Listen to a moose: the enchantments of the magical web

The American Museum of Natural History site has an extensive exhibit of "habitat group dioramas" that may just be worth the price of a plane ticket! They are described as being "precise depictions of geographical locations... [with] careful, anatomically correct mounting of specimens... these stunning dioramas are windows onto a world of animals, their behavior, and their habitats."

Sounds great, but what does it have to do with the Northwest? On this site you will find pages dedicated to the Alaska Moose (Alces gigas miller) and Alaska Brown Bear (Ursus gyas merriam). Included are virtual tours of the exhibits, historic film footage from William L. Finley and Arthur N. Pack (American Nature Association), and an audio clip where you can hear a moose!

Go forth & explore (without leaving your office chair).

Better late than never: In honor of Preservation Month

Preservation Matters!
The National Trust for Historic Preservation celebrated the 4th annual National Preservation Month in May 2008! Their theme was "This Place Matters."

Renewed Interest: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
For anyone who has wondered what their "Main Street" looked like in the late 1800s, the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps might hold research promise! Preservation Magazine featured the article "Map Quest: How Sanborn Fire Maps Can Guide Restorations, by Mary Beth Klatt, in their March 28, 2008 issue. She explores how homeowners are returning to historic Sanborn maps for their restoration projects. According to Grace DuMelle, president of Chicago-based Heartland Historical Research, more homeowners are interested in ways to ensure their restoration projects are historically accurate-- and these vintage drawings provide a wealth of information!
When D. A. Sanborn started his company in Manhattan in 1867, he intended to serve insurance underwriters by showing a building's fire risk. Each map gives information about the buildings on a town block, including the materials used in construction and whether the building was commercial or residential. Sanborn employees traveled around the country, literally pasting the changes on existing maps until newer versions were created. The Sanborn Co. flourished until the 1950s, when the insurance industry came up with new ways to gauge risk that made the maps obsolete.
To read the full article, go to the Preservation Magazine site.

Going Green?
Preservation Magazine's January/February 2008 issue is dedicated to eco-friendly restoration. To see their articles, take a few minutes to browse the table of contents.

Highlights of two Friday sessions

Northwest Archivists 2008 Annual Conference
New Frontiers in Archives and Records Management
Anchorage, Alaska

Following are summaries for two of the sessions that I attended:

Session 1: The Integrated Digital Special Collections (INDI)
This session introduced the Integrated Digital Special Coillections (INDI), an open-source archival management application developed at Brigham Young University. INDI is a web-based system designed with an emphasis on archival workflow and distributed processing activities. The session included an introduction to the project and demonstrations of the functional application modules and the INDI sandbox, and discussion of future directions for INDI development. Presenters were Brad Westwood, Cory Nimer, and Gordon Daines.

The website for INDI: http://www.lib.byu.edu/indi/

This application has some of the same goals as other open-source archival management applications, such as Archon and the Archivist's Toolkit -- but with a stronger emphasis on workflow and project management. The application currently has no public interface and is intended for staff use (BYU special collections has a permanent staff of ~15+ and employs about 40 student assistants).

Modules that were described or demonstrated:
** Contact management system is used to to track donors and creators; using a single tool for both creator management (authority control) and donor/contact management has been problematic.
** Help feature has been useful to staff; includes both "application assistance" (how to do something) and "data entry assistance" (what information and in what format is appropriate for a given field). Usability testing showed that staff use latter more than former.
** Desktop search tool; have been retrospectively entering accessioning data, so this can serve as "one stop searching" tool.
** Project management (with e-mail feature that allows e-mail discussions that are preserved within the system, linked to the project/collection); this is one of the most robust areas of the application.
** Appraisal; breaks down appraisal of potential purchases/donations into detailed tasks. Probably most useful for a repository with an active acquisitions program in many areas.
** Accessioning; this has been useful because many of the accessioning steps are actually done by student assistants.

