NEA N E WSLET TER - New England Archivists - About NEA · NEA N E WSLET TER Volume 34, Number 3 ... fancy napkin folding (from the seven- ... documents. Despite such faults, these

N E A N E W S L E T T E RVolume 34, Number 3 • July 2007

NEW ENGLAND ARCHIVISTS❦❦

C O V E R –– Frontispiece from Hannah Glasse’s Art ofCookery Made Plain and Easy ... London, circa 1790. Courtesyof the Schlesinger Library. See related article by culinary histo-rian, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton (Archival Insight, page 4).

I N S I D E –– Beth Bower and Laura Muller’s “Oral HistoryProjects” (Around and About, page 24); NEA Spring Meeting2007 Session Reports, page 12).

N E A N E W S L E T T E R

WPI Archives and Special CollectionsGordon Library

100 Institute Road • Worcester, MA 01609<www.newenglandarchivists.org>

NEA Executive BoardPresident: Chris BurnsPresident-Elect: Kathryn Hammond BakerPast President: Nora MurphySecretary: Elizabeth SlombaTreasurer: Nova M. SealsRepresentatives-at-Large: Ellen Doon

Melissa WatterworthKaren Adler AbramsonMark Savolis

Clerk: Jean Nielsen BerryPR Coordinators: Tracy Messer

Tara HurtDevelopment Coordinator: Jane WardNewsletter Editors: Susan Earle

Michael ForstromMaryalice Perrin-MohrSheila Spalding

Web Coordinator: Krista Ferrante

Membership in New England Archivists, Inc. is open to all.

Dues of $30/year ($40 for institutions) should be sent to: RodneyObien, WPI Archives and Special Collections, Gordon Library,100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609.

Notices of archival events should be sent to: NEA c/o WPI Archives and Special Collections, Gordon Library, 100Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609, or electronically to<[email protected]>.

The NEA Newsletter is published quarterly in January, April, Julyand October. The contents of the Newsletter may be reproduced inwhole or in part provided that credit is given.

Articles and News of interest to archivists, historical society members, historians, and other NEA members should be sent to: NEA Newsletter Editors, c/o WPI Archives and SpecialCollections, Gordon Library, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA01609, or <[email protected]>.

Contributions to the NEA Web site should be sent to: <[email protected]>.

Deadlines for submitting materials are: November 15 for January issue February 10 for April issue May 15 for July issue August 15 for October issue

Advertising Policy:There will be no fee to list position openings. Advertisements forarchival products will be accepted as space permits. Advertisingshould be submitted to Jane Ward, (978) 459-2129 or<[email protected]>.

Rates: Full page: $125; half page: $75; quarter page: $40. Paymentis requested at the time the ad is submitted. All checks should bemade payable to New England Archivists.

2

From the Editors ....................................................... 3

Archival Insight ......................................................... 4

A Culinary Historian’s Structured Look at Some

Unruly Sources: The Cook’s Oracle ...................... 4

Inside NEA ................................................................ 7

From the President ................................................ 7

Executive Board Meeting Report ........................... 7

Officers’ Reports ............................................... 8

Meetings ........................................................... 8

Committee Reports........................................... 8

New Business .................................................... 10

New Members................................................... 11

NEA Spring Meeting 2007 Session Reports ............ 12

Reviews ..................................................................... 16

Internet Tidbits........................................................... 17

News and Notes .......................................................... 18

Connecticut........................................................... 18

Maine .................................................................... 18

Massachusetts ........................................................ 19

New Hampshire .................................................... 20

Rhode Island ......................................................... 21

Vermont ................................................................ 22

People ......................................................................... 23

Around and About .................................................... 20

Oral History Projects: The Moakley

Archive Involves Students, Faculty

and the Community ............................................. 24

Calendar...................................................................... 27

Table of Contents

Volume 34, Number 3 • July 2007N E A N E W S L E T T E R2

N E A N E W S L E T T E R 3

From the Editors- Maryalice Perrin-Mohr

Summer is upon us once again. The signs are all there –the days are long, temperatures are high, beaches are

crowded, baseball season is in full swing and of course, theJuly issue of NEA Newsletter has arrived in your mailbox.Whether you are interested in cooking, politics, history, orsimply keeping up with what is happening in the New England archival community, this issue has something foreveryone!

