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historyhermann · 2 years ago

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Challenges of archival digitization, Robert Caro, and digital archives

Recently, when going through LinkedIn, I came upon a post by Margot Note, whom wears many hats simultaneously as a records manager, archivist, author, and consultant, about the shifting concepts of preservation in the digital world, which had been written last fall. She argues that information professionals, like archivists, have questioned existing assumptions about preservation, with the creation of new principles to born-digital materials (like tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts) and those materials which are digitized. This change is happening while physical records deemed to have "enduring value" are still acquired, stored, and made accessible. She goes on to state that the ever-changing digital landscape has added complexities to archival practice, altering existing procedures, especially in the realm of preservation, since those methods used to preserve physical paper materials no longer translate to digital resources, requiring new methods. For example, she notes that you can't reverse preservation treatments for digital records, unlike with paper records, such as migrating digital files to new formats when old ones are not usable anymore. These are transformations that, hopefully, do not constrain the original functionality of records.

Reprinted from my History Hermann WordPress blog and also the Wayback Machine. This post was originally published on April 25, 2019.

She also adds that for digital materials, the content is what important, not the carrier for such content and that unlike physical paper materials, which may not deteriorate rapidly if they are ignored, digital files are stored on media that "deteriorates, and rely on hardware and software that may no longer be available" which means that neglect is not an option. This means that despite differences in preserving digital and paper materials (often called "analog" or "legacy" materials), some practices can apply to both, like appraisal and addressing information as a collection rather than on an individual level, while recognizing that all materials have "the tendency to decay." She ends by saying that digital and paper preservation considers needs of patrons, with action needed, ultimately, to preserve materials in the immediate future, "ensure the survival of research materials for our users," and ultimately sustain "cultural heritage for the next generation."

While this is a good start, there is a lot more to talk about. I could bring in some of her other publications, like a book on family archives [1], but I'd like to broaden the scope. This article will talk about the challenge of digitization in archives (with connection to Robert Caro's recent comments) and challenges of digital archives. There will also be a connection to sister institutions of archives, libraries, which are distinct in and of themselves [2], as I have noted on this blog in the past, even as you get a MLIS/MLS (Master of Library and Information Science or the rapidly dwindling Master of Library Science) to study...archives. As the SAA notes on their "So You Want to Be an Archivist" page, the "number and content of archival education offerings, especially multi-course programs, has continued to expand in recent years, and a few institutions now offer master's degrees in archival studies." I've recently wondered why degrees like archival science (or perhaps archival studies) are not more widely offered, but perhaps that is a discussion which can branch out from this post.

Robert Caro's faulty argument and archival digitization

From the NARA Strategic Plan (2014-2018).

In order to begin this discussion, I am reminded of some dialogue in the 1971 science fiction movie, The Andromeda Strain. One character, Mr. Mark Hall (played by James Olson) asks "where is the library?" to which his colleague, Dr. Charles Dutton (played by David Wayne) responds: "No need for books. Everything's in the computer." And the movie goes on, as there is no more discussion. Later on, the computer does have an error and overload when too much information is inputted by the scientists, the "heroes" of this film in this top-secret facility in the Nevada desert called "Wildfire." The fact that everything is stored on the computer is not mentioned in any reviews of the movie I have found, and as such, perhaps people should revisit this movie for just this reason, as it is still relatively enjoyable. We have gotten to the point that everything is "in the computer" like in this film, not only with libraries and other public institutions, but more and more with archival institutions in recent days.

That brings us to the recent debate of what Robert Caro, a presidential scholar of the Johnson Administration said about digitization, whom was criticized by fellow archivists on the Twittersphere (and likely elsewhere), of archival records. He tried to describe how people are differently interacting with the records now than they had in the past, in the "pre-internet" days, those before the internet was publicly available, the days in which it was available only to universities and the government which Joe McMillian tried to exploit in a few episodes (starting with the Yerba Buena episode) of the third season of the short-lived series, Halt and Catch Fire, but not having much success as the show is all about failure.

Caro's words come from a recent interview by Eleanor Hildebrandt of Popular Mechanics because of the publication of his new book, Working, about his research process, apparently a #1 best-seller on Amazon. He told the interviewer that he still does much of his writing on a typewriter although he has a laptop on his desk (apparently a Lenovo ThinkPad). This is because he was told by those at the Johnson Presidential Library that his "typewriter was so noisy, it was disturbing the other researchers" which is telling. He also tells the interviewer that he took notes on his computer but still uses his typewriter and writes in longhand (who does that anymore?). While some would argue that this is fine, what he stated next is what was criticized by archivists on Twitter:

It [writing on a typewriter] makes me think more. Today everybody believes fast is good. Sometimes slow is good. Almost two years ago, Ina [Caro’s wife] and I went down [to the archives], and I’m sitting there, in the reading room, writing my notes. Everybody else is standing there taking photographs of their documents. They do it with cell phones now. If you saw me there, you’d see one person who’s not in the modern age.

Now, while each researcher can choose their own way to use documents, it seems like he is glaring down on those whom use their phones, or other electronic devices, to take pictures of documents. How can you even argue that those individuals are not taking their own notes or that they can think the same amount when using digital devices? As Jan Murphy, a family historian whom is a big fan of encouraging people to take notes, added on Twitter, it wouldn't be right to "insist on all handwritten notes all the time," the latter of which is "just nuts." Adding to this is the fact that digital photos can be transcribed at home, even comparing information from different archives. Additionally, sometimes people like Caro, whom could be considered to be part of the traditionalist/silent generation since he was born in 1935, may not even be able to read their own handwriting! This is the case with other people, especially those whom have dysgraphia, with the extent this learning disability affects the general population not currently known. With this, we should also consider that not everyone has the leisure/ability to transcribe material needed from an archive in longhand. Some, as Murphy noted in another tweet, would rather "spend the time in the archive, having taken my photo, making notes about the record's condition & taking notes for my source citation etc." The question is simple, as Murphy, who sometimes wishes she had a small manual typewriter when electricity is off, asks, posing a question which Caro never really answers: "But what's wrong with taking digital photos of records in archives?" I could concur with that. I don't see anything wrong with it. In fact, I would argue that institutions like the Maryland State Archives are examples of institutions which allow electronic devices such as phones to take photos of documents.

After this, he goes into the use of paper records:

I feel there’s something very important, to be able to turn the pages yourself. I don’t want anything standing in between me and the paper. People compliment me on finding out how [Johnson] rose to power so fast in Congress by using money. That happened down there, and it was a vague, amorphous thing. I was sitting there with all these boxes, taking all these notes. And you saw letters, his very subservient letters—“Can I have five minutes of your time?”—and then you see the same letters coming back to him. And I said, Something happened here. What’s the explanation? Why is a committee chairman writing to Lyndon Johnson, asking for a few minutes of his time? So I sat there and put my notes into chronological order. And then it became absolutely clear. Would the same thing have happened if I’d stood there taking photographs and went back? Possibly. But I don’t believe it. To me, being in the papers is really important.

While I understand what he is saying here, more and more records are online than ever before, meaning that the records of the Obama Administration and future presidencies will undoubtedly be different from those of the Johnson Administration. Caro is almost stuck back in time, part of the old guard of presidential scholars whom inhabited presidential libraries (which can more accurately be called presidential archives). I won't touch on the plans for the Obama Library only because I have written on that topic for one of my classes at UMD and it may be published in an academic journal in the future (fingers crossed), so I don't want to tread on the same topics in this post. I would add that using paper records is not the only way to interact with records, as users can easily interact with them online using new and exciting methods.

