[Dialogue] Values for the Archives

Tue May 19 09:17:20 EDT 2009

Bill, 

Thank you for thoughtful insights, obviously born with experience. We share
the same values. There will be an effort this summer to move the file
cabinets out of the basement to the sixth floor. Handling of documents is at
a minimum, hands-on is at cabinet/folder level and with white gloves only.
You have provided wonderful direction and image for how to proceed. Thank
you.

Sandra True

icatrue at igc.org

201-209-1809

646-498-8449

From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Bill Parker
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 11:44 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue; OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net;
springboard-request at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Dialogue] Values for the Archives

Greetings to the People of the Order,

I want to initiate a conversation before the Archive Meeting at the end of
this month. The conversation is about some Principles concerning the
Archives. Let us consider the notion of values. What are our values as we
relate to the Archives. It seems there are three primary values: 1)
Preservation; 2) Accessibility; 3) Flexibility, basically in that order. Why
these three values? These are the ones needed to avoid unintentional and
unnecessary damage to the Archives, to have maximum search and retrievable
capabilities into any subject of interest in the Archives, and to have the
reflexibility for anyone to access the Archives without being capable of
changing the original configuration, which would be the physical location of
each page. Why these three values?

1) Preservation: Preventing each page from rapid deterioration and not
accelerating the decomposure rate. We need to be cautious. Plus, that rate
grows the older the paper is. If the last page included was in 1988, it
would be 21 years old and the oldest could be 50 years old. If people touch
any page with their hand, that grease accelerates dramatically the
deterioration, not to mention the physical bends and tears naturally
occurring when people handle  files. This idea of any "hands-on" work with
the Archives needs to be re-considered. We cannot afford to go through all
the files and pages within the files because we will be destroying, not
preserving the archives. Those pages are finite, but we don't need to speed
up the process of destruction. What this means is that the file folders and
the pages within, from this point on, need to be touched only one more time
and they need to be to digitize at that time. After that, the original files
need to be permanently put away, as is, with the best archival techniques of
preservation.

2) Accessibility: This is the value from which we will be serving all of the
people of the world and especially those people who care, and who have, or
are, putting their life on the line to live out that care. Accessibility
needs to be open and Anybody, Anywhere, Anytime can access and organize the
Archives in any way they see fit for whatever reason.  They could create an
entirely new archive based upon the way they had organized the Archives and
download it to their computer. 

If we do this the files will never have to be moved, except into an
environment designed for archives. Yet, the achievement would be total
accessibility, flexibility, and total care for the Archives. It would also
provide the possibility for hundreds of people simultaneously to be engaged
in organizing the files into whatever subject categories they may find in
the files they are assigned to organized. This process would create new
configurations of the Archives, but only from a data standpoint; only from
"sorting" subject data from the Archive database. By contrast, if the
Archives are organized first, then they can be accessible only manually and
only on location. It could take years, as it already has, before they are
digitally available to anyone who is not in the basement of Kemper or to
whatever floor they will be taken.

3) Flexibility: The Archives can have maximum flexibility when there is no
danger of them being distroyed, changed, or reconfigured by the people who
can access them. The original archive will always remain as they are in the
present: file cabinet, drawer, folder, page, and image.  But, they will not
be able to invade  the Archives, nor arrange, configure, or delete anything
within them. In other words, no random person could change the configuration
of the Archives. And by contrast, any person could organize, configure, or
define subject categories and with authorization an entirely new Archive
Index could be created and posted parallel to the original Archive. The
Archives need to be digitized first in the order they are in currently. Once
they are captured they can be organized into an infinite number of
configurations.

There maybe many secondary values to be considered. Chronology: a Date Index
for each Archive page. Original Source: the coded location of each page.
This would allow anyone to see the history of the Order year by year; for
example, and it would show the human journey of a corporate community of
people year by year, who came together to create and live out of a response
to what was happening in the 20th Century.