The two feature articles detail current projects that willbecome great resources for researchers in their respectivefields for years to come. The idea for Archival Insight, whichfeatures Barbara K. Wheaton’s article “Culinary Historian’sStructured Look at Some Unruly Sources: The Cook’s Ora-cle,” came about as a result of Wheaton’s presentation, “Foodin the Archives” at the Spring NEA Meeting. Wheaton hasbeen researching the history of cooking and eating in West-ern Europe for many years. She describes in her article howcookbooks have not only served as repositories for recipes,but have also fulfilled many additional purposes for theirowners. Also, she discusses how cookbooks, and indeed indi-vidual recipes, have evolved and have been edited, para-phrased and passed on over centuries and between coun-

Volume 34, Number 3 • July 2007 N E A N E W S L E T T E R 3

tries. Her research is leading to the creation of a databasethat will allow researchers different and in-depth ways ofanalyzing cookbooks and their contents.

In Around & About, Beth Bower and Laura Muller discuss an oral history project taking place at Suffolk Uni-versity that will be an invaluable source of information, particularly for those interested in twentieth century Bostonhistory and politics. The Moakley Archive Oral History Project documents the life and career of Massachusetts Congressman John Joseph ‘Joe’ Moakley, as well as signifi-cant historical events during his tenure. This article includesa fascinating excerpt from the transcription of an oral history interview with Moakley, a detailed description ofthe entire project, and some information regarding oral history methodology.

This issue also includes a message from the new NEAPresident, Chris Burns, describing his own experiences beinginvolved with NEA and encouraging others to participatein the organization. There are two reviews in this issue. SusanMartin reviews the new online interdisciplinary journal,Archives and Social Studies in Internet Tidbits; and JillThomas reviews the book Digital Images and Art Librariesin the Twenty-First Century (Susan Wyngaard, ed.). Finally,rounding out this issue are the session reports from the NEAmeeting which took place this past spring. ❦

NEW ENGLAND ARCHIVISTS❦❦

Announcing the New England Archivists Fall 2007 Meeting

Dialogues: New Directions for College, University and School Archives

October 12-13, 2007Dodd Center, University of Connecticut

The Fall 2007 New England Archivists Meeting will explore the new and old challenges facingcollege, university and school archivists in the rapidly changing world of higher and secondaryeducation. Come and join colleagues in discussions about new directions in our archives, howthese directions affect us, how we are handling current struggles, and what shape our archiveswill take in the future.

For further information, please contact Elizabeth Slomba, Program Chair <[email protected]>


Recently someone asked me if I wasa lumper or a splitter. I answered,

evasively, that I was both. Like all foodhistorians, cookbooks, from pen orprint, are one of many sources I use.“Cookbook” may be used to mean arigid formulary, but the kind of cook-book used for preparing food is anextremely variable creature. They docontain recipes, if one is willing todefine “recipe” as “an idea about whatto do with some foodstuffs,” but somerecipes are so simple that they may beexpressed in a single sentence. In thefifteenth century when cooks knew thebasic rules, this might be: Serve roastswan with a yellow pepper sauce. Inthe twentieth century when many peo-ple knew very little about cookery ingeneral, or French cookery in particu-lar, they could run much longer. JuliaChild’s cassoulet recipe unfolds overnearly six pages and includes “a noteon the order of battle.” Recipes, likeall ideas, move about quite independ-ently of the books or manuscripts theyfirst appear in. There are severalrecipes first appearing in a Frenchmanuscript of the late fourteenth cen-tury that live on into the early seven-teenth century, by which time they areso out of date one wonders why thecompiler bothered to repeat them. Acookbook can appear in a single edi-tion, or may be edited, pirated, para-phrased, and translated over the courseof a century.