From here, Caro becomes a bit ridiculous:

Well, there’s no reason why that [a deep dive through thousands of digital pages of emails] has to be a different kind of research. Someone else could come along who was nuts like me and say, I’m going to look at every email. What’s more worrisome to me is that, when you talk about digitization, somebody has to decide what’s digitized. I don’t want anyone deciding what I can see. It’s very hard to destroy a complete paper trail of something. Lyndon Johnson was very secretive, and he wanted a lot of stuff destroyed. But the fact is, they were cross-referencing these pages into ten or twenty or thirty different files. There’s always something. But the whole idea of emails—I don’t use emails, I may be wrong—I’m not sure there’s a trail like that. It’s too easy to delete.

While he makes a good point that there can be the same kind of research, that doesn't mean he is right overall. It is laughable for him to claim that "when you talk about digitization, somebody has to decide what’s digitized" and to then declare "I don’t want anyone deciding what I can see." Clearly, he does not, understand the fundamental archival principle of appraisal, which has been debated from the time of those like British archivist Hilary Jenkinson in 1922 and U.S. archivist T.R. Schellenberg in 1956, the selection and description within archives. The records he is looking at, while researching at the Johnson Library, are chosen by professional archivists, specifically those from NARA, so people are deciding what he can see. As such, deciding what records are digitized is also a responsibility of archivists, which will be explained later in this post.

He further claims that it is "very hard to destroy a complete paper trail of something." I'm not actually completely sure about that. Taking from NARA's official history of presidential libraries, they write that before these libraries came about, with impetus from FDR in 1939 when he donated his personal papers to the federal government, presidential papers were often dispersed by former presidents and their heirs after their time in office. They further note that while many collections of records exist of presidents before Hoover at the Library of Congress, others are divided between historical societies, libraries, and private collectors. Even worse, as they acknowledge, "many materials have been lost or deliberately destroyed." So, a "complete paper trail," as he described it, CAN be destroyed.

Considering that "Lyndon Johnson was very secretive, and he wanted a lot of stuff destroyed" as he notes, this contradicts his point that it is "very hard to destroy a complete paper trail of something." I mention this because it would mean that if Johnson wanted, he could have worked to destroy a complete paper trail, especially since it was after Watergate that presidential records were considered property of the federal government rather than "private property" of the former Presidents, a view also widely held in the archival profession at the time. Furthermore, when he talks about cross-referencing of the pages, he seems to not understand how emails work. This is no surprise from someone who doesn't "use emails," as he admits! He claims that he is not "sure there’s a trail like that" and that "it’s too easy to delete" emails. While it is true is easy to "delete" them, think about "deleted" files on a computer. They are not really deleted but rather the directory to them is eliminated. The same is also true of any file, whether a PDF, a photograph, or something else you upload online: the file is never truly deleted, but only the directory to it is deleted. Just like when you throw something away in a garbage can, it is not simply eliminated, but it is sent somewhere else, like a horrid waste-to-energy plant or an overflowing landfill. There was actually a whole Futurama episode about an overly wasteful society back in May 1999, titled "A Big Piece of Garbage."

As Curl Hopkins wrote in The Daily Dot six years ago, when a user "deletes" an email normally it becomes "invisible to that user and is immediately a candidate to be overwritten" but until then it exists and it may even "persist longer on company servers." He further notes that even if a computer is "taken off your computer, it may still be available on the host’s server," adding that you must "presume that any email you compose will be available remain accessible forever," although secure email services are available. There may still be "elements that indicate the prior presence of the email" and logins that are often retained, to say the least. Even one article recommending how to delete emails forever warns that "some online email services maintain an offline backup of email accounts," adding that "your permanently deleted email may still reside in these inaccessible backups...There is no way to force immediate deletion of emails in these backups." Also, there are specific data retention rules on the federal level and likely within various organizations, which require retention of such emails. I am also reminded here of "Testimony" (S4, ep9) of Veep. I mention this because, at one point during the episode, Mike McLintock (played by Matt Walsh), the incompetent press secretary, is brought before a congressional committee. He thinks he deleted the voice memos of then-president, Selina Meyer (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus). In fact, as the committee reminds him, these memos exist in the cloud and they plan to listen to them for any further evidence in their investigation! [3]

With that, it leads to the next part of this post, which goes to a question that the public, taken in by stereotypes about archivists, often asks of archivists and archival institutions.

Why can't everything be digitized?

In May 2017, Samantha Thompson, an archivist at the Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives, wrote a post which aimed to answer the question of why archivists don't digitize everything since it is a common question. As such, it is clearly important to remind people who not everything is digitized and that, in fact, "only a tiny fraction of the world’s primary resources are available digitally," coupled with the fact that archivists and librarians themselves are "behind the abundance of primary sources already available on the internet" while organizations like the Internet Archive, or Ancestry.com have raised "public expectations about access to historical resources." [4] She goes onto argue that digitization, the "production of an electronic image of these record," saves information from a paper record, but it does not produce "a clone of the record" but rather results in an "approximation...of a dimension of the record," often called a surrogate. She further notes that while archivists commonly digitize records in order to increase access (which some cataloguers do as well), they also argue (rightly) that mass digitization is costly in time and money, which sometimes people are skeptical of, not realizing that "large-scale digitization in an institutional setting is not your average home scanning operation." There a few reasons for this, including archives holding vast amounts of material, with digitizing of even small archival collections as a big-time commitment since many groups of archival records are not easy to scan in quickly.

For instance, while you could use an automatic feeder to quickly scan a stack of pages, the benefits of such speed must be "weighed against the risk of a one-of-a-kind document being mangled by a paper jam" which is always a concern! This means you must engage in manually scanning which includes tasks such as removing staples (and paper clips), positioning the item, processing the images, and entering the appropriate metadata, all of which is a lot of work. As such, "scanning a single archival box of records can take days" as she puts it. This is even more the case if records within the file are various shapes and sizes, or if they are large enough that they must be scanned in sections and "digitally stitched together." While sometimes taking a photograph is the best option, you need a "high-quality photographic set-up including lighting, document holders, and a camera with an appropriate lens" which obviously is expensive enough that not all institutions can afford such a set-up. This means that scanning produces not an exact copy of the record "but only an impression of certain aspects of it" and it may be hard to convey annotations (like sticky notes) on the paper record itself in a digital form, or physical characteristics of the paper records. This brings us to one of the most important parts: linking the digitized record to crucial information, which is often called metadata, some of which is technical and other parts that describe the record itself. The latter is information like a date or time the record was created. But some elements are more complex like determining the "story of the person or organization that created it." As she puts it rightly, an individual record "within an archival collection does not tell us its whole story." This means that without vital descriptive work of paper records in the first place, those electronic records which are produced through digitization would be an unusable and undifferentiated mass.

She goes onto note that since digitization involves investment of resources and time, archivists need to be clear that the electronic files produced adequately represent the originals, meaning there need to be quality control checks in place. This involves factors such as scanning resolutions, typing accuracy and photographic skill, since archivists are responsible for ensuring that "people are getting a reliable and authentic view of records." There is another conundrum with digitization itself: archivists are required to not only retain the paper originals but the digital files as well. These are files that are subject to disorder and decay just like paper records, with a tiny shift causing a set of errors, with even unused data subject to random degradation and loss, often called "bit rot." Coupled with this is the question of future readability of the data, since digitization of files is not worthwhile if no one can open the files as software and the accompanying "hardware inevitably becomes obsolete." Luckily for all of us, especially those in the archival field, archivists are at the forefront of pushing boundaries of digital longevity as technologies and file format standards are improving. However,as she notes, the "average lifespan of a hard or flash drive is still a fraction of that of a piece of paper stored in optimal conditions" with digital data needing to be stored in specific temperature conditions as well. All of this means that when anything is digitized, archivists commit to maintaining the digital file and the original on which that file is based.