The project team has experienced issues because several different programmers have worked on the project which have had different approaches to documentation and varying programming styles. The BYU Library is currently evaluating how to proceed with the project -- whether to continue to invest in programming or to migrate to another system. They are especially interested in a system being developed by/for the ICA (International Council on Archives).


Session 7: New Modes of Access: Challenges and Opportunities for Archival Collections
This session focused on the development/implementation of WorldCat Local at University of Washington Libraries. Presenters were Nicole Bouche (UW Special Collections); Jennifer Ward (Head of Web Services for UW Libraries) and Mela Kircher (OCLC).

The session especially focussed on the impact of WorldCat Local on archives/special collections. Several issues that were raised are:

* "duplicate" titles -- "split" collections at different repositories that the WorldCat Local algorithm considers as different editions ..
** duplicate records for a record in WorldCat submitted by a repository and a record for the same collection submitted by NUCMC (which were previously only in RLIN ... but are being migrated to WorldCat).
** WorldCat local does not serve as a collection-management system ... does work well as a "discovery" tool
** very limited notes displayed

Future enhancements to WorldCat Local will be:
** more articles metadata
** branch scoping (driven off 4-character location codes)
** simple language facets
** additional fields displayed (this is especially important for notes fields in archival MARC records)
** federated search (may be able to search NWDA finding aids database)
** reviews
** FRBR/editions display improvements
** improved WorldCat account authentication
** tagging
** improved reports

Elizabeth Nielsen
OSU Archives

1890 Comes to Anchorage, or at least to UAA

I won’t compete with Emily’s fine description of the Aviation Museum reception except to state that it was a blast and I didn’t get a chance to crash the simulator or to shoot its guns. A tragedy, a travesty, or both . . .

I had the responsibility to run the business meeting Saturday morning. It went as most meetings do, but it is the best opportunity to thank all of the people that really made this wonderful conference go. Arlene Schmuland and her local arrangements crew, Gina Rappaport and her program committee, Kathy Bouska who almost singelhandedly raised nearly $1500 for NWA scholarships, all of the sponsors, all of the hardworking committees, the presenters and speakers, and of course all of the 74 people who registered for the conference. I’m regularly wowed by the energy and power of our little motley crew.

There was one last session. Since I was participating as chair, I had to attend.

Breaking the Ice: Protocols for Native American Materials and Archivists in the Northwest (Linda Wynne, Monique Lloyd, John Bolcer). This session is the result of the Northwest Archivists board decision to present the protocols in each of its five member states during the next five years. Linda, of Sealaska, discussed the need for protocols in Native communities. Her very personal and moving stories about the need to bring tribal material back to the tribe were powerful. I always like the courage needed to show your heart. Monique discussed the background and development of the protocols and also used personal stories to illustrate the nature of the protocols. John discussed institutional concerns with the protocols as written, and had suggestions for revisions that could strengthen the document and make it more supportable by non-Native American institutions. There was very lively discussion afterwards and I think the session was a success in its intention of creating communication of this important subject.

All that remained was the closing plenary with Mike Doogan.

I have to say that I was entranced by Alaska. I believe that the success of this conference should encourage the NWA board and membership to consider moving Alaska into regular rotation, like any other member state, so that our Alaskan colleagues can showcase their digs on a regular basis.

Friday Sessions

In case you think that this conference is supposed to be fun, think again. There were sessions! And serious work! My sessions on Friday included (if there are mistakes, please let me know. My documentation strategy is minimalist):

Usability Testing in Archives (Tony Kurtz, Tiah-Edmunson Morton, Megan Freidel). This session discussed a variety of usability testing performed in relation to the use of NWDA. The goal of the project was to determine whether users were getting what they needed form the NWDA interface and finding aids. They cited a lot of specifics (and I’m sure Tiah, the owner of this blog, would share at length . . .), but the takeaway lessons I got were:

• Users are interested in the big picture – how the information looks and is presented (“If display is secondary we risk alienating customers”)
• We (the site creators) need to be more innovative in design and consistent in presentation.
• We need to keep asking what users want.
• We need to try and replicate old world feel in new world medium (“people want context and relationship”).
• Users needs are not homogenous and even a single user’s needs are not static.
• They want a personalized research experience (“think Amazon.com”)

Or as Tony Kurtz put it: “We need to educate users in a non-dictatorial way.” A great session with three lively presenters and a real call to all of us to start finding out what users want/need and incorporating a lot more of it into our online reference.