In addition to recipes, cookbooksmay include advice to servants and tothe men or women who employ them;there may be chapters on etiquette,table setting, carving, and in one case

an illustrated account of a trip to theAlps by a group of chefs. Occasional-ly one finds legal advice (posthumouseditions of Mrs. Beeton), advice onfancy napkin folding (from the seven-teenth through the nineteenth cen-turies all over Europe), the care of thesick, and how to make ornamentalscreens using cut-out figures fromengravings (Hannah Wooley in the late seventeenth century). To add tothe confusion, the majority of pre-nineteenth century European cooks,male or female, were illiterate. Thosewho could read were not necessarilywriters. Thus, early cookbooks weremost likely written by supervisors inlarge households who often were giv-ing rather faulty instructions for exer-cising a craft they knew little of. Thus, it is not surprising that what they produced were often quite imperfectdocuments.

Despite such faults, these booksprovide some of the best informationwe have about food-related activities,skills, and practices. To read a singleearly cookbook is entertaining and baf-fling; to read two is exciting, but by thetime one has read a little way into athird, everything begins to blur. Thiswas my experience more than fortyyears ago when I began to research thehistory of cooking and eating in West-ern Europe. No one had yet inventedways of analyzing cookbooks and theircontents, so there was no one to con-sult. The then-existing histories ofcookery were written largely by peoplewho appeared to have read the cook-books only to laugh at their odd ideasand strange spellings. Plunging into

the medieval sources, I found similarrecipes in France, England, Germany,and Italy. To take a single example,blancmange was a dish which, in thefourteenth century, was made withrice, almonds, sugar, and chicken orfish in many parts of Europe. By thenineteenth century it had evolved intoa quivering gelatinous molded sweetpreparation which lacked almonds,fish or chicken. The OED gives 1386as the earliest mention of blancmange,and includes more than twenty variantspellings over the following centuries.It is now largely referred to as a comicanachronism, although a quick glanceat <www.epicurious.com> yields threeentries from Gourmet: Blancmangeswith raspberry sauce (November1995), Pistachio blancmanges (September 2003), and as recently as November 2005, Almond blanc-mange once again, this time embel-lished with caramel glaze and sagesherbet.

None of this would matter in theleast if there was no need to establishrelationships among the sources, tosort out sequences in time, locationsin space, priority in invention, orunacknowledged indebtedness. Togive but a single example, in the mid-1960s, I was trying to sort out theblancmanges, in addition to manyother lines of ingredient use and tech-nical skills using pen and paper. Itseemed a hopeless task.

At that time I was still takingnotes, page by weary page, with a ball-point pen in the BibliothèqueNationale in Paris. Returning to the

Archival InsightA Culinary Historian’s Structured Look at Some Unruly Sources: The Cook’s Oracle

Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Honorary Curator of the Cookbook Collection, Schlesinger Library

United States with more informationthan I could handle, I found that pho-tocopying machines had arrived. Theycould replicate whole pages accuratelyand expeditiously. Making sense ofwhat the sources contained, however,required a different and more power-ful tool. A friend introduced me tothe McBee card – a five by eight inchpaperboard card with a double row ofround holes all around; it had a slant-ed cut across the upper right-handcorner. These holes could be notchedwith a clipper much like the railroadconductor’s ticket punch. The plac-ing and depth of the notches allowedthe obsessed data-enthusiast to createcodes, keyword-like, for each position.The user could then, by inserting longwires (typically knitting needles)through the batch of cards and, thenlifting them, cause the notched cardsto fall from the mass of unwantedcards. It is a hopelessly cumbersome,limited, and impractical system.However, I spent several years in theenchanting task of imagining a variety of coding systems to allow me to search for information.Although the cards never actually sup-plied any information I wanted, theoutlines of a structured way of record-ing the contents of cookbooks hadbegun to take form.

In the early 1980s, when personalcomputers with reasonable softwarebecame available, I got one, and soonbegan to make the database. Untilrecently I have worked largely alone,and it is still very imperfect. At pres-ent its contents include informationabout a modest selection of French,English, and American cookery booksdating between ca. 1300 and 1900.Eventually, with the assistance of otherspecialists, we will add sources in otherWestern European languages.

