Archives and the Archivist

What is an Archive?

Broadly, an archive houses collections of materials other than books, such as: letters, diaries, photographs, films, audio recordings, ephemera (posters, ticket stubs, political buttons, memorabilia), geneological records, government documents, meeting notes, bulletins, 'zines, restaurant menus, illustrations, blueprints, even sewing patterns. The Archives may be found at museums, libraries, universities, historical societies, religious and government institutions. The DC Punk Archive is a great example of a community-based archive, consisting of many types of items, that has grown over the last decade.

A private company (or corporation) may have an archive that collects advertising, techinical specifications, product samples, internal communications (memos), press releases, catalogs and financial information. For example, this tee, from Patagonia is based on a design from 1973, which came from their archive.

Why does someone go to or how do they use an archive?

Have you ever watched Finding Your Roots on PBS or a Ken Burns documentary? They rely on archives to find information and visual aids to piece together stories about a person's ancestors or significant historical events in order to inform and entertain the public. Podcasts like The Bowery Boys rely heavily on archives to research their stories about New York City. An author may use a person's "archival collection" of letters, diaries and articles to write a biography or to inspire a work of fiction. Scientific researchers may rely on archives to inform their own research, like the recently discovered "fish noises" plastic disc at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. Journalists will use archival information as they investigate a story.

What does an Archivist do?

The primary goal of an Archivist is to make these collections of documents (or films, photographs, etc.) available for public use. To that end, we do a lot of work "behind the scenes" before unveiling a collection to the public.

Behind the Scenes - How do we acquire the collections?

The institution usually has a collection policy which details the thematic or types of materials they seek. For example, the New York Historical Society is not going to be interested in the personal papers of author Pat Conroy. His papers are, appropriately, held at the University of South Carolina. This helps the Archivist to determine what types of materials to collect which is done in one of three ways:

Transfer

In the case of a government agency or private company, items are transferred to the archives based on a regularly scheduled transfer process or when the item is no longer useful to the originator. For example, after a clothing company has produced a garment and released it for sale, the garment, pattern, technical specs and any other information is transferred to the archive rather than sitting on the designer's computer or hanging out in someone's office. The Archivist is responsible for for ensuring that the materials are transferred in a timely fashion and for recording what was received. Then the Archivist will store the items in the appropriate place and make that information available to the company so that these items may be accessed again, when needed.

Donation

The primary method of acquiring collections is through donation. For example, Robert Redford donated his scripts, promotional materials, sketchbook and diary (which was returned to him) to Boston Univerity's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. In this example, the Archivist was instrumental in reaching out to Redford and convincing him that donating his papers at that time (as opposed to waiting until the end of his life) would be tremendously valuable to students and the community. The Archivist saw something of value (appraisal), acquired it and made it public.

Purchase

A collection of Martin Luther King Jr.'s papers was purchased for $32 million in 2006 through the City of Atlanta's nonprofit, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, with funds from corporate and private donations. The collection is housed at the Archives and Special Collections Department of the Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center. In this case, the mayor of Atlanta saw the value of the collection (as did all of the donors) and then turned it over to the Archival experts to organize the collection (arrange), ensure its long-term care (preserve) and make it available to the public.

Behind the Scenes - What happens with these boxes of stuff?

Collections can be enormous, like BU's Martin Luther King Jr. collection of 80,000 letters and documents or they can be relatively small like the Robert Redford collection, mentioned above, which consists of 6 boxes. A collection may arrive at the archive in meticulous order or as, what we like to say, a box of chaos.

First, we are going to determine the size of the collection in terms of linear feet (1 banker's box = 1 linear foot) which will help us assign staff and develop the timeline for going through the collection which culminates in a guide for people who want to use the collection.

Then the collection goes to the Processing Archivist who will take a look at everything to understand what types of materials are in the collection and how it has been organized. At the same time, the Processing Archivist is looking for any items that might need special storage (old photographs) or damaged items that may contaminate other things (mold, insects). When the boxes come to us in good order, we keep them in that same order to help potential users understand the orignator's thought process.

When we get boxes of chaos, it falls on the Processing Archivist to create order dependent upon the types of items in the collection. See the description about how Hemingway's personal papers arrived at the JFK Library, under "Processing Information."

In the case of the DC Punk Archive, the collection has been built by small increments, over time, so the Archivists organize similar items together; audio files, posters, 'zines rather than having separate collections by donor.

In all cases, an Archivist will also determine if the collection or parts of the collection need to be digitized to expand access to the collection beyond the brick and mortar institution.

The Processing Archivist creates a Guide to the collection, also called a Finding Aid, which includes a summary of the entire collection, a biographical note about the originator, an overview of the contents of the collection, how it is organized and where the collections can be found within the institution (which box, which shelf). This guide may also include suggestions on related collections within their institution or others. They will also provide information about how the materials can be used (for research and/or commercial purposes) and information about copyrights.

The Archivists are also busy with administrative tasks like analyzing user data to inform budgets and facilities monitoring to ensure that the collections are kept safe from leaking ceilings and swings in temperature / humidity.

Archivists - Public Facing

You will likely meet an Reference Archivist in the Reading Room at a particular Archive. This is the place where you can request, receive and review materials. Archives differ from libraries in that the items are not available to be "checked out." The Archivist will answer questions and direct you to materials that will be helpful for your project. They may also guide you to other archives that hold important information for you. Because they are concerned with keeping these items safe from "accidents," they will enforce the rules like, no beverages in the room, pencils only and how to mark your place as you are looking at materials.

At a University, you may meet an Instruction and Outreach Archivist who works with faculty to develop a lesson or assignment utilising the archives. The Archivist may teach a class on how to use the archives or bring examples of what may be found in that university's archive.

Outreach Archivists create exhibits, displays or events featuring materials around a theme, like the recent Love Letters exhibit at the British National Archives. They may also create online exhibits, or help in creating a user-friendly web pages to more easily navigate all of their collections. Archivists write articles for university and association journals, issue press releases and publish on social media.

You may even see an Archivist called to testify before Congress or a state agency.

At smaller institutions, the Archivist handles everything described above and likely hires and trains student workers or volunteers to help them in their work, because as you have read, being an Archivist is a multifaceted job that requires multiple skill sets and a lot of work.