How Do We Keep From Getting Further Behind? Applying the Principles of Minimal-Level Arrangement and Description to New Accessions (Elizabeth Nielson, Scott Cline, Elizabeth Uhlig). Holy Moly. Another session on MPLP? Who’d have thunk it? Elizibeth N. and Scott discussed their priorities in trying to reduce the expansion of backlogs by applying MPLP to accessioned collections. Elizabeth discussed a one-year project at Oregon State Univ. to try and make minimal collection descriptions for 36 accessions. They ended up getting complete usable descriptions in the one-year project for 34 of them. Scott discussed the City of Seattle’s use of folder descriptions provided by the depositing agency to reduce intellectual processing needs (they continue to rebox and refolder). He also stated something that always gets a laugh from me because it’s so true - “there’s always been MPLP. We just used to call it government records processing.”

Elizabeth U. discussed the need for MPLP in a half-time lone arranger shop as a necessity in order to just make records available. This is especially true in the context of MPLP’s call for access prioritization. So a useful session, and one that acknowledged that MPLP has become the dominant paradigm in processing, regardless of what people may think of it.

State of the States lunch plenary (Steve Walker (Idaho), Steve for Jodie Folie (Montana), Glenn Cook (Alaska), Jerry Handfield (Washington), and Jerry for Mary Beth Herkert (Oregon).. This is a session that I hope becomes a tradition. It’s been done three times in the last five years and allows each of the five member states’ State Archivists to talk about what’s been happening in their respective states. Most of the discussions centered around numbers of patrons, number of electronic visits (latter up, former down, big surprise!). Glenn is new to Alaska (3 months) and is still getting to know everyone. Steve noted that his most active records are Idaho Penitentiary Records: “nearly everyone in Idaho seems to have had some relative in the pen.” Jerry indicated that we need a new acronym for archivists that could compete with CIO’s. He suggested PRIMO – “Primary Records and Information Management Officers.” That’s very cute, but I wouldn’t put it on my business card. He did have a good 12-step plan for archivists, which he promised to send me (because I couldn’t write fast enough. I’ll post it when I get it.

The big surprise was a presentation by a group of archivists from the Sakha Republic. Dr. Panteleymon Petrov and Eduard Yakovlev gave short presentations on their research in Alaska and on the state of operations in Sakha. It was a wonderful moment. Dr. Petrov very bravely and clearly gave a short presentation in English followed by his presentation on research. I didn’t take very good notes on the presentation; I was more intrigued by the translation process – several translators and several Russians all engaged in a discussion of how best to relay the meaning. It reminded me of a childhood listening to sermons in foreign languages relayed by translation and wondering just how different the two stories might be.

The second short presentation was by Senior Registrar Eduard Yakovlev, of the Sakha State Archives. He mentioned that the Sakha Archives is the oldest archives in the Russian Far East, operating since the 18^th century. It has over 1600 collections including 6 million folders, with some records dating from the mid 17^th century. They have just started digitizing information. He indicated that they had enjoyed the state of the states addresses and were happy to have been invited to speak and would use the information they had learned to improve their services. I think both groups of archivist were genuinely touched by the meeting and a lot of smiles, pictures, and card-exchanges followed.