With a computer, lumping and split-ting could go forward in earnest,although at first the limitations ofthose early machines were a real prob-lem. A 160K floppy disk holds only alittle data; a computer with 64K ofRAM is not swift. Fortunately, earlyon, a wise database specialist told methat space constraints were temporary,and that intelligibility was moreimportant than highly condensedcodes. After considering a variety ofschemes, I developed a plan for a rela-tional database which allows me tolook at single or multiple cookbooks(manuscript or print) in many ways.

This is a database intended toassist the researcher in locating andanalyzing materials, not in replicatingthe excellent high-level cataloginginformation that professional librari-ans and archivists know how to do(and I do not). It will not containtexts, because they are increasinglyavailable online, and often in text-searchable form. It will allow the userto find information that is implicitrather than specifically stated. Forexample, a recipe that calls for chop-ping onions will require a knife, evenif “knife” does not appear in the text;vague references to “a cool dry place”is a part of the cook’s workspace.

The database consists basically ofa group of four linked sections whichlead from the most general to the mostspecific information. The first sectiondeals with the authors: what (if any-thing) is known about their lives, whenand where they lived, or at least whenthey were active, whether they weremale or female, nationality, languageand what our sources are for the factsthat we do have. The time range isfrom antiquity to the present; a fewthousand writers are entered. The sec-

ond section consists of simple biblio-graphical information about theirwritings (titles, dates of publication,editors, and so forth). The source doc-ument is identified, and there are fieldsfor information about the history ofthe volume after it left the printer:bookplates, manuscript notes, andsimilar information. The third sectiondeals with the different parts of theindividual book, allowing theresearcher to locate illustrations, glos-saries, and chapter headings, as well asthe titles (but not the contents) of indi-vidual recipes. Thus far, this is thelargest part of the database; there areabout 100,000 records, of which about80,000 are to recipes.

The final part of the databasedetails the contents of these parts,inventorying the objects depicted inillustrations, and the contents ofrecipes. It is where lumps are splitmost finely and new, surprising lumpsare formed. It is also at present theleast complete, because the amount ofinformation in a single cookbook isdaunting. Three small Americancookbooks produced some 12,000records. However, it is also the mostrewarding. With it one can extract alist of the equipment and ingredientsused by a particular author. Patternsof work through the work day andthrough the year, systems of measure-ment, and value judgments are amongthe easy-to-overlook clusters of infor-mation that emerge from such detailedanalysis.

I am no programmer. Over theyears a number of people haveattempted, with varying degrees ofsuccess, to assist me. Having learnedearly on that information is more valu-able than the program it is put into, Ihave avoided programs that would not



allow me to migrate my data. Morethan twenty years ago, when this proj-ect began, I worked with a long-goneprogram called dBaseII, subsequentlywith Paradox, and most recently withMicrosoft Access. The contents havenow outgrown Access, and will bemoved to an open-source SQL pro-gram. Last year I had the great goodfortune to meet Lezlie Lee-French whois both a culinary historian and adeptat dealing with database programs.She has been moving the project to thepoint at which it can be shared withother researchers.

What kind of question can it helpwith? The Schlesinger Library has aneighteenth-century French culinarymanuscript from the collection ofSamuel and Narcissa Chamberlainwhich is extracted from the greatCuisinier moderne of Vincent LaChapelle, chef to the Earl of Chester-field and subsequently to the Prince ofOrange. First published in 1733 in

England as The Modern Cook, itappeared twice in French (though pub-lished in The Hague) - first in 1736and again in 1742, when it wasexpanded from three volumes to five.A final English edition appeared in1744. La Chapelle drew heavily on theearlier writings of François Massialot,who was publishing books on cookeryand confectionery from 1691 untilwell into the eighteenth century. Theirrunning battle, carried out in the latereditions of Massialot’s books and the1742 Cuisinier moderne, has been ablydescribed by Philip and Mary Hymanin Petits Propos Culinaires. The ques-tions now to be asked are: which of theFrench editions did the compiler of themanuscript draw on, and which ofthese, if any, came from Massialot?Were some of these recipes already outof date when they were copied?