This connects to the resources required for digitization and post-digitization duties. For one, cameras and scanners which are high-resolution which can accurately capture the data are relatively expensive, with the same being the case for software to process images and attain digital storage which is secure. In order for digitization to "make a dent" in an average archival collection, a scanner, or several scanners, need to be constantly working, with some large archivists maintaining specific digitization units while smaller institutions fit it in when and where they can among their other duties. As a result, digitization of specific records is often part of projects which are funded by partnerships or grants, as she notes. In terms of the post-digitization duties, it is needed to make sure that the records are responsibly shared on the web, after checking with donor(s) to make sure the records can be freely shared in the first place with some not wanting this to happen for various reasons or due to copyright restrictions. Such sharing is important as it allows archivists to make the full meaning of records available to those accessing them online.

As such, digitization itself, as she argues, is a process that is approached by archivists methodically. This requires, of course, assessing archival collections beforehand in order to determine whether the records are worth being shared and digitized. Such a process takes time, even if an "inexpensive pool" of labor can be mobilized, along with a big investment of resources and time. As a result, as she puts it, we may never, in fact, have everything digitized, with trials and triumphs of digitization being a "constantly unfolding process" while new models are coming about. With that, access is still important, as is digitization, with archivists continuing to "grapple with this immensely powerful way to broadcast the knowledge we steward." Her article ends by stating that everyone can help support digitization through sharing information that goes with a photograph from an institutional collection, and to, most important of all: "be curious about what archivists, information professionals, and cultural workers do." The latter requires, of course, asking questions and spreading answers, since the more people who understand the value of archivists, the more support they will get, and the more support archivists can provide to the public at-large.

It is worth recalling here a paper I wrote last semester (which will likely never be published anywhere academically) where I asked different archival institutions about their approach to digitization, using different forms of interaction, like Twitter, email, web-form submissions, and web-chat (AskUsNow!), the latter which is relatively horrible/annoying from my experience, although others may have had different experiences. [5] One of the best responses I got was from Corey Lewis of the Maryland State Archives (MSA) whom told me that I could personally contact him if I was interested in their digitization efforts. It was a response of high quality I wouldn't have gotten if I had just looked on their website. To this day, they still don't have their digitization strategy on their website from what I can tell (perhaps its hidden somewhere). I also got responses back from the Council of State Archives (CoSA) on digitization and even from the Oregon State Archives, the latter of which I hadn't even tweeted to, which was impressive. In a similar manner to the person from the MSA, I got a message from Joanne Archer, the head of Access and Outreach Services at Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Maryland Libraries, which said I could send her any further questions. Interestingly, when it comes to digitization they do not "directly solicit campus input."

With that, we can move into the final part of this post which focuses on challenges of digital archives and the digital world.

Challenges of digital archives and the current digital landscape

In the "Mars University" episode of Futurama, which first aired on October 3rd, 1999, the Planet Express crew go to Mars, which has, in the universe of this wondrous animated sitcom, been terraformed and has a typical college campus called Mars University. Before the episode becomes an homage/parody to Animal House, there is a scene where Professor Farnsworth tells Leela, Fry, and Bender about the Wong Library, adding that it has "the largest collection of literature in the Western universe." After that, Fry looks in and sees these two disks:

That's obviously the joke, and is more than a "bookish moment." It's basically saying that all the knowledge can be stored on two disks. It's still kinda funny, although the joke is dated, as these are supposed to be something like CDs (which first came about in 1982). In a future post I'll definitely bring in the Futurama episode ("Lethal Inspection") that fellow archivist Samantha Cross of POP Archives reviewed, when I get to that season, as I'm currently only on Season 2 of the show as I plan to re-watch all the show's episodes, over time.

This brings us to digital archives, specifically, which goes beyond the digitization of paper files. This applies to files which are born-digital. It requires, of course, a digital preservation policy as Margot Note, who was cited at the beginning of this article, writes about, which would need to be integrated into the program of an archives itself. It would also necessitate collaboration with other institutions and individuals in preserving digital records, and making sure that digital preservation is specifically tailored to your institution. Beyond this, there are two elements that apply to digital archives: choosing what will be preserved and file formats that are sustainable.

For the first element, I turn to an article, again, by Margot Note. She writes that selection and appraisal of digital records is similar to physical records,but that long-term preservation of digital records relies on "understanding of how file formats work." It also requires, as she notes, access to the appropriate hardware and software, with the appropriate skills, with the unavailability of these factors in an archival institution meaning that preservation of the digital files will not be successful. As such, technical appraisal of the digital files, themselves, considers whether they can be read, then subsequently documented, processed and finally preserved. Helping choose what digital archives preserve depends on whether the content itself is relevant to the mission of the archival institution, the historical value of the records, specifically if they have enduring value or are significant socially or culturally. For the digital records themselves, archivists also need to consider the integrity of the files, if they are usable or reliable. This means answering whether the materials themselves are in "preservation-friendly file formats" and if there are limits on the records, in terms of privacy or intellectual property, which makes them "inaccessible for research." Another important factor, as she describes is funding since the preservation and management of such digital records is by no means cheap. Finally, she notes that one must consider whether the digital records are unique or whether they are fully documented. She adds that keeping everything, when it comes to digital files, is not wise, since there are limited resources and mechanisms to search (and access) collections of a large-scale are often not adequate, and that selection curates collections which will ultimately have "high research value." She ends with her point that no matter how complicated the systems for managing digital records become, people need to be involved in choosing what is preserved as digital archival records. Even with the possible automation of some decisions in days to come, archivists would need to balance benefits of saving certain digital records over other digital records, at a time that archivists continue to rise to the challenge of selecting and maintenance of "digital artifacts in a changing technological landscape" as she puts it.

In a related article, she writes about archivists choosing the right and sustainable file formats. This relates to digital archives because the sustainability of digital records in and of themselves depends on file formats that will last for long times, with the Library of Congress putting in place "some criteria for predicting sustainable file formats in digital archives" as she puts it. It further requires considering whether a format is widely used, the files can be identified, specifications of file formats are publicly available and documented, the files can function on a variety of services (be interoperable), and they have an open format since issues with licensing, patents, digital rights, and property rights complicate preservation efforts. She points to efforts by the Digital Preservation Coalition to analyze file formats which are commonly used. She also writes that over time some file formats have become preferred over others, like TIFF files used as master images for preservation during digitization and PDF/A as a standard file format. Even so, some standards for file formats are still in flux, with no consensus among archivists, as she puts it, as to what "file format or codecs should be used for preservation purposes for digital video"! At the closing of her article, she argues that regardless of the preservation actions you take, having file formats that are sustainable is crucial, since having file formats which are lasting influences the "feasibility of protecting content" in the face of a changing environment in the technological world where repositories and users co-exist at the present.

Speaking of all of this, I am reminded of an ongoing study by S.C. Healy, a PhD candidate in digital humanities at a university based in Ireland (Maynooth University), trying to find how "wider research and cultural heritage communities’ can progress from creating web archives to establishing paradigms to use web archives for study and research." I plan to sign up for this study as I've talked about web archiving in several classes. This is relevant since, as Genealogy Jude, as she calls herself on Twitter, noted, "the Internet...has shifted the demographic profile of genealogists." This matters to archives and archivists because many of those genealogists are some of the most common users of libraries. [6] In fact, one of the articles I found during my research for my paper on the Obama Library, a scholar in the 1990s (I don't remember the exact date), National History Day, where I am being a judge again this year on the state and national levels, and connecting with genealogists as a way to bring in more users to archival institutions.

Perhaps we can even bring in one of the SAA words of the week, specifically level of description. Simply it is defined as the "level of arrangement of the unit being described" and the "completeness or exhaustiveness of the description." It connects to recent discussions like one at Hornbake Library recently which focuses on impact of digital repositories, which is in the same realm as digital archives. Perhaps discussions like this will make it easier to define what archivists do and what archives are, as some have tried to do through teaching.