Archival Research: The History and Future of the Profession. This is a traditional session involving research papers presented by Western Washington University students in the Archives program. Caitlan Maxwell presented a paper on cyberinfrasturcture. I missed almost all of it, due to getting caught up in conversation. I’m sorry, too, because after looking the term up it sounded very interesting. I hope another blogger can fill in. Megan Bezzo presented on Watergate and the Presidential Records Act (it really wasn’t Marja Krusten presenting. Really.) It was a pretty straightforward treatment of the impact of Watergate, especially the exclusion of the national archives from the process, on the creation of theact. One comment caught my attention – Bezzo stated that manuscript archives have been more invested in access issues than government archives. That has not been my experience at all. What do you all think? Finally Stephanie Brown discussed Margaret Cross Norton and her impact on the development of the professionalized archivist, the creation of SAA, and the American Archivist. Norton was definitely the original mover and shaker – an archival rockstar. All good papers and an enjoyable session as usual.

Archives At the Last Frontier: Collections of Alaska (James Simard, Bruce Parham, Kevin Tripp, and Tracy Leithauser) This was more of a fun session, allowing several local institutions to showcase collections, primarily visual resources. Bruce discussed records of the Pribiloff Islands Program, 1868-1984, including a variety of records related to the seal harvesting and processing program there. A lot of good photos, with the seal clubbing ones thankfully edited. Kevin showed a number of movie clips from the AMIPA collection. Two notable ones both involved memento mori – one was perhaps the last footage shot of Will Rogers and Wiley Post before their famous crash near Point Barrow; the second involved footage of JFK just minutes, maybe seconds, before his assassination. Another fine clip involved scenes of people reacting to the 1964 Good Friday quake. Tracy showed a series of photographs related primarily to the growth of Anchorage. Some of my favorites were the aerial views, the sail-sledding machine, and the earthquake pictures.

Thanks guest bloggers!

Thanks to Terry Baxter and Emily Dominick for sharing their experiences with all of us! Stay on and keep writing!!

For anyone else interesting in being an author for this blog, please send me an email (tiah.edmunson-morton@oregonstate.edu)-- set up is easy and sharing is fun.

Home again, home again

You know you've had a great conference when you've crammed your suitcase full of brochures, pins, pens, and postcards-- and it explodes when you unzip it in your living room!

While I am happy to be tip, tap, typing from my computer at home, largely because the screen is much bigger than my laptop and easier on my eyes, I also feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity to travel north. Our Alaska colleagues were gracious and welcoming, obviously proud to share their wonderful collections and beautiful home with us. It's hard to avoid cliches when writing about the trip, but the power of those mountains and the enchantment you feel when watching a young moose chomp on a bush is second to none.

Of course, I wasn't there for sight-seeing, and I spent most of the trip home yesterday scribbling notes for the 2009 NWA/OR Heritage Comm joint conference on my Anchorage Convention & Visitors Bureau notepad.

I'd like to share some percolations before returning to my morning java, though I must fully disclose that these aren't actually all my own-- great conversations make great ideas!

• Various Google map mash-ups with restaurants, activities, and shopping
• "Angel" project to link early archival arrivers with local repositories/historical societies to work on projects (i.e. one-day blitz processing)
• "Crawls": jazz clubs, coffee houses, bookstores, brew pubs
• Poster sessions: grad sutdents from a variety of programs (Western WA, Emporia State, WSU, distance/online) and disciplines (Urban Planning, Public History), panelists without a panel (the great ideas for presentations that don't quite gel into a session), high school students (History Day)
• Ning.com site for connecting people before, during, and after the conference (I've set up a "beta" site and will send out the link when I am aesthetically satisfied)

And these are the things I'd like to steal from this year:

• Silent auction: this time including framed prints of images from repositories
• Sign up for local archivists to arrange dinner outings to their favorite Portland restaurants for meals
• Message board ("real" and virtual ) to link people, post notes, ask questions
• Navigator program: including a program that would link an archivist to a heritage participant

In the words of our current fearless leader (T Bond), "let's make 2009 the best conference EVER"-- we have some pretty big shoes to fill...