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DIRKS and personal records

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

The main assignment for the records management class involves us to get very familiar with DIRKS.  DIRKS (Designing and Implementing a Records Keeping System) was developed by the National Archives of Australia.  This system allows an organization to take an intense look at the current record keeping practices and flow of documents and then restructure and make suggestions for a more efficient method of conducting business.

Although DIRKS was created for organizations, the assignment has us looking at personal records.  I have volunteered to allow my records to be used for this project.  In this case, we specifically looking at only our electronic records.  As students at UW Madison, this makes sense because almost all of our class material is online through the Learn @ UW interface.  I am looking at my personal electronic records and online presence and this is the short summary I posted for potential group members:

Hi I’m Rachel and I’ve volunteered to have my records DIRKS’d. I don’t know what you want to know about me to know if we’d work well together, but here’s an overview of my digital presence both on my computer and on the internet:

Internet presence:  I have 8+ email accounts, 3 blogs, I have online gaming accounts with 4+ websites, I belong to 6+ social networking sites, 1 active wiki user account, I have accounts for online purchasing with 3+ websites and I bank/have credit cards with 4 companies.

My personal computer: I have school work from 7 years of post-secondary education, about 15 gigs (over 13,000 files) of digital images, various versions of resumes and job descriptions, letters to friends and job cover letters, games and game notes, program files, medical expenses spreadsheet as well as power point slides, MS Access tinkering and the random stuff that one finds and plays with on a computer. Some random video and songs, too, but I’m not a big collector of that kind of media.

I am excited to see what kind of suggestions will be made.  There are 4 other people in my group and I know that there are certain areas of my “filing” that could use some help.  While DIRKS was created with organizations in mind, this assignment not only lets us get hands-on experience with analyzing a set of previously organized records, but it forces us to fully understand how the template is supposed to function because we have to adapt it to this way of using it.  I think that the assignment is a creative one and I think our professor has done a great job of breaking it down into manageable sections.

The DIRKS manual is online, created and published by the National Archives of Australia.

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Sophronia and the cased image collection

Friday, January 9th, 2009

My task was to rehouse the cased image collection, placing the daguerreotypes , tintypes and ambrotypes in number envelopes so they weren’t the jumbled mess they were.  I would occasionally open the decorated boxes to see these people from the past and refer to the register to learn their name.

One of the images I had come across  was breathtakingly beautiful.  The photographer was well ahead of his time with pose, focus and sculpting with light.  The woman in the picture practically glowed from the inside out.  Unfortunately, I noticed that there wasn’t an ID number linked with it, meaning that this was not an image that had been digitized.  However, looking at the list of names, the name of a relation stood out to me, because it was so unique; Sophronia.   Unlike her relative, Sophronia’s image had been made digital and available online.

sophronianewcomblarkin

Sophronia Newcomb Larkin

According to Noyes family tree on Rootsweb, Sophronia Newcomb was born on September 26, 1820 in Darien, Genese Co., NY and married Benjamin Franklin Larkin on February 18, 1841 in Attica, Wyoming Co., NY.  At some point within the next 4 years, they would move to Madison, WI and have their only child there, Amanda J. Larkin on July 4, 1845.  Sophronia died on March 14, 1891.

Daguerreotypes were some of a family’s most treasured possessions in the later half of he 19th century.  Unfortunately many families don’t keep records of who is in the pictures and rely on memory for who was related to who and when the image was taken.  Looking at the information on the Rootsweb page makes me wonder if someday I will be <name><birthdate><birth city><death date><death city> and maybe even <spouse name><marriage date><children> if I should be so lucky to have those someday.  I’m not going to say that thinking of myself as a series of dates and place “puts things into perspective” but it definitely makes me look at things from a different perspective.

For example, migration patterns and spouses could be easily tracked and looking even further into the Noyes tree on Rootsweb, you can see that Sophronia and Benjamin met in New York.  With people meeting and dating over the internet via site like Match.com and eHarmony, tracking relations like that is nearly impossible.  How would we track that kind of movement?  Or tell the story of how you and your spouse met?   Sometimes it results in a short and not very interesting tale.  “We met online through a dating site.” And while the tale of How We Met is not really that important, it says a lot about the changing ways of our world today and how much the creation of the internet has altered our society completely.

And I have gone off on an esoteric tangent.  When beginning the entry the other point I wanted to say is that Sophronia is a beautiful name and you don’t see names like that now.  I wonder how many “Sophronia”’s are in the United States today.

