[Personal_archives] Welcome and some first questions for Susan

[Susan E Thomas]

On to the second question...

My experience to-date suggests that reactions to post-custodial
strategies vary. In Paradigm, we were dealing largely with assistants
who had different attitudes to the project's objectives, and sometimes
concerns about what it could mean for them (they would likely feature in
the archive after all). Some assistants were enormously helpful and
engaged, but this was more typical for those cases where the
politician's engagement with the project was secondary to their
engagement with the Library. In short, the post-custodial approach
appears to work best when the creator is ready (is organised enough and
understands what they're getting into), willing (has time) and keen (is
motivated) to be archived. 

In the Bodleian's regular collection development, it is becoming more
common for us to offer an opportunity to discuss the digital element of
an archive. Some creators genuinely want some help, and they at least
want to know how to get the material to the Library. The objective of a
site visit isn't necessarily to alter a creator's practices (unless
something really worrying is apparent!), so much as to talk about risks
that can be mitigated and to learn about the creator's operating
context. Sometimes it's not within the power of the individual to change
how they operate with technology in any major way: they could be
dependent on a particular person or group for the services they use, and
they have limited power (or confidence) to tweak things. Even if the
visit doesn't alter an individual's practices one iota, it informs the
Library of what's coming next, and that in itself is very helpful. It
also gives the creator and the Library a chance to start exploring the
boundaries of the archive - this will become more and more important as
archivists use digital forensic technologies, which are capable of
revealing much more from a person's hard disk than is available through
the creator's regular interaction with their machine. Talking to
creators is also going to be necessary if we're to stand any chance of
capturing the material that they've stowed in online services.

I think it's true to say that creators are often willing to show/give
papers more readily than digital archives. Why is that? Well, most
digital materials aren't very old yet. In my experience this means that
creators don't see them as archives, and, even if they do, not enough
time has passed to make them feel comfortable about transferring the
material. Papers are often older and bulkier, and sometimes giving them
to an archivist is a relief. At the project outset I had thought that
individuals would be more willing to give digital materials, as they
could more easily give copies while maintaining copies themselves;
sometimes this is a helpful factor, bit it's not always enough. I also
found that some were nervous about the security of digital materials, as
stories of paper dossiers left on trains seemed to be overtaken by
stories of laptops and flash drives being mislaid, or emails leaked to
newspapers.

Susan

Susan Thomas
Digital Archivist/Project Manager
Bodleian Library
 
Web:  http://futurearchives.blogspot.com
Tel:    +44 (0) 1865 283821
Post: Oxford University Library Services
         Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu 
> [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf 
> Of Hobbs, Catherine
> Sent: 16 November 2009 13:56
> To: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: [Personal_archives] Welcome and some first questions 
> for Susan
> 
> Good morning (Well, of course it's "good afternoon" to Susan), 
> 
> A warm welcome to Susan Thomas, digital archivist at the 
> Bodleian Library at Oxford who is here to discuss the 
> PARADIGM project and digital personal archives issues with us 
> this week.  
> 
> >From my reading about the PARADIGM project, I have to say 
> that I am greatly impressed with the resulting workbook:  its 
> clarity, its structure and its continual emphasis on 
> alternate approaches and the pros and cons of different 
> considered solutions.
> 
> However, before things get too technical, I would like to ask 
> two questions of Susan which relate to the emphasis of the 
> project on personal archives:
> 
> 1)  In discussing the choice to study politicians personal 
> archives, there is some consideration of how politicians 
> archives are perhaps a-typical of personal archives in 
> general (i.e. there are created by politicians offices and 
> are comprised of professional documentation) and how much of 
> what we might consider to be personal documentation was 
> missing from the study.  Can you elaborate a bit on the early 
> discussions you and your colleagues at Manchester had about 
> these issues of what constitutes a personal archive and how 
> the case study may or may not be transferable to other types 
> of personal archives?  In the very first year of the SISPA 
> group (2001-2002), we had a rather interesting discussion 
> along the lines of how politicians archives seem to exist at 
> a certain margin between personal fonds and the public 
> record.  Has there been any attempt to model this approach to 
> other types of personal archives (writers fonds or family 
> archives, for example)?  
> 
> 2)  The workbook discusses post-custodial strategies with 
> regard to saving personal digital archives from their fates.  
> Could you elaborate on the reactions of the creators of these 
> archives in terms of the site visit and on-site appraisal 
> interventions as well as to the suggestions that they manage 
> their own archives in particular ways?  The workbook takes 
> the approach that post-custodial intervention done carefully 
> and respecting the creator's freedoms is key to the process 
> and would achieve an optimal result.  My own experiences 
> acquiring digital archives have shown a range of openness to 
> intervention, and perhaps greater hesitation about allowing 
> access to digital documents than paper ones.  Can you 
> elaborate on the experiences of the project archivists in 
> terms of intervention?  
> 
> Looking forward to hearing more,
> Catherine
> 
> (SISPA Chair)
> 
> 
> 
> Catherine Hobbs,
> Archivist, Literary Archives (English-language) / Archiviste, 
> Archives littéraires de langue anglaise Documentary Heritage 
> Collection Sector / Secteur de la collection du patrimoine 
> documentaire Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et 
> Archives Canada Place de la Cité, Room / Piece 598, 550, 
> boul. de la Cité, Gatineau (QC), K1A 0N4 
> catherine.hobbs at lac-bac.gc.ca Téléphone /Telephone 
> 819-934-8331 Télécopieur / Facsimile 819-934-8333
> 
> Gouvernement du Canada / Government of Canada  
> www.collectionscanada.gc.ca
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Personal_archives mailing list
> Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
> http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/personal_archives
>