I also think about, apart from creation of some digital archives portals, of what Lilly Carrel, archivist at the Menil Archives in Houston said about digital preservation: "I think digital preservation offers creative ways to enhance the post-custodial approach and ensure important records are preserved" whom was recently interviewed by Vince Lee of the SAA's Committee of Public Awareness, also known as COPA. That is even more the case when there are digital archives, whether completely digital or part of traditional archival institutions like those at universities or serving specific states. There is also a job at the Library of Congress about web archiving, with applications that close on May 1.

With all of this, there is, not surprisingly, a debate among scholars, especially in the field of archives and libraries, over a possible difference between a digital library and a digital archives. Some within the field say there is a difference, while others dismiss that, arguing that there is not. Currently, I don't want to go down that road, or talk about some continuing tension between historians and archivists, despite past efforts by the SAA to make connections with the AHA, the American Historians Association. I also could talk more about the challenges when it comes to archiving born-digital material, but perhaps I will revisit that in a future post on here.

I'll end with what one archivist, blogging on the New Archivist WordPress over five years ago, put it, "please keep up the discussions, and contribute in ways that you think have value," adding that the "seeming lack of support in public" doesn't mean that archivists are not doing anything. [7] That is what I am trying to do with post and this blog, as a whole, changing from a focus on historical explorations about the Maryland Extra Regiment, the Maryland Loyalist Regiment, reprinting past posts and biographies I wrote when I worked at the MSA on the First Maryland Regiment, which is often called the Maryland 400, and other topics, as readers of this blog from the beginning will know. This all connects to my newfangled newsletter on SubStack, which I recommend readers of this blog subscribe to, which I hope expands in the days to come.

Until next time! I look forward to all of your comments.

Notes

[1] She has written so much that I recommended that she could even write a few e-books. She has actually written a number of books already, like Creating Family Archives: How to Preserve Your Papers and Photographs, a paperback book, and two other books more specifically for information professionals: Project Management for Information Professionals (seems like a textbook, although she calls it a "handbook") and Managing Image Collections: A Practical Guide (Chandos Information Professional Series) (a guide for those at institutional archives, perhaps?).

[2] If you want to know more about the distinction between the two, there is a new book published by the SAA (Society of American Archivists), titled Archives in Libraries: What Librarians and Archivists Need to Know to Work Together, which seems to make these distinctions and could be a good read. I can't give a firmer assessment as I have not read the book.

[3] Interestingly, in the review of this episode by Kate Kulzick of A.V. Club, this part of the episode is not mentioned. In fact, Mike's role in the episode is not mentioned at all!

[4] If you are interested, I'd also recommend reading "How do archivists organize collections?", "How Do Archivists Describe Collections? (or, How to Read a Finding Aid)", and most importantly "What do archivists do all day?", two of which are also by Samantha Thompson.

[5] Perhaps at a later time I'll bring in my other papers I have currently uploaded to academia.edu like "The concept of a Baltimorean Homeless Library (BHL)," "Uggles and the University of Illinois: a very furry situation indeed!," and "Strategic Plan Analysis--Maryland State Library Resource Center (SLRC)," the latter of which is relatively technical. All of these are mainly in the realm of libraries rather than archives, however.

[6] She also stated, in a tweet following, that it is good that genealogy has found new people with "energy and new ideas, otherwise it would be a dying hobby" which I will agree with, as a millennial genealogist myself, beyond what someone like fellow genealogist Amy Johnson Crow will describe. Others whom responded to her said that its a time-consuming hobby, while others said that retired people still have some advantages over young people, and her responding to a concern that the internet has isolated people (not an invalid concern), that "the Internet has enabled people to contact relatives and share research much more easily than before" which also is a valid point! This also includes, as Carolynn, another genealogist, argued: "challenging racist, misogynistic and xenophobic genealogists" even if that can be hard. At the same time, I see those, in the wake of the racist ancestry.com ad (for Ancestry Canada) to grumble about how much they "hate" them, for justified reasons, although I don't necessarily feel the same as a person whom runs two genealogy blogs and is a family historian for both my mom and dad's side of the family. I seem to sympathize more with those whom say that there are reasons "why you can't rely on search engines like @Ancestry" with misspellings and mistaken listings.

[7] They also said that the lack of supportive views on Twitter or lists "does not mean that the vast majority of people are not appalled by the few rude ones" but rather that the latter are shown indifference by the many.

#digitization #archives #robert caro #preservation #veep #substack #maryland state archives #ancestry #genealogy

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dailylicenseplates · 11 months ago

Text

License Plate of the Day 0010

State: Maryland

Run: 2017?-present

Type: special interest

My Other Car is a Bicycle

The BN does not stand for anything in particular

One of the hundreds of organizational support license plates offered in Maryland. Costs $25 and must be a member of the organization to obtain, money collected does not go to the organization.

Image Credit

#hell yeah for biking hell no for not putting the date this thing was made anywhere on your website bike Maryland #if you know the date please let me know their questions form is down #I found a post mentioning it dating 2017 so it’s at least in 2017 #I spent way too long researching this i went through bike marlylands entire news archive #anyways #license plate #vehicle license plate #license plate of the day #United States #maryland #2010’s #2020’s #dubious date #special interest

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anistarrose · 1 month ago

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Things To Know To Get Your Vote Counted — Non-Exhaustive List

[Plain text: "Things To Know To Get Your Vote Counted — Non-Exhaustive List."]

Post date: October 28, 2024. Contains information relevant to both in-person and absentee voting.

Same Day Voter Registration:

[Same Day Voter Registration:]

If you're not already registered to vote, over 20 states (and DC) allow you to register while you're at the polling place on election day (or for early voting). If you're making a last-second decision to vote, or you thought you were registered but found out you weren't, these states give you options up until (insert time the polls close) on November 5th.

[ID: map with states shaded where same-day registration is allowed in 2024. States that allow it are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. (North Carolina only allows it during early voting.) End ID.] (Source: Ballotpedia)

Alaska and Rhode Island only allow same-day registering voters to vote for president/vice president. North Carolina only allows same-day registration in the early voting period. Most states require an ID and/or proof of residency to register as usual — the Ballotpedia page is a good starting point for researching requirements in your own state.

Casting a Provisional Ballot:

[Casting a Provisional Ballot:]

Provisional ballots are cast by voters who can't prove they are eligible to vote at the polling place on Election Day. For example, if you:

don't have a photo ID on you, but it's required in your state?

requested an ID ballot, but had to vote in person because you didn't receive it?

changed your name or address, but it doesn't show up in the registration information?

have your eligibility challenged by a poll worker for any reason?

Then you should ask for a provisional ballot. Moreover, federal law requires election officials to offer voters a way of tracking whether their vote was counted. Many states have online provisional ballot trackers.

Provisional ballots are used in all states except for Idaho and Minnesota. To learn more about your specific state, I recommend the National Conference of State Legislatures (archive link if the site is down).

Tracking Your Ballot and Curing Signatures:

[Tracking Your Ballot and Curing Signatures:]

In addition to provisional ballots, if you've submitted an absentee ballot, Vote.org compiles ballot trackers to ensure your ballot is received — the vast majority of states have an online version.

Moreover, if voting absentee, familiarize yourself with your state's cure period for signature errors, and be on the lookout for communication in case your signature is found not to match. 33 states require some kind of notification and ballot-curing process — which means that if your ballot is rejected, you have a chance to fix it, albeit most likely needing to appear in person.

Be Careful About Phones, Ballot Selfies, Political Clothing:

[Be Careful About Phones, Ballot Selfies, Political Clothing:]

Many states disallow taking pictures of your ballot, and even some of the states listed as "allowing" it only do so under specific conditions (ex: your face isn't in the photo, the photo isn't taken at the polling place, et cetera). Moreover, several states go even further, and ban phones at the polling place altogether. Nevada, Maryland, and Texas are the states I'm aware of, but there may be more.