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Racine Heritage Museum - Archives / Research Center

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

701 Main Street
Racine, Wisconsin 53403-1211

Dick Ammann, Archivist
Phone: 262-636-3926.
Email: reammann[at]clmail.com
Archives hours: Tuesdays from 1 to 4:30, Saturdays from 10 to 1, and other times possible with advance appointment
http://www.racineheritagemuseum.org/

The archive has evolved, along with the Heritage Museum, from the Racine County Old Settlers’ Society of the 1800s, then onward to the Racine County Historical Society and is now the current county-wide historical society, museum, and archives collection. The major specialization is in Racine County themes and materials.

The archive is rich in family history materials and related indexes, plus resources relating to the county’s business and industry, infrastructure, institutions, and development. There are significant collections from several local industries, such as the J.I. Case Corporation, Western Publishing, and Haban Manufacturing. The Racine Journal Times newspaper has donated its clippings library and photo collection. They have been developing a reference copy set of our approximately 70,000 images, plus a copy set of materials regarding general county and municipal history, including popular topics such as the Underground Railroad in the county, the Racine Belles professional women’s baseball team, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence on our county’s architecture.

Community outreach programs are occurring monthly with the “First Fridays” program. Such First Friday events include Civil War reenactments, Racine Classic Cars, and tours of the Old Schoolhouse. Also occurring at these events are the openings of new exhibits and raffles. September’s exhibit was “People and Wheat,” illuminating ethnic immigration into Racine county and the importance of the wheat crop in the cultural and economical development of the area.

Long distance research services are available and reproductions of images are available for purchase.


Reproduction of a painting of Racine Harbor from the 1850s. The view is toward the southeast, with Lake Michigan at the far left and the State Street Bridge toward the right. The large warehouse southeast of the Wisconsin Avenue Bridge at the left was owned by Dutton and Raymond. It has been verified as an Underground Railroad site, a final hiding place for passengers waiting for a friendly Great Lakes vessel to drop them off in Canada.


The first diesel-powered craft in Racine Harbor was probably this unlikely visitor on August 11, 1919: the German Navy’s U C 97, which was turned over to the Allied forces at the close of World War One. She was taken on tour through the Great Lakes in 1919 and 1920 to raise funds for post-war bond drives. She ended her tour in Chicago then was sunk in Lake Michigan, in accord with naval treaties. She was used for off-shore target practice in June 1912, off of northern Illinois, and has been located by contemporary divers.


Integrated local and regional public transit is represented in this image of the North Shore interurban station in West Racine in about 1929, when a new train was displayed. In this era, over 30 passenger trains a day passed through Racine. To the right is the local Racine street car which will loop around downtown. In the foreground is a taxi cab. Today, only one lone taxi vehicle exists in the city. The street cars disappeared in the early 1950s and the North Shore was shortsightedly killed in the early 1960s.


The Racine Belles professional women’s baseball team was portrayed in the contemporary film, “A League of their Own.” Contrary to the film’s depictions, the players, coach, chaperone, and management all interacted positively. These five ladies were photographed at Racine’s Horlick Field: Betty Trezza, LaVonne Paire, Margaret Danhauser, Sopy Kurys, and Madeline English.

Top image: Postcard from the 1920s showing the Carnegie Library. The building was given a new life as the Racine County Museum (now Racine Heritage Museum) in 1962.

All images are from the Archives collection. The Museum maintains reproduction copy rights.

Entry compiled by Rachel Pieper

[originally published in Archives Month 2008: Celebrating Wisconsin's Archives]

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Canada claims Wisconsin

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

This day in 1774.  Thanks to Wisconsin Historical Society’s site, “On this day in Wisconsin History” for October 7, 2008.  Text from the link is as follows:

1774 - Wisconsin Becomes Part of Quebec
On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. [Source: Avalon Project at the Yale Law School]

The link to the Avalon Project provides the text to the Quebec Act.  Perhaps Wisconsinites would have been known as “les têtes de fromage.”

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Special Collections & Area Research Center, Murphy Library, UW La Crosse

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Murphy Library Resource Center
1631 Pine St.
La Crosse, WI 54601
Phone: 608-785-8511
Email: specoll[at]uwlax.edu
http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/departments/archome.html

The Area Research Center in La Crosse is also the Special Collections department in Murphy Library, the main research facility on the UW-La Crosse campus. It serves and documents five Wisconsin counties; Jackson, La Crosse, Monroe, Trempealeau, and Vernon. Along with special collections and the ARC, it houses the rare book and Wisconsiana collections. The Wisconsiana materials consist of over 5000 works of non-fiction dealing with state and local topics, including histories of Wisconsin towns, villages and communities. There are also oral history collections, maps, photographs and university archives.