The Cook’s Oracle (named afterDr. William Kitchiner’s Apicius Redi-vivus: The Cook’s Oracle (London,

1817) will be available at theSchlesinger Library Web site later thisyear, if all goes well. I hope that it willlure others into a field that I havefound endlessly interesting for manyyears. The ambiguous relationshipbetween print and pen is perfectlyillustrated by the frontispiece to anundated edition of Hannah Glasse’sArt of Cookery (another deeply indebt-ed cookbook), published in the laterhalf of the eighteenth century. A ladysits in her parlor, a table at her side,and on the table are an open book, aquill pen, and an ink bottle. Througha door at the back of the room one seesa kitchen. Before the lady stands hermaid, hand outstretched to receive asheet of paper from her employer. Averse below reads: “The Fair who’sWise and oft consults our Book / Andthence directions gives her PrudentCook / With Choicest Viands has herTable Crown’d / And Health with Frugal Elegance is found.” ❦

Attention AmateurPhotographers!

The Public Relations Committee seeks to compile a listof photographers to be made available to all NEA com-mittees. Individuals with high quality digital camerascan help document the NEA organization by takingphotographs of members, keynote speakers, leadershipand committees at bi-annual meetings, special events,etc. To join the list of photographers, contact TracyMesser at: <[email protected]>.

Announcing New England Archivists Fall 2007

Educational Workshops

The Education Committee will be offering a seriesof regional workshops to complement the Fall 2007NEA conference. Topics, instructors, and locations

to be announced in the coming months.

For further information, inquiries, or if you are interested in instructing an educational workshop, please contact Jaimie Quaglino,

Chair, NEA Education Committee at <[email protected]>

or 617.514.1577 or Chris Burns at<[email protected]>.


From the President

- Chris Burns

Afew years ago, still relatively new tothe profession, I attended a gather-

ing of New England State HistoricalRecords Advisory Boards. As GregorySanford, Vermont’s State Archivist, andI drove back to Vermont, I asked himwhat impression he thought I had made.

Gregory said something to the effect of my coming across as“another cranky northern New England Archivist.” At last,I had formed my Archivist identity. Apparently, word hadnot traveled far across the region by last year’s election.

Identities can be pretty hard to shake and they can putus into either/or situations that in reality are falsedichotomies. For much of my life, I have considered myselfto be more Lennon than McCartney. But over the last fewyears I’ve really come around to McCartney. It’s not that Ino longer enjoy Lennon’s work; it’s just that I now have moreappreciation for McCartney’s accomplishments. I think SirPaul sums up my feelings when he sings, “Some people wantto fill the words with silly love songs, what’s wrong with that?”

Identifying ourselves as this or that can be helpful, but itcan also be limiting. For example, I have never consideredmyself to be a joiner, but over the last several years I havevolunteered my time to NEA in multiple capacities, and nowsomehow as the incoming president of the organization. It’sbeen extremely rewarding. I have come into contact with anumber of talented people and projects and feel I have madea small contribution in helping this organization conductthe business of professional education and advocacy.

NEA relies on the enormous contributions of its mem-bers. The board has eighteen voting and non-voting mem-bers. Standing committees hover around sixty members.The Newsletter runs eight feature articles a year and a muchlarger number of smaller news contributions. Around sixtypeople a year give talks or conduct workshops at our twoconferences. And then there are all of us who attend themeetings and hold formal and informal discussions, sharingnews and ideas of both a personal and professional nature.That’s a pretty high percentage of the membership that’s

Executive Board Meeting Report

- Elizabeth Slomba

The business handled at the March 30,2007 meeting of the Executive Board issummarized below. All VOTING is inbold. Complete minutes are available onthe NEA Web site or from the secretary.

The meeting was called to order at 1:40p.m. by Nora Murphy. Minutes from

the January 22, 2007 Board Meeting were presented. Allmembers voted to accept the January 22, 2007 Board Meeting Minutes as amended.

Inside NEA actively engaged in the organization at any point in time.And there is continual turnover in positions. It’s remark-able that we are able to function, and it’s a testament to allof us as members and to the continuing relevance of theorganization that so many keep volunteering.