Also, at least 21 states ban political apparel or buttons in polling places. Regarding both apparel and phones, it is also possible that cities could set their own rules, so you should err on the side of caution unless you know for a fact what's allowed and what isn't.

Responding to Voter Intimidation:

[Responding to Voter Intimidation:]

866-Our-Vote (866-687-8683) is a hotline you can contact, which will help connect you with lawyers and federal investigators. Their website also lists hotlines in Spanish, Arabic, and some East & Southeast Asian languages. If you witness or experience a civil rights violation, you should write down your account for future reference, contact the DOJ Civil Rights Division, and possibly also a local ACLU division.

Other Information:

[Other Information:]

Getting time off work to vote, state-by-state

State election department contact information

Vote411 (voting law information & candidate information)

If anyone notices an error or broken link in this post, please let me know so I can correct it. If anyone would like to add on information in the notes, please do so — especially if it's specific to your state! Please just include a source if possible, and present the information as accessibly as you can. Overall, good luck out there.

#politics #us politics #simply could not find a good 2024 post about this information that had both sources and image descriptions #so i made it myself

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usnatarchives · 9 months ago

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The WAVES of Change: Women's Valiant Service in World War II 🌊

When the tides of World War II swelled, an unprecedented wave of women stepped forward to serve their country, becoming an integral part of the U.S. Navy through the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) program. This initiative not only marked a pivotal moment in military history but also set the stage for the transformation of women's roles in the armed forces and society at large. The WAVES program, initiated in 1942, was a beacon of change, showcasing the strength, skill, and patriotism of American women during a time of global turmoil.

The inception of WAVES was a response to the urgent need for additional military personnel during World War II. With many American men deployed overseas, the United States faced a shortage of skilled workers to support naval operations on the home front. The WAVES program was spearheaded by figures such as Lieutenant Commander Mildred H. McAfee, the first woman commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Under her leadership, WAVES members were trained in various specialties, including communications, intelligence, supply, medicine, and logistics, proving that women could perform with as much competence and dedication as their male counterparts.

The impact of the WAVES program extended far beyond the war effort. Throughout their service, WAVES members faced and overcame significant societal and institutional challenges. At the time, the idea of women serving in the military was met with skepticism and resistance; however, the exemplary service of the WAVES shattered stereotypes and demonstrated the invaluable contributions women could make in traditionally male-dominated fields. Their work during the war not only contributed significantly to the Allies' victory but also laid the groundwork for the integration of women into the regular armed forces.

The legacy of the WAVES program is a testament to the courage and determination of the women who served. Their contributions went largely unrecognized for many years, but the program's impact on military and gender norms has been profound. The WAVES paved the way for future generations of women in the military, demonstrating that service and sacrifice know no gender. Today, women serve in all branches of the U.S. military, in roles ranging from combat positions to high-ranking officers, thanks in no small part to the trail blazed by the WAVES.

The WAVES program was more than just a wartime necessity; it was a watershed moment in the history of women's rights and military service. The women of WAVES not only supported the United States during a critical period but also propelled forward the conversation about gender equality in the armed forces and beyond. Their legacy is a reminder of the strength and resilience of women who rise to the challenge, breaking barriers and making waves in pursuit of a better world.

Read more: https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2023/11/06/historic-staff-spotlight-eunice-whyte-navy-veteran-of-both-world-wars/

#WAVES #Women’s History Month #Veterans #Women’s History #Military #U.S. Military #World War II

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covid-safer-hotties · 2 months ago

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Also preserved on our archive (Daily updates!)

Weird how this "endemic" German strain is poised to dominate worldwide... That almost sounds like a pandemic :O

By Ahjané Forbes

KP.3.1.1 is still the dominant COVID-19 variant in the United States as it accounts for nearly 60% of positive cases, but the XEC variant is not far behind, recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows.

"CDC is monitoring the XEC variant," Rosa Norman, a CDC spokesperson told USA TODAY. "XEC is the proposed name of a recombinant, or hybrid, of the closely related Omicron lineages KS.1.1 and KP.3.3."

The variant, which first appeared in Berlin in late June, has increasingly seen hundreds of cases in Germany, France, Denmark and Netherlands, according to a report by Australia-based data integration specialist Mike Honey.

The CDC's Nowcast data tracker, which displays COVID-19 estimates and projections for two-week periods, reflected that the KP.3.1.1 variant accounted for 57.2% of positive infections, followed by XEC at 10.7% in the two-week stretch starting on Sept. 29 and ending on Oct. 12.

KP.3.1.1 first became the leading variant between July 21 and Aug. 3.

The latest data shows a rise in each variant's percentage of total cases from Sept. 15-28, as KP.3.1.1 rose by 4.6%, and XEC rose by 5.4%. Previously, the KP.3.1.1 variant made up 52.6% of cases and XEC accounted for 5.3% from Sept. 15-28.

Here is what you need to know about the XEC variant and the latest CDC data.

COVID-19:Your free COVID-19 at-home tests from the government are set to expire soon. Here's why.

Changes in COVID-19 test positivity within a week Data collected by the CDC shows a drop in positivity rate across the board, while the four states in Region 10 had the biggest decrease (-2.7%) in positive COVID-19 cases from Sept. 29, 2024, to Oct. 5, 2024.

The data was posted on Oct. 11.

Note: The CDC organizes positivity rate based on regions, as defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Here's the list of states and their regions' changes in COVID-19 positivity for the past week:

Region 1 (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont): -2% Region 2 (New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands): -1.9% Region 3 (Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia): -1.3% Region 4 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee): -0.6% Region 5 (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin): -2% Region 6 (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas): -0.8% Region 7 (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska): -1.7% Region 8 (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming): -1.2% Region 9 (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, and Republic of Palau): -1.3% Region 10 (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington): -2.7% The CDC data shows COVID-19 test positivity rate was recorded at 7.7% from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5, an absolute change of -1.8% from the prior week.

COVID-19 symptoms The variants currently dominating in the U.S. do not have their own specific symptoms, the CDC says..

"CDC is not aware of new or unusual symptoms associated with XEC or any other co-circulating lineage of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19," Norman said.

The government agency outlines the basic symptoms of COVID-19 on its website. These symptoms can appear between two and 14 days after exposure to the virus and can range from mild to severe.

These are some of the symptoms of COVID-19:

Fever or chills Cough Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Fatigue Muscle or body aches Headache Loss of taste or smell Sore throat Congestion or runny nose Nausea or vomiting Diarrhea The CDC said you should seek medical attention if you have the following symptoms:

Trouble breathing Persistent pain or pressure in the chest New confusion Inability to wake or stay awake Pale, gray, or blue-colored skin, lips, or nail beds

#mask up #covid #pandemic #wear a mask #public health #covid 19 #wear a respirator #still coviding #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #XEC

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todaysdocument · 1 year ago

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Happy Constitution Day!

Can’t make it to the National Archives Building in person? Check out the hi-res scans in our catalog:

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government Series: The Constitution of the United States

Image description: Zoomed-in portion of the first page of the U.S. Constitution, including the words “We the People.”

Transcription:

We the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article. I.

Section.1. All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section.2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section.3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section.4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section.5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and maybe authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section.6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section.7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the

#archivesgov #September 17 #Constitution Day #U.S. Constitution #We the People

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countyflagchampionship · 7 months ago

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THIS IS THE CHAMPIONSHIP'S FINAL ROUND!