The Oral History program was started in 1968 under the direction of Howard Fredericks, UW-La Crosse professor and oral historian. Since then, the collection has grown to include over 3000 hours of recorded histories, focusing on the community and the history of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. The significance of these recordings goes beyond the five counties served, and garners national interest especially in the areas of the Hmong refugee experience, European ethnic groups, turn of the century small city manners and daily life, Midwestern rural life and culture, and women’s experience.

The photographic collections total approximately 150,000 images. A major portion of the photograph collection is historic photos of La Crosse and the surrounding area. Of these, approximately 50,000 are of inland river steamboats and river scenes, making it one of the nation’s largest collections for this subject. Just recently, in 2007-2008, this collection of steamboat photographs has been digitized by the Digital Collection Center of the UW Madison campus. The digitized photographs are available at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/LaCrosseSteamboat/.

This is the Admiral sidewheel paddle excursion boat, built in 1940 in St. Louis, where this photo was taken. Undated.

This is the Admiral sidewheel paddle excursion boat, built in 1940 in St. Louis, where this photo was taken. Undated.

Photo of a lumber raft on the Mississippi River near La Crosse, WI, includes the towboat “Kit Carson” and the bow boat “Scotia”. This photo was taken in the 1870’s. Negative number 339

Photo of a lumber raft on the Mississippi River near La Crosse, WI, includes the towboat “Kit Carson” and the bow boat “Scotia”. This photo was taken in the 1870’s. Negative number 339

Overhead view of Levee Park in La Crosse, WI about 1913 with the steamboat “David Tipton” in the center. Negative number 389

Overhead view of Levee Park in La Crosse, WI about 1913 with the steamboat “David Tipton” in the center. Negative number 389

[originally posted in Archives Month 2008: Celebrating Wisoncsin Repositories]

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Happy October 1st!

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

October is American Archives Month!  The Student Chapter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison of the Society of American Archivists have created a blog just for the month.  we aim to represent a Wisconsin archival repository each day throughout the month of October.

Archives Month 2008: Celebrating Wisconsin’s Archives

If you are a staff member of a Wisconsin repository and would like to be featured in the blog and have not been contacted, email Greg at: kocken AT wisc DOT edu.

The blog is live as of today, October 1st, and will remain online after the month ends.  Take a look every so often and see what Wisconsin has to offer.

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Archives Blogs: Minnesota Historical Society

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

In the process of creating my own archives blog and searching for jobs, I’ve stumbled across a collection of blogs sponsored by the Minnsota Historical Society.  On the “Blogs & Podcasts” page, they list and link to four blogs:

Collections Up Close
This blog has five different sections, which was a bit confusing at first.  I thought that the section titles were the only entries.  The different sections of the “Collections Up Close” blog are:
What’s New
Podcasts
Our Favorite Things
Come See It
150 Best Minnesota Books
I’m finding that having the entries arranged in such a fragmented way makes it difficult to peruse and everytime I found a new area, I wasn’t sure if I had seen everything in the previous parts.  However, I am impressed that there are a variety of authors contributing to the entries.

Minnesota Local History
A few of these entries seem to talk about general issues that don’t necessarily deal with local history, but can be issues or considerations from repositories anywhere.  Entries such as “Life Memberships,” “Become and Author” and “Planning on Disaster” should be re-categorized, I feel they do not speak to people searching for information about MN Local History.  This blog seems to try to make more of a connection between the record’s custodians and those interested in the local history, but there doesn’t seem to be a focus.  Considering the deliberate categories that the previous blog displayed, this does not have a consistent logic flow.

Library & Archives
Although I love to see a blog called “Libray and Archives,” the first few entries seem to be about “collections now available.”  I am a supporter of posting collections that are now available where they have been recently processed and cataloged or draw attention to collections where the sunset date on restrictions has been met.  This is the kind of imformation I would expect to find in the “What’s New” section. Along with the newly availble collections, there is information on upcoming classes at the institution.

Researcher’s Notebook
This is described as “a forum for historical researchers at work on topics in Minnesota and Midwestern history.”  A great idea and successful, a place for the researchers to connect.

All in all, I think they some great ideas going on here.  I little more cohesion with categorizing and this will be a most excellent resource for those looking at the Historical Society and looking for Local MN history.

