[Personal_archives] What to do when...

Thu Jun 24 11:34:08 EDT 2010

I find this discussion very enlightening and timely following the ACA conference.  Should the question being posed be "Is the content of the letters worthy of retention."  If so, some sort of process like Rodney and Pam suggests would be the way to go.  If it is not worthy of retention, tell the donor the truth, even though that may take more time to do effectively.  Every time we cloak what we don't want to do in archival theory/insufficient resources/mandate we just get ourselves into trouble.  What would we say to the researcher down the road who asks why there is nothing in the fonds about whatever the aspect of the creator's life is that is mentioned in these letters; oh we had that but it was going to take too much time to link it to the fonds. Worse still we would be thinking it as the question is posed.

Fred 

Fred Farrell
Manager, Private Sector Records
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick
Box 6000
Fredericton, NB
E3B 5H1
phone:  506-444-4146
Fax:  506-453-3288

-----Original Message-----
From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Rodney Carter
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 12:15 PM
To: Sarah Romkey
Cc: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Personal_archives] What to do when...

We have many (far, far too many) situations like this here.
Frequently, it is correspondence sent to the archives, administrative
files, or records created about the person after their death (ie
funeral records, necrologies). From an archival standpoint they don't
truly belong in the individual's fonds but logistically it often makes
sense to have things all together.

To get around this we have an appendix which appears at the end of the
finding aid. As Amy suggests, I explain to the best of my ability the
provenance of the material and then file it with the rest. In a
future, perfect world of fonds which are fully described in
sophisticated finding aids, I imagine having contextual links in place
from the authority record of the creator (Office of the Local
Superior; donor etc.) leading to it. There the context would be clear
and all the pieces could be arranged and rearranged to reflect the
different relationships of the items and the creators. Unfortunately
this is a long way off for me.

If you think the letters would add to the fonds you have then you
might want to acquire them as a an appendix or supplement to the
fonds, explaining how you came about them and contextualilzing the
private details revealed - assuming they don't reveal anything
compromising about other living people, which would complicate things
further.

Rodney

Archivist
St. Joseph Region Archives
Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 10:50 AM, Sarah Romkey <sarah.romkey at ubc.ca> wrote:
> Thanks for the responses so far! I realize that I didn't describe the
> offered donation in much detail- it comprises three letters written by
> the fonds creator to the potential donor's mother. There is definitely
> not enough research value for us to consider acquiring the letters as a
> stand-alone fonds (at least in our circumstances... too much backlog,
> etc). The mother's archives more generally, even if it were on the
> table, would be out of our mandate.
>
> We also have a collection similar to your Bethune collection- the
> Malcolm Lowry collection. It has had a lot of valuable additions to it
> over the years, but I think it would be too difficult to manage many of
> our collections in this manner.
>
> Thanks again everyone- glad that we can use our listserv like this!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sarah
>
> Sarah Romkey
> Archivist
> Rare Books and Special Collections
> University of British Columbia Library
> Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
> 1st Floor, 1961 East Mall Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1
> 604-822-2232 / sarah.romkey at ubc.ca
>
>
>
> Pamela Miller wrote:
>
>>Dear SISPA members,
>>
>>We have a similar situation with our Norman Bethune material. I'm attaching the link to our web page and you will see that we have all sorts of "contributions". This pretty well lines up with Amy's experience and suggestions. And of course, Bethune's public and private lives were very controversial but he was wise enough to leave no known descendants, which really helps in privacy issues.
>>
>>http://osler.library.mcgill.ca/archives/index.php/search/query/
>>
>>To summarize, if the potential donation is a fonds, it can stand alone. If it is not, it could be considered as part of a collection, in Bethune's case, made up of material from many sources.
>>
>>Good luck,
>>Pam
>>
>>
>>Pamela Miller
>>History of Medicine Librarian
>>Osler Library, McGill University
>>514-398-4475 ext. 09861
>>fax 514-398-5747
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah Romkey
>>Sent: June 22, 2010 8:02 PM
>>To: personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
>>Subject: [Personal_archives] What to do when...
>>
>>Hello SISPA members,
>>
>>At the section meeting in Halifax, we discussed using the listserv more
>>often to ask for opinions, advice, etc. So I'm going to get the ball
>>rolling!
>>
>>One of the discussions at the meeting was about what to do when someone
>>offers to donate items to another person's fonds. I've just had such an
>>offer today. Assuming that you consider this to be undesirable, how do
>>other folks handle this?  This is my current draft response to the offer:
>>
>>"It is very generous of you to think of us, however we do not as a rule
>>add documents to a person's or organizations fonds that did not
>>originate with the creator or the original donor, for a variety of
>>reasons including privacy and the  provenance of the documents. I do
>>thank you very much for the offer."
>>
>>Privacy is an issue in my mind in this case because the records offered
>>would reflect an aspect of this particular creator's life that he never
>>chose to contribute to his own fonds.
>>
>>Any thoughts or suggestions? I'd be very happy to hear them.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>
>>Sarah
>>
>>
>>
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