There are always opportunities to get involved withNEA. I encourage you to contact me or anyone on the boardto find out more. And I encourage you to think about whatyou would like to do. Think about your experience andskills and let us know how you think you could contributebest. But also don’t be afraid to push yourself. Try some-thing new. For those of you who have already given, thankyou. Don’t be too wary about getting involved again.

Think too, about new directions for NEA. For exam-ple, this fall we are trying a new approach for our meetingand workshops. On October 12-13, we will be holding atwo-day conference at the University of Connecticut foruniversity, college, and school archivists. To balance thisfocused event, we will also hold a number of workshops ondifferent topics around the region. Already in the works areworkshops on Arrangement and Description, the Archivists’Toolkit and DACS, and Film Preservation Basics. For fur-ther details, check the NEA Web site.

We hope this format proves to be a successful experi-ment, which provides a concentrated experience for a signif-icant portion of our membership and intensive learningopportunities for others. I look forward to hearing your feed-back on the fall format as well as any other ideas you mighthave for making NEA an even stronger organization. ❦


Officers’ Reports

President’s ReportNora requested suggestions for appointments to the 2008Nominating Committee and nominees for the Distin-guished Service Award and the Archival Advocacy Award.She formally thanked Paul Carnahan, Lois Hamill, TomHyry, and Brenda Lawson for their service on the board.

Vice-President’s ReportMaria Bernier at Salve Regina University offered to host theSpring 2008 Meeting and the date for the conference hasbeen set for March 29, 2008.

Immediate Past President’s ReportPaul Carnahan announced the results of the 2007 electionsand thanked the 2007 Nominating Committee for theirwork.

Treasurer’s ReportLois Hamill discussed moving Hale Award donations intothe savings account, sending information on NEA’s taxes tothe accountant, transferring treasurer’s records to theArchives, and settling the bulk mail account. She also discovered since the January Board Meeting that a securitycertificate had not been bought for the Web site.

Meetings

Spring 2007 Program and Local Arrangements CommitteesThe Spring 2007 Meeting had 155 people registered toattend, including seven vendors; one workshop was com-pletely registered. There was brief discussion about howaccommodating the hotel was and the committee meetingsbeing held in the middle of the meeting. Nora thanked theProgram Committee and the Local Arrangements Commit-tee for their hard work.

Fall 2007 Program and Local Arrangements CommitteesThere was a brief discussion about the progress being madeon developing the fall 2007 program. It was confirmed thatthere would not be any workshops at the meeting.

The proposed budget for fall 2007 was presented. Atten-dees discussed the set and flexible costs in the budget, hotels,honoraria, catering concerns, and the food to be offeredduring the Friday registration time, the Friday reception,and printing the registration packet. Registration cost forthe conference was discussed as well as the need to limit con-ference registration to 185 attendees due to the limitedcapacity of the rooms being used. There was a lengthy dis-cussion about promoting the conference beyond the NEAmembership and how to fund promotional items.

Committee Reports to the Board

Development CoordinatorThere was $3100 in vendor revenue for the Spring 2007Meeting, a little more than half budgeted for this year. Therewill be no place suitable for vendors at the fall meeting sothe Fall 2007 Local Arrangements Committee proposedsponsorships for parts of the fall meeting. There was discus-sion about the proposal, whether it would work, and theincreased difficulty of getting vendors to come to meetings.

Outreach CommitteeThe committee proposed that Archives Week be movedfrom the first week of November to the first week of Octo-ber. This change would align the New England region cele-brations with national celebrations for national ArchivesWeek. Attendees discussed at length the benefits of thechange, effects on state archives celebrations, NEA book-

Do you have keen literary skills and an eye fordetail? If so, join us on the NEA Editorial Team.Four editors serve for three year terms to producethe quarterly NEA Newsletter.

Layout is done by a professional – we want youreyes, ideas and energy. We are currently lookingfor two editors to serve from April 2008 – April2011, covering Inside NEA/This Season in NewEngland History and Session Reports. EmailMichael Forstrom <[email protected]>for details and visit the NEA Web site for the jobdescription.