More info about flags below

Cecil County MD

The flag is red and white, divided vertically, with the red next to the hoist, and the white portion in the fly. On the white portion is a representation of the county seal. The flag was designed by B. B. Martin, near Elkton, and was adopted as the winning entry in a county-wide contest sponsored by the Cecil County Chamber of Commerce.

Bob Barnes (reference archivist at Maryland State Archives), 1998

Mercer County OH

On April 4, 2002, the County Commissioners adopted this official county flag for the first time in its history. The celebration of Ohio's 200th Birthday was the catalyst for the endeavor. Over thirty designs were received from students, residents and workers of Mercer County. The commissioners accepted the flag created by a group of nine individuals employed by Fanning/Howey Associates located in Celina, the county seat.

The flag is colorful, yet simple, and clearly represents the pride of the community. Agriculture is represented by a silhouette of an 1800's style barn. Three amber bands across the bottom represent the different colors of crops as they ripen and are ready for harvest. The lighthouse signifies Grand Lake, the largest man-made lake in Ohio. Beams radiating from the lighthouse stand for all six Mercer County schools: red for St. Henry, orange for Coldwater, gold for Parkway, green for Celina, blue for Marion Local, and purple for Fort Recovery.

The flag committee added one final touch to the design. The foundation of the lighthouse was modified to have fourteen stone blocks. Each block represents one of the townships. The county was named after General Hugh Mercer of the Revolutionary War.

The Ohio Channel

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racefortheironthrone · 2 years ago

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Please innumerate for us the specialized problems of the library sciences.

Let me start with the caveat that my information is based on my experiences at the National Archives more than a decade ago, and policy has definitely changed on this front as we can see from this graph of recent digitization - apparently NARA wants to get to 85% digitization by 2026. (Even still, I'd note that the records of the WPA are <0.001% digitized.)

However, back when I was doing the research that would eventually become my first book, I remember being at the National Archives II building in College Park, Maryland (Go Terps!) and getting really frustrated that all the records of the WPA were only available in their original physical form and that all the guides and indexes were also in paper only and were all from the 1970s, and I asked the archivist why the hell the National Archives hadn't been digitized already.

This is what they told me: if it's handled correctly and stored in the right environmental circumstances, paper can last a thousand years. Carbon copies can last even longer, if they don't rip. (Seriously, the bastard things are like onion skins, they'll split if you look at them funny.) Microfilm is slightly more technologically advanced than paper, but it only lasts 500 years in the right conditions.

We've only had computers en masse since the 1980s, and already there's a huge amount of records (especially from the early years) that we don't have any more, because the hard drives got re-formatted due to higher costs of storage space back in the day, or because old computers got thrown out when they were replaced by newer models and the hard drives are all rotting in landfills somewhere, or because backwards compatibility broke down and we just can't read those file types on our modern computers, or because the actual data got corrupted on the disc, or because some legacy company is asserting copyright against a video game museum, or because some political hack and/or president of the United States decided to violate the Presidential Records Act.

While we thought that the internet would cause an explosion of written records from ordinary people on the scale of the advent of mass literacy, there are vast swathes of the early internet that simply do not exist any more because the servers got switched off when Geocities et al. folded in the dot-com bubble burst or when everyone migrated to Web 2.0, and the Internet Archive tries its best (bless its heart, affectionately) but it can't be everywhere and save everything.

As a result, the archivist told me, digitization is a fraught question: what file format do we use? How do we know that file format will still be compatible and backwards-compatible in 50 years? 100? Longer? Do we keep everything locally or store it on the cloud, and how do we ensure that the storage mechanisms won't fail if there's a blackout or a virus or whatever? Do we digitize everything now, or do we wait until optical character recognition improves enough to the point where digitized records can be searched for words and phrases? Etc.

Keep in mind, I am a public policy historian who studies the 20th century U.S - I work primarily with the official records and the central archives of the richest government in the world. From a library sciences perspectives, this is kind of an ideal scenario, and it's still kind of fucked up. (Let me tell you, the rage and grief I felt when I learned that most of the General File of the Public Works Administration was thrown away by the National fucking Archives and Records Administration in the mid-1950s because they were running out of shelf space in the D.C location and didn't think these records were important...)

Now imagine what it's like at a local historical society or a small liberal arts college, or the national museum of a developing nation for that matter, who do not have the resources for the kind of grand digitization project that NARA started doing five years ago. Think of the sheer scale of historical records that sleep, unseen and untouched perhaps for decades and perhaps for ever, in little cubbyholes all across the world. Among professionals, historical records are measured in linear and cubic feet - think about that for a second, how many pages of paper there are in a foot when you stack them up, and how many hundreds and thousands and millions of feet there are across the face of the world. Think of all the millions of feet of pieces of paper that have been lost to us because of fire or rot or war or time itself.

This is why Peter Turchin is a quack. Historical records are not a standardized little database for social scientists to plug their fucking spreadsheets into; historians don't play that kind of bullshit t-ball, with all our data neatly packaged and handed to us on a silver platter. Our profession is not a social science, it's a goddamn treasure hunt through boxes that were never catalogued or categorized (or that were re-catalogued so many times no one remembers how they were put together in the first place) to find writing that no one has read since the authors died. All of us know that our work, our understanding, will always be partial and limited, because memory is infinitely fragile and the very idea of historical preservation is a mad existential defiance of entropy itself. These records are real, they are fragile - to hell with the Library of Alexandria, remember the National Museum of Brazil? - and they are all that is left to us of the dead.

#history #library sciences #archives #digitization #historiography

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archivyrep · 1 year ago

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#digitization #umd archives #umd #maryland state archives #archives #askusnow #wordpress #internet archive

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ahedderick · 2 months ago

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hey! this is kind of a longshot -- and if youre totally not comfortable answering this then no worries -- i know youre probably in the more appalachian side of maryland, but would you happen to know anyone renting out somewhere more in the eastern side of MD? just got a job at the national archives and trying to find a nice place!

Unfortunately, I am in the western end of the state; I do not know anyone in the eastern shore area. Wait, National Archives - that would be DC area? Oof, sounds like a pretty cool job in a really difficult (traffic) area! I will toss this out to my followers, see if anybody has any ideas.

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uispeccoll · 1 year ago

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#VoicesFromTheStacks

Image: Oscar Hahn from La Tercera

Oscar Hahn

Oscar Hahn, born in Iquique, Chile in 1938, began writing poetry early in life. The first book of poetry Hahn published, Esta Rosa Negra, in 1961, included poems he had written between the ages of 17 and 19. Once graduated from the University of Chile in 1963, Oscar attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and received his M.A. in 1972. Upon completion of this program, Hahn returned to Chile to teach, but was arrested after the 1973 coup d'état and held in an Arica prison. Within our Oscar Hahn collection, there is a testimonial about these days in jail and their aftermath, dealing in part with how it affected him as a writer. After his release, he returned to the states and obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he studied until 1977, when he returned to the University of Iowa, joining the Spanish-literature faculty.

Image: Imágenes nucleares y otros poemas by Oscar Hahn

Hahn is a celebrated, leading poet of his generation, sometimes called the Dispersed or Decimated Generation (Generacion Trilce). According to a biographical sketch in the collection, critics praised Hahn’s blend of fantastic, ironic, and realistic elements in his work, leading to the association of postmodernism and surrealism. One highlighted critical response from Kirkus Reviews contributor says Hahn “takes ordinary situations and images and implants within them a kind of surrealist grenade that explodes when least expected – and with striking effect.”

Image: Caricature drawing of Hahn from the Oscar Hahn Papers

In Special Collections and Archives, we have the Oscar Hahn Papers, containing a fairly complete list of Hahn’s publications and materials about him as well some published works in the monograph collection. A link to the collection finding aid can be found here.

-Kaylee S., Special Collections, Olson Graduate Assistant.

