[ih] [xbbn] Museum archiving (was: Re: IENs)

Sat May 8 12:19:39 PDT 2021

My favorite library story didn’t take place in a library:

One afternoon I had an appointment at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (The original not the new one.) about some research I was doing on 17thC China.  I was down on rue de Rennes and didn’t want to be late and trust the Metro as I usually would. So I hailed a cab, jumped in the back, and in my best French said, "Bibliotheque Nationale, s’il vous plait?” The driver turned to me and in English (so much for my French) ;-) said, “Do you have an address?” I looked at him dumbfounded. Huh? It has been there for 300+ years, it takes up 4 blocks! How can you not know where it is! (Of course, I didn’t say that.) He repeated, “Do you have an address?” I blurted out, “Rue Richelieu”. And off we tore through Paris. Across the Seine, up the Av. de l’Opera, hung a couple of rights and pulled up in front of the Bibliotheque. As I was leaning forward to pay him, he turned to me and said, “Shows! Women! I can find! BUT BOOKS!!”  ;-) I fell on the floor laughing. 

What a great cabby!

John

> On May 8, 2021, at 12:03, Bill Cattey <wdc at MIT.EDU> wrote:
> 
> In the 1990s, I had the great good fortune of collaborating with MIT Librarians.  It was the favorite part of my career. I learned a LOT from them.  This thread puts me in mind of my favorite librarian story -- proof that scanning for archiving is never going to be sufficient.
> 
> There was a researcher who was researching an archive of letters to home written by Civil War servicemen.
> 
> The researcher was smelling the letters.
> 
> Why?  In encampments where there was cholera, all outgoing mail was spritzed with vinegar as a crude disinfectant.  There was never good tracking of cholera, but these letters home provided a proxy for recorded cholera outbreaks during the Civil War!
> 
> -Bill Cattey BBN '86
> 
> John Day wrote on 5/8/21 11:35 AM:
>> The thing that scares me are the administrators who think that that because the material has been scanned the original artifacts are no longer needed and can be discarded. It is far more important than that. At best, it means the artifacts don’t need to be handled as often, which as the centuries go on becomes more and more critical.
>> 
>> John
>> 
>>> On May 8, 2021, at 11:12, David Walden <dave.walden.family at gmail.com <mailto:dave.walden.family at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> i have been an amateur but serious historian for a couple of decades and accessing archives and observing professional historians over that time.  I think commitment to scanning/digitizing documents is important. Archives with tight budgets employing people not used to engineering level salaries and other compensation tend to see  scanning/digitizing as *very*, perhaps prohibitively, expensively.  Document contributors on this list might be able to help them think about digitizing costs and methods.  
>>> 
>>> Back maybe to the sense of Dave's question, archives may not be interested in everything one has to give.  It may take more than one archive to find homes for one's materials.
>>> 
>>> Finding aids are important, as Craig noted.  An archive depending on google-like searches is less desirable in my view.  
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On May 8, 2021, at 10:11 AM, John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> >A slight correction, Craig. 
>>> >I am a recognized historian in the History of Science and Cartography, primarily 17thC-18thC China and published widely. I have spent considerable time in archives across Asia and Europe and with private collectors. My experience goes well beyond computer museums, as I told Dave off-list, including junk rooms in the Vatican. (Sometimes one finds things in the oddest places.) ;-)
>>> >You are right about access. Electronic copies can be nice, but there are important things about provenance, etc. that one can only learn by seeing the artifact itself.
>>> >John
>>> >> On May 8, 2021, at 08:50, Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net <mailto:craig at tereschau.net>> wrote:
>>> >> 
>>> >> 
>>> >> Hi Dave:
>>> >> 
>>> >> You asked about museums and their commitment to archiving.  As someone who was trained as a historian and still does occasional archival work for fun, I'll hazard a somewhat structural answer and then John D. can comment on computing museums.
>>> >> 
>>> >> One can assess archives on at least three dimensions:
>>> >> 
>>> >> * Commitment to ensuring their collections are preserved for centuries to come.  This requires money (for fire suppression and temperature monitoring and the like) and also requires careful evaluation and planning (preserving paper for instance, is different from preserving paintings, which is different from preserving fabrics).
>>> >> 
>>> >> * Commitment to creating finding aids (catalogs, indexes, collection descriptions) that enable researchers to find items in the collections.
>>> >> 
>>> >> * Commitment to making their collections available for research (or public display).
>>> >> 
>>> >> The last may surprise folks but there are a number of institutions that have strong views about who should and should not be able to use their collections, usually to the detriment of scholarship and the public interest.
>>> >> 
>>> >> (And, if you want an example of exactly how not to do all three, consider the team of scholars who were originally given control of the Dead Sea Scrolls).
>>> >> 
>>> >> Craig
>>> >> 
>>> >> -- 
>>> >> *****
>>> >> Craig Partridge's email account for professional society activities and mailing lists.
>>> >-- 
>>> >Internet-history mailing list
>>> >Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
>>> >https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history>
>>> 
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