Editors Wanted!


marks, use of SAA publications and planning kits to publi-cize Archives Week, and standardized dates for the week inOctober. It was proposed that the week be changed startingin October 2008. Attendees discussed increased publicityfor Archives Week, effects on state archives week mailings,whether NAGARA observes Archives Week in October, andparticipation of the State Historical Records AdvisoryBoards. All members voted that New England Archivistsstarting in 2008 will celebrate Archives Week during thefirst week of October.

Changes in committee membership were announced. All members voted that Molly Wheeler be reappointedto a term to run from 2007 to 2010 and be chair of the Outreach Committee and that April Hagins, ElizabethScott, and Susan von Salis be reappointed to terms torun from Spring 2007 to Spring 2009. Nora thanked out-going members Amy Braitsch, Mary Caldera, Nova Seals,Jill Snyder, and Rick Stattler for their services on the Out-reach Committee.

Public Relations CoordinatorIt was announced that Tracy Messer was stepping down asPublic Relations Co-Coordinator. Tara Hurt mentionedhow much the coordinators were able to accomplish overthe past three years, their work on the Branding Committeeand on the NEA graphic identity, and possible future direc-tions in publicity. She suggested using the Web site to archivepress releases, to recruit additional members and to tracknew members. There was a brief discussion about creating anew committee for public relations, a need for a charge forthe coordinator and committee, and differences betweenoutreach (promoting archives) and PR (promoting NEA).There was additional discussion of publicity for the fallmeeting and other NEA events.

Nora thanked Tracy for his work on the committee. Allmembers voted to reappoint Tara Hurt to a three yearterm as Public Relations Coordinator to run Spring 2007to Spring 2010.

Membership CommitteeA timeline and guidelines for finishing up the remaining

work to be done on the membership directory have beenset. If the timeline is followed, the membership directoryshould be finished by the end of the summer. Kelcy Shep-herd described creating the directory, cleaning up the NEAmembership database, and how the committee worked withSkybuilders for a year to create a unique membership direc-tory for NEA. She touched on the communication issuesinvolved in creating the membership directory and how itwas not clear in the contract with Skybuilders that NEAneeded the creation of a unique membership directory tooffer functionality beyond the default membership directo-ry offered by Skybuilders. There was some additional dis-cussion about the membership directory, the current mem-bership database, what the default membership directorylacked, and what NEA needed to have added to the defaultmembership directory. She also said that it was great work-ing with Skybuilders.

Changes in the committee membership were announced;the committee will be deciding on co-chairs soon. Norathanked Kelcy and Rodney Gorme Obien for their work onthe membership directory.

Membership SecretaryRodney discussed creating new categories in the database totrack membership numbers for institutional affiliation, stateresidency, and other desired demographic information.There was a discussion of the new information about thenumbers of non-renewals and other membership informa-tion in the supplied report. All members voted to reap-point Rodney Gorme Obien to a three year term as Membership Secretary to run Spring 2007 to Spring 2010.

Haas AwardDespite the increased publicity for the Haas Award, the committee did not receive additional applications this year.Attendees discussed the history of the award, how the awardis a joint venture between ARMA and NEA, and how themoney for the award is handled by ARMA. There was alengthy discussion about how to improve communicationswith ARMA about the award, the relationship of ARMAand NEA, the lack of NEA members also active in ARMA,reshaping the award to generate more applications, andwhether sustained increased publicity would make a differ-ence in applications. The sense of the board was that thepresidents of NEA and ARMA need to meet and discuss the future of the award and that communication

Please visit us online at <www.newenglandarchivists.org>


between ARMA and NEA is a central part of resolving the issue.

Policy Review Task ForceA preliminary version of the policy manual was presentedand discussed. The final version is expected to be in a for-mat that could be brought to board meetings as well as beingavailable on the Web. There was a discussion about how tomake the manual useful for finding relevant policies, howthe manual would look and function as a Web document,and ways of reducing the size of the manual through refin-ing what is included. Attendees discussed the role of theNEA Secretary in updating and maintaining the manualand the amount of work the secretary would need to do. Itwas proposed that a representative-at-large do the work ofupdating the policy manual and attendees discussed howthis would work. There was additional discussion of planning for NEA electronic records. The sense of the boardwas for the committee to bring recommendations aboutways to maintain, update, and make available the policymanual and present mock-ups of the policy manual for theboard to review.

