[Dialogue] Values for the Archives
Lawrence Philbrook
larry at icatw.com
Tue May 19 02:23:14 EDT 2009
Dear Bill
Excellent work this is not an area I know a lot about but I do think we
have access to people like you who do and we need to take their advice.
Especially upfront so that the thinking in June can be as effective as
possible
The 4th value I would recommend is practicality. What can be done
within the practicality of available people, time and funding? This can
include creative new sources of funding of course but otherwise it will
not be done.
With respect, Larry
Bill Parker wrote:
> 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 <mailto:OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net> ;
> springboard-request at wedgeblade.net
> <mailto: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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