This may not be the way people are thinking about the Archives, but during
the past 10 years I see how this is done every day in my work in an archival
system running throughout this country involving billions of pages in books
where no page is necessarily related to any of the other pages in the book.
This is the public record of land. Now they are organized so that you can
find any document of record (a Deed, for example) in any county in the
United States. These archives are located in each County Court House and
there are only three indices: 1) Reception Index, the date the document was
recorded; 2) the Grantor/Grantee Index, the party who sold and the party who
bought; 3) the Tract Index: specific tract of land found in tract, section,
township and range in which the land lies. We could delve into the processes
and methods for doing this, but for the immediate purpose of starting the
conversation, the details of processes and methods for doing this are not
included here.

Careful thought is needed to work on those indices. In principal, an index
should be something that cuts across every folder in all the file cabinets.
Not many indices are required. One index can be enough, two better, three if
there is a good reason. Any more indexes need to be considered only on the
basis of necessity. If the history of every tract of land in the United
States can be found in all of the three Indexes then it seems the Index of
the Archives would be a way to access all of the Archives.

This approach gets the Archives started, not in the final form, but in a
form required so that all the other steps can be taken to get to the
"organized archives". This would be the Primary Index and there may be other
Seconday Indices two, would be required in order to access the desired
images. The most obvious Index is a code for the precise current physical
location of each page. That would require something like: The number of the
image, File Cabinet number; Drawer letter; Folder Title/Subject; and the
Page number. So, for example, each page of each folder in each drawer in
each file cabinet would be coded as Image No. 00125, File Cabinet No.34,
Drawer B, File Folder Title:Summer '69, Page 56. The code therefore would be
00125.34B.S69 .56. This is the equivalent to the Tract Index. Another Index
might be Chronology: the date of each document. This would be equivalent to
the Reception Index.  The value here is that an Index needs to cut across
every file in the Archives. This would allow a hundred people, as an
illustration, to be assigned, say a Drawer each from a file cabinet. They
would organize the contents digitally, then each Drawer would be brought
together with the other Drawers from the same File Cabinet and be organized
as a complete File Cabinet. This organization would reveal what the "Subject
Categories" are in each File Cabinet, and finally those same people could
comb through those organized files and pull all of the content concerning a
specific Subject Category.

If the primary value is Preservation then we should touch the folders and
pages only one more time and that is to digitize them and put them back
exactly where they are now or move them to a contolled environment designed
for preserving archives. It is understandable to be concerned about how
could we ever retreive anything if they are dumped into a data warehouse
without being organized into subject categories. I don't disagree with that,
only the order of the process and order employed. Preservation first,
Accessability,second, and  Flexibility third. 

I hope this gets the conversation underway but however we move forward we
need to consider this approach. I regret that I will miss the meeting,  but
it couldn't be helped.

Everyone, take care of yourselves, and there is a very good reason to do so.

Grace and Peace,

Bill Parker

----- Original Message -----  

From: Sandra/Bob True <mailto:icatrue at igc.org>  

To: Colleagues <mailto:Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>  ; OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net
; springboard-request at wedgeblade.net 

Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 3:45 PM

Subject: [Dialogue] special invitation

Subject: [ustoptrainers] special invitation

Save the Date

You are invited to attend the 2009 ICA-USA Board Meeting and Strategic
Thinking Retreat

May 29-31, 2009

Friday, May 29                       evening
Welcome reception

Saturday, May 30                   morning
Focused Conversation

-          ICA's purpose: past, 

    present and future

                                                afternoon
Purpose and mission 

statement  workshop

Sunday, May 31                      morning
Strategic Directions 

workshop 

                                                afternoon
Song, Story, Symbol 

workshop

                                                Meeting adjourns at 2:00 pm

You are also invited to attend the three day Archives Project Planning and
Hands-on Workday Event - June 1, 2, 3.

For more information about the Archives Project, call 

Sandra True at (201) 209-1809

Online registration and information about lodging and meals will be
forthcoming.

  _____  

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