reach the majority of vistors with programming but rather through exhibits. What are some ways for large numbers of visitors to experience visual analysis methods?

The beginning question is fine, it is answered, but then she seems to undercut the answer she just gave with mentions of impracticality and another question which she poses no answer to.  This leaves me with a feeling of hopelessness and some frustration.  I would have liked to see more on “the art and science of seeing.” While it is a catchy title, it is very misleading.  For promoting visual literacy, this article would need to explain on a more broad level what visual literacy is OR go into more detail on a few of the examples of what the program was and what technique was used to make visitors aware of the clues from the item itself. The author seems to be hovering between these two versions and neither is expressed clearly.

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Posted in Archives Related Reading, Visual Materials | No Comments »

NARA and Anthony Clark, articles to reference.

February 25th, 2009

Why is it so hard to get documents from the National Archives about the National Archives?
by Anthony Clark, posted on the History Network News

prezlibs
Anthony Clark’s blog

Archival Agitators and Advocates: Anthony Clark
Lecture Series at the iSchool at the University of Pittsburg

This has sparked many articles and entries in the records community regarding NARA, public access to public records and presidential libraries.

presidentiallibrarylogo

NARA’s Management of Presidential Library Records: Revelations and Results
Kate Theimer, The Records Manager. November 2008.

NARA and Anthony Clark; What NARA Can’t Do, What NARA Must Do and What NARA Should Do.
Posted by Kate T., ArchivesNext

NARA, SAA and Anthony Clark
Posted by Richard Cox, Reading Archives

Public access to presidential records
Posted by Gordon, The Posterity Project

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Posted in Archives in the News, NARA | 3 Comments »

Hot linking images, e-archiving and other archival concepts

February 11th, 2009

Hot linking to a photo is much like tagging it for your own use.  It may prevent copyright/citation issues, but it create other problems. Think about this:

  • It could allow someone to track the usage to you.
    While this may be negative or positive, it is something to consider.  There is a link between their photo and their site and your site, even if it is a one-way link.  Improper use of an image and your link could create issues for you.
  • What if the admin of the site changes the photo, but uses the same location name?
    Your purpose for linking might not make sense with the image that now appears.  The new image may be wholly inappropriate or controversial.
  • Bandwidth
    While hot-linking in itself does not take up a lot of bandwidth, many people doing it to the same place does.  The host of the site ends up hosting the image on the many other sites that connect to it and that can cause traffic issues, as well as incur costs to the hosting entity.  In general, it is poor etiquette from one site creator to another.

What is my solution on this site?
I save images to my hard drive and then give credit to the image if I haven’t provided a link to the site or to the individual image.  One reason I have embraced this practice with more earnest is due to limitations in some locations about viewing.  Companies with certain restrictions on websites cannot view the images which appear through a hot link only. Having the image hosted by my site ensures that if they can view the site they can view the images posted with it.

What e-archival implications does this have? Why am I tagging this with electronic records?
This again stems from the DIRKS project and my records management class.  As part of my file structure, one could see My Pictures–>Not Mine–>Archives Blog.  I save the images to this folder to upload to the sire.  The questions of copyright and image credit do concern me, especially having artistic photos of my own, and I prefer to give credit where credit is due.

The archival-or perhaps this falls more under records management-issue is that of origination.  Where did it come from?  Who created it? Is it safe?  Looking through the picture folder, I right-click on the images and some have a warning: “This file came from another computer and may be blocked to protect your computer.”  I haven’t seen that before, so it helps with security, but it does not tell us the author or purpose for its creation.  Just because its on my hard drive does not mean that I’m the creator, but it is definitely evidence of my activities as a blogger.

Me, as a blogger. I also realized that my file structure is flawed. With the Archives Blog photos also in the Not Mine folder does not account for photos that ARE mine that I wish to put in the blog. Slightly semantic, though.

Me, as a blogger. I also realized that my file structure is flawed. With the Archives Blog photos also in the Not Mine folder does not account for photos that ARE mine that I wish to put in the blog. Slightly semantic, though.

Afterthought:  I think this is the first example where I really, truly grasp the meaning of evidential value.  The previous entry includes an image of the PARADIGM logo.  It is not my creation, but I use it was illustration in my blog and it is evidence of that activity. Yay!

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PARADIGM and personal organizational structure

February 9th, 2009

For the DIRKS project for the Records Management class, it was suggested that we run a command on the C:\ which would list out the directory structure in tree form.  This is a really neat thing to see! Instructions can be found here on the PARADIGM site (or click logo).

paradigm

As they say, doing the entire C drive can take a long time.  It also results in files that are completely unnecessary.  After the file created itself, I spent a solid 10 minutes checking out my files and noticing some redundancies that can be eliminated. I then spent the next HALF HOUR deleting the program files so that I wouldn’t send a freaking huge .txt file to my group mates.  Even after that, it is still a 3+ MB text file.

Its quite a cool trick to know, but there is a caveat: This is invasive, as it shows you everything down to the file level.  Knowledge is power and archivists and records managers have access to tons of it.

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