#uiowa #special collections #uiowaspecialcollections #voicesfromthestacks #library #poetry #chilean poetry #chile #oscar hahn

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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Moments before the kickoff of the 118th United States Congress in January, incoming GOP leaders ripped down Nancy Pelosi’s post-insurrection magnetometers, which had stopped at least one Republican, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, from entering the House floor with a handgun. The first meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, held on February 1, devolved into partisan vitriol as Republicans reversed an explicit ban on members bringing firearms into their hearings. Soon, AR-15 pins started popping up on rank-and-file lapels. Then, two weeks later, a bill was introduced to make the mass-shooter-approved AR-15 the “national gun of the United States.”

This may be Joe Biden’s Washington, but the US Capitol appears to be, once again, under the firm grip of the gun lobby. With repeated threats of federal government defaults and shutdowns consuming Washington throughout 2023, little attention has been paid to specific agency-by-agency spending proposals, including a House Republican proposal to zero out funding for gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That effort, part of a House appropriations bill, was postponed after Congress passed a short-term extension to fund the federal government into early next year. But that doesn't mean it won't return then, with powerful Republican lawmakers painting the CDC's research as overtly partisan.

“I think it may have a political component, and that's my concern,” Representative Robert Aderholt, an Alabama Republican, tells WIRED. He’s known as a cardinal on Capitol Hill because he chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which is tasked with producing the nation’s largest domestic funding measure, including control of the CDC’s budget, each year.

The powerful appropriator isn’t thoroughly versed in the gun violence research his subcommittee is trying to defund, but Aderholt is skeptical anyway. “If it were just honest, innocent research, then I wouldn’t have a problem,” Aderholt says. “But I have some concerns with the way that it’s being handled under this administration.”

Thing is, no one really knows what story the CDC research will tell. It’s only been around for three years after nearly a quarter-century of congressional prohibition under the 1996 Dickey Amendment, which essentially barred the CDC from examining the roots of the uniquely American scourge of gun violence.

“This is about public health,” Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the labor committee, tells WIRED. “We haven’t had it for 20 years. Think about all the research that was done about seatbelts and prevention. So I think about what’s happening with the uptick in gun violence, which is unbelievable … we need to do the research to help us be able to prevent that.”

In 2018, lawmakers upended the Dickey Amendment, explicitly clarifying that the will of Congress is for the CDC to research the contemporary weaponization of America. But federal dollars—which, contrary to GOP concerns, are still strictly forbidden from being used to promote gun control—didn’t start flowing to researchers until 2021. Democrats have pushed for $50 million annually to research America’s second-leading cause of death for people 18 years old or younger. (The first is motor vehicle accidents, which Congress devoted $109.7 million to research in the 2022 fiscal year.) But for the past three years, they’ve only been able to squeeze $25 million a year—split between the CDC and National Institutes of Health—out of Republican senators.

With more than 39,000 gun-related deaths so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, America’s on pace to endure another record-setting amount of carnage by year’s end, which you wouldn’t know from the giddily gun-friendly mood on the House side of the Capitol. “I think the Republicans are just nuts on this, you know, the extremes,” Mike Thompson, a Democratic representative from California, tells WIRED. Nuts or not, Republicans control the House.

Even through the tears stemming from America’s recent uptick in gun violence—including homicides, suicides, and mass shootings—the past three years have been an exciting time for researchers in this space, because when the federal government leads, university research follows. The two-plus decades drought has rippled through academia.

“People weren't going into this field because you couldn't make a career in it,” Andrew Morral, who runs RAND Corporation’s Gun Policy in America Initiative, tells WIRED. “It’s the kind of thing where it takes a fair amount of research before you start getting believable findings. I mean, you can have a study or two that show something, but in social science, it's very hard for one or two studies to persuade anyone.”

Morral is also director of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, which is philanthropically endowed with $21 million earmarked for firearm violence prevention research. A few years back, he led a conference with “30 to 100 people.” At the start of the month, when they held their annual meeting in Chicago, there were 750 attendees, including some 300 presenters whose studies ranged from how “guns provide access to sources of life meaning” for some Floridians to whether there’s any correlation between heat waves and shootings.

“A lot of new questions are being asked and new ways of looking at things—this just wasn't possible five years ago,” Morral says. “There [are] people coming into the field now, and that's what the money is doing. It's making it possible to get this field launched. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit here, but it's going to take a lot of research to start getting persuasive findings and it's starting to happen.”

In the wake of horrific mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, last year, before the GOP recaptured the House, Congress passed the sweeping Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), aimed at improving the nation’s background check system, stymieing gun traffickers, protecting domestic violence survivors, and enhancing mental health services in local communities and schools from coast to coast.

The measure includes billions for mental health, $250 million for community violence intervention programs, and $300 million for violence prevention in the nation’s schools. It also recognizes the federal deficiency in school safety research by creating a Federal School Safety Clearinghouse, envisioned as a repository for the best “evidence-based” research for keeping violence off American school grounds.

That best-practices clearinghouse for schools was a GOP-sponsored provision that made it into the BSCA, but, as WIRED reported last summer, studying gun violence wasn’t a part of negotiations on the measure aimed at curbing gun violence. This latest effort by House Republicans to effectively bar the CDC from researching gun violence has social scientists worried about the real-life consequences of turning off the federal funding tap again. The two Senate Republicans who negotiated the BSCA aren’t worried.

“People misuse research every day,” Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, tells WIRED. The other Republican who had a seat at the head table for last summer’s gun negotiations is one of minority leader Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants, John Cornyn of Texas—a leading contender for replacing the ailing GOP leader in the Senate—who shrugs off CDC gun violence research. “I don't think there's any shortage of research in that area,” Cornyn tells WIRED. But he bifurcates gun violence research from gun violence prevention. “We haven't been able to figure out how to solve all the crimes. Basically, we've tried to deter them, we've tried to investigate and prosecute them, but we haven't been able to figure out how to prevent them. So that's the basic problem, I think.”

Democrats agree. They also say the reason for that “basic problem” is clear: The CDC—through the chilling effect the federal prohibition had on academia over 24 years—has failed to foster a robust research environment to accompany America’s robust gun culture. But Democrats aren’t looking to pass reforms this Congress. Sure, they want to. But the House is barely performing at its normal rate of functional-dysfunctionality these days (just ask newly-former House speaker Kevin McCarthy). Senate Democrats are willing to have a gun violence prevention debate, but as of now, many say there’s no reason to try and debate House Republicans.

“They're not writing bills that are designed to pass the Senate in order to get signed by the president. They're literally throwing red meat to the fringe on every conceivable issue. That's just not serious,” Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who was at the center of last summer’s gun reform negotiations, tells WIRED. “At some point, they're going to have to figure out how to pass a bill with us, but they haven't reached that space yet.”

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helloitsbees · 9 months ago

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chapter 11 of till the road and sky align is now up! featuring the lovely state of maryland and some lawrence backstory. enjoy!

#saw posting #saw #saw fanfiction #chainshipping

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usafphantom2 · 8 months ago

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Restoration of the Smithsonian’s Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik

March 27, 2024 Vintage Aviation News Warbird Restorations 0

Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik arrived at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. November 18, 2021. (Smithsonian photo by Mark Avino)

United Fuel Cells

By Adam Estes

In the desperate and cataclysmic struggle that was the Eastern Front of World War II, which the countries of the former Soviet Union still call the Great Patriotic War, the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik (Shturmovik being a general term for attack aircraft in the Soviet Air Forces) was deemed by Stalin to be just as vital to the Red Army as air and bread. Designed by a team led by Sergey Ilyushin in 1938, the prototype for what would become the Il-2, then called the TsKB-57, first flew a year later in 1939 and was just beginning to enter production and operational service when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. As the relatively few Shturmoviks built up to that point where rushed into service, most of the factories tasked with building the Il-2s were forced to hastily relocate east of the Ural Mountains, where unskilled workers struggled to keep up with the production quotas sent from the Kremlin, but as the tide of war turned in the Soviets favor, the Shturmovik, much like the T-34 medium tank, would meet the Germans with numbers and determination. They were flown by crews from across the Soviet Union, who served as pilots and rear gunners, while ground crews worked tirelessly to repair and rearm Shturmoviks returning from the front.