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Blogging Ethics Statement

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Someone recently mentioned to me that an organization was concerned about the amount of people blogging about the institution.  I told them that I’d heard of (and worked at) places that included blogging guidelines within there “new employee” packets.  Since it was mentioned, I’ve borrowed from and crafted a “Blogging Ethics Statement,” which I am posting as a separate page to be referred to by those who are interested.  I would like to  establish a basis of trust and credibility for those who are reading. The following text is also found on the previously mentioned “Blogging Ethics Statement.”

The guidelines I abide by are adapted from the Forrester best practice report, “Blogging: Bubble Or Big Deal: When and How Businesses Should Use Blogs.”

A link to the article can be found here, viewable with the creation of a free account.  As per Charlene Li’s “Blogging policy examples,” I make the following statements:

  1. I will tell the truth.
  2. I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
  3. I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
  4. I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
  5. I will never delete a post.
  6. I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
  7. I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
  8. I will strive for high quality with every post – including basic spellchecking.
  9. I will stay on topic.
  10. I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
  11. I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
  12. I will disclose conflicts of interest.
  13. I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.

I would also like to add:

14.  Opinions expressed are of mine alone and not affiliated with any organization or company I am employed with.

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What can be included in “Print Culture”?

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

[originally posted in the Print Culture Society blog on April 3, 2007]

In one of my non-archives classes the other day, I was talking with a fellow student and I had been telling him about some of what was going on in the archives classes. He had mentioned a quote that he heard from one of the professors that he said he has on a Post-It by his computer.

Digital documents don’t survive by accident.

This was implying that paper documents can. And if you leave paper documents sitting around for a hundred years, someone will still be able to find them and figure out what they were meant for. Digital documents don’t work like that, you will be lucky to retrieve a file that was created in a program 15 years ago.

The question of “Are digital documents still part of print culture?” seems to be what I am getting at here. But that wasn’t really my intent, it was just a great quote, and it can be an issue to be discussed later. The idea of items laying around for decades and still having the capacity to be recovered is fascinating and exciting. And it applies more to than just the “written word.”

My interest is in photographs. I enjoy the visual nature of items and I would like to say that photographs can be just as valuable as text. Pictures can be understood in any language. They can give detail in a single glance that would take pages upon pages of text to convey.

I would like to share a video story of a photographer by the name of Leo Beachy. This story has a few parts to it: the story of the photographer and the story of the journey of his negatives. I was profoundly touched by this story, the amazing zeal for life and the extreme importance of photography in this man’s life and the crazy happenstance that some of his work still survives today. This video left me very misty-eyed. I hope that you will enjoy the story as well.

Leo Beachy’s Story

Video courtesy of OnQ OnDemand, Pittsburg, PA

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Archives, PR, publicity: Twitter

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

I have read in an article (somewhere) that librarians are taking hold of all the new technology to get the word out there are the services, materials and information that they have to offer, but the people in the archives world, even though most are affiliated by degree to the library world, aren’t doing the same. In short, those involved in archives were being criticized for the lack of reaching out.

A few of the goals of The Novice Archivist include
1) A place for me to write-to-understand what I’m learning and experiencing.
2) Outreach for those who may or may not know what archives are.
3) A place and means of connecting with others involved in archives and receiving feedback.

I find topics that are relevant to current issues and topics that I am facing and would like to share my experiences and solutions or to vent/expose issues so others may benefit from the head’s up. For my second goal, outreach, I use Twitter. Using the Wordpress plugin “Twiter Tools,” every time I post, it posts a message on my Twitter account.

In the article “Psst! Are you Twittering yet?” They mention librarians and government officials using Twitter to communicate. It also explains what Twitter is. In short, as best I can: Twitter is where you can post short messages of 140 characters. Those who “follow” you on Twitter will have your messages show up on their page. There seems to be no limit to how many people you follow/follow you. There is an option to have certain people’s Twitters or “tweets” (I never call them tweets, I call them Twitters) sent to your phone as a text message. There are only 3 or 4 people whose tweets I have sent to my phone, having everyone’s sent would cost too much.

There are many plugin-type Twitter posting tools: Twitter Tools, twhirl, twitterrific, Twitterfox and more. These can be used to post and view depending on what software you want to integrate it with.  this blog uses Twitter Tools.

When creating a Twitter account, a friend and I were trying to see what applications it could have for library use. As students, we really weren’t sure what to try to promote. So we tried to do book reviews in 140 characters. That takes some serious condensing of ideas. Since then, I have specialized it for archives, adding people who said in their bio that they were archivists or worked an an archives-to read about what other archivists are doing and to share what I do. It is fascinating to read about other people’s positions and projects.

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