Over 36,000 Il-2s of both single-seater and two-seater varieties were manufactured, making it the single-most produced military aircraft in aviation history. With its armored cockpit and engine compartment and wide array of armaments, from 23mm cannons to unguided rockets and various types of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle bombs, the Il-2s provided close air support for Soviet infantry and armored units, and were a vital part of Soviet military aviation, from the defense of Moscow to the Battle of Berlin. After the collapse of Nazi Germany, many Il-2s were exported to the Soviet Union’s new satellite states, such as Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Mongolia, and Yugoslavia (though this latter state would soon become a non-aligned nation during the Cold War). The Il-2, which would be codenamed the “Bark” by NATO, also led to the development of the Il-10 (NATO codename “Beast”), which served not only in the latter stages of World War II but in the Korean War as well. A number of Shturmoviks can be found in museums in Eastern Europe, though three examples have made their way to the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, including a single example currently under restoration at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

The Museum’s Shturmovik at its current location at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland. Image by Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

The identity of the Shturmovik in the Smithsonian is still surrounded by mystery and ambiguity. It is a composite aircraft made from the remains of three or four Shturmoviks recovered from the bottom of lakes near Leningrad and Murmansk in the early 1990s. With the fall of the Iron Curtain t, it suddenly became easier for Western warbird collectors and restorers to recover wrecks of German and Soviet aircraft from the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. In addition, it opened once-classified former Soviet archives to Western historians. And while more wrecks would be recovered up to the present day, the current situation with the Russo-Ukrainian War and the subsequent sanctions from NATO countries in response to Russia’s aggression has made it increasingly difficult for old wrecks to leave Russia or for Western scholars to visit those same archives.

However, during the 1990s, a Russian team of restorers would reassemble a Shturmovik in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) out of several recovered wrecks. At the time, the Smithsonian was informed by Russian sources that the basis for their Shturmovik had been one that had been shot down on the Leningrad front on March 15, 1944 while being flown, and was being flown by Lt. Ivan Maksimovih Andreyev and Sgt. Goncharov. Later investigative work has revealed that there was little information to substantiate the story, and with no data plates recovered from the wrecks, the National Air and Space Museum has since retracted their earlier stance. Another complicating factor in terms of the restoration was the way in which the aircraft was assembled in Russia. In the article The Flying Tank, written by James R. Chiles in the June 2022 issue of Air and Space Quarterly, restorer Bill Hadden said, “It appears that they used paint stripper and sand blasting and whatever was needed to remove corrosion and old paint before rebuilding the airplane…. For instance, the serial number was painted on in several places when they were manufactured…. With essentially all the original paint removed, we may never know the identity of our airplane or its particular service history.” Nevertheless, the Russians installed an original, albiet non-operational, Mikulin AM-38 V-12 inline engine, reassembled the landing gear, and refurbished the cockpit. After decades of submersion in the frigid Russian waters, the wooden tail assembly had fallen apart, so a new assembly was built. Following all of this, the reassembled Shturmovik was coated in primer, but the final paint scheme was never completed because a deal had been made for the Smithsonian in a trade agreement.

A view inside the cockpit of the Museum’s Il-2 Shturmovik. Image by Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

In the spring of 1995, the still-unpainted Shturmovik arrived at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland. At the time it had gone to the Garber Facility, aviation enthusiasts could go on pre-arranged, docent-led public tours of the facility’s numerous warehouses and its restoration shop. But in 2003, with the opening of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, the tours gradually came to an end, and those aircraft that had not gone to Dulles before the opening of the massive new museum would remain at Garber, away from public view.

The beginning of the ongoing renovations to the National Mall location would see some aircraft pulled out of Garber to be eventually displayed either at the National Mall or at the Udvar-Hazy Center, and with a new layout in store for the museum’s World War II in the Air gallery, the Smithsonian’s Shturmovik seemed the perfect fit to bring light to the Soviet perspective of World War II aviation. On November 18, 2021, the Il-2 arrived at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center’s Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar, where visitors can view the ongoing restoration projects from a second-story glass mezzanine.

Overhead view of Museum Specialist Jay Flanagan working on the new tail section of the fuselage he is building for the Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik in the background, while Museum Specialist Bill Hadden works on the horizontal stabilizer in the background in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. Image by Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

After it arrived in the Engen Restoration Hangar, NASM restoration specialists began analyzing the Shturmovik and preparing it for restoration. In this evaluation, the wooden tail reproduced by the Russian team in St. Petersburg was considered to be a poor facsimile with numerous structural problems. Luckily for the Smithsonian, enthusiasts of the Shturmovik were willing to help, providing access to manuals and reference materials, which would provide valuable information once translated into English.

The restoration staff has received further assistance from the Pima Air and Space Museum of Tucson, Arizona, which is home to another Il-2 recovered from the Eastern Front. Pima provided the NASM restoration team with digital copies of their engineering drawings used in their own restoration. These have been especially helpful in the refabrication of the tail action, which differs only from those built in wartime Soviet factories with the use of modern epoxy resin as opposed to water-based wood glues.

Museum Specialist Tony Hare adjusts the landing gear flaps for the Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. Image by Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

The restoration has also revealed traces of the original paint on several components, with the standard black, brown/tan, and green scheme on the upper surfaces of the aircraft, and the light blue paint on the underside. The Smithsonian intends to replicate this scheme, which was common on most Shturmoviks of the mid to late-war period. Other discoveries made during the restoration have led NASM officials to conclude that the aircraft was assembled in late 1943 at Zavod No.18 (Factory No.18) at Samara (known during the days of the USSR as Kuybyshev).

When the Shturmovik is complete, it will be placed on public display for the first time at the National Mall location’s upcoming Jay I. Kislak World War II in the Air Gallery alongside several other aircraft, including the Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6 flown by French defector René Darbois (previously covered here: Smithsonian’s Bf 109 Unveils a Hidden Story of Resistance ), the museum’s North American P-51D Mustang and General Motors FM-1 Wildcat.

With the IL-2, the Soviet perspective of WWII/Great Patriotic War, made all the more prescient by the current war between Russia and Ukraine being fought on some of the same battlefields in which Soviet aircrews flew their Shturmoviks against the Germans, can be told in ways that the original gallery, opened in 1976, was unable to do. Among the stories of Soviet aircrews that the museum intends to highlight is that of Anna Yegorova, who after flying reconnaissance missions in the Polikarpov U-2/Po-2 biplane, would fly 41 of her 277 combat missions in Shturmoviks until she was shot down in August 1944, and was held as a prisoner in the Küstrin sub-camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, until it was liberatedin January 1945. Like many Soviet POWs, Yegorova was interrogated by the NKVD, and it would be twenty years before she was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, the country’s highest military decoration.

Besides the example being restored at the National Air and Space Museum, there are two more Il-2s in the United States. Il-2m3 s/n 305401 has been restored to airworthiness at the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington, along with parts of three other Shturmovik wrecks and powered by a Jose Flores-built Allison V-1710 in lieu of the original Mikulin AM-38 V-12 engine. The other is the aforementioned example in the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona, and is currently on static display in the museum’s Hangar 3.

For more information on the Shturmovik and other projects, visit Homepage | National Air and Space Museum (si.edu).

Special thanks to Dr. Alex Spencer for his contributions to the making of this article.

@Vintageavaitionnews via X

#il2 #ww2 #russian air force #bomber

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