Education CommitteeThere was a brief discussion about registration numbers for the Spring 2007 Workshops, the possibility of offeringthe Arrangement and Description Workshop in June 2007,and vacancies on the Education Committee. Planning forFall 2007 Workshops and ideas for them, such as offeringan Archivists’ Toolkit/DACS workshop at Simmons orworking with Northeast Historic Film to offer a workshopon film preservation, were mentioned. All members voted to reappoint Jaimie Quaglino to a second term onthe Education Committee to run from Spring 2007 toSpring 2010.

New Business

Nora thanked Tom Hyry for his work on the Hale Award.

Next Meeting DateThe next Quarterly Board meeting will take place at theNortheast Document Conservation Center, June 11, 2007,from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ❦

New Member/Change of Address/Directory Information

Name _____________________________________ Date: _______________

Address: _____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

Telephone: _____________________________________ Home Business

Fax number: _____________________________________ E-mail: _______________________________

Please mail to New England Archivists: Rodney Obien

WPI Archives & Special Collections

Gordon Library

100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609

<[email protected]>


Individual Members

Susan AndersonWalpole Historical Society

Victoria AndrilenasNortheast MuseumServices, NPS

Michael Austin Harvard UniversityArchives

Joelle L. BurdetteSimmons College

Karen CanaryWestfield State College

Judy CarlsonWestfield State College

Hanna ClutterbuckNortheastern University

Jo-anne Cobban Historical Society ofCheshire County

Lisa Conathan Yale University

Heather DeanYale University

Kurt W. EichnerSimmons College

Leslie FieldsSmith College Archives

Stacey Flatt

Lisa Fortin Gale Library

Beverly K. GoodaleWest Boylston HistoricalCommission

Sharon Gray

Verne Green Historical Society ofCheshire County

Cyndi HarbersonConnecticut HistoricalSociety Museum

Patricia JaysaneLawrence History Center

Brian KnightHildene

Becky KnowlesMadison Historical Society

Milli Knudson NH State Archives

Jerry Leclerc St. Joseph Hospital

Sarah Lefebrve Peabody Museum

Valerie LowUConn Storrs

Howard P. LowellNational Archives

Jennifer Meehan Yale University

Sophia Mendoza

Barbara PerkelBoston SymphonyOrchestra

New Members

- Rodney Obien

Please visit us online at <www.newenglandarchivists.org> for more information about becoming a member of NEA

Peg PinkeyScituate Town Hall

Travis PullerUniversity of Vermont

Kristine ReinhardUMass Medical School

Andrew Richmond Nichols Memorial Library

Cynthia Rufo

Anthony Sampas

Kristy SharpeJFK Library & Museum

Amanda SchmidtSimmons College

Marcela Smith-Hogan NH Aviation HistoricalSociety

Miriam B. Spectre

Paul SpringAmerican AntiquarianSociety

Villu TariChelmsford Telemedia

Deborah Terry Parish Historians Society

Keith VezeauMassachusetts MilitaryMuseum & Archives

Molly WheelerYale University

Rachel WoodySimmons College

Institutional Members

Town of Westford

City of Somerville

Diocese of NewHampshire

It's Your Newsletter: Contribute!

The NEA Newsletter always needs news from yourarchives and other archives in New England, about NEAmembers, and about upcoming events. We also needpeople to write reviews, long articles, and session reportsfor NEA meetings. The editors have prepared informa-tion for contributors to help potential writers. If youhave any ideas for articles, etc., please contact an editor.


NEA Spring Meeting 2007Session Reports

The Challenges of Audio-Visual Materials inCollections: Two Case Studies

- Veronica Martzahl

Small is Good” was the theme with which Brandeis Uni-versity’s Karen Abramson opened her presentation. Illus-

trating how even small archives with limited resources cantake on audio-visual reformatting projects, Ms. Abramsonwalked the audience through her experiences with the MorseCommunication Research Center Collection. Consistingof 16 mm films, 2 inch quad tapes, and reel to reel tapes,this collection represents unique political ads and program-ming from the early days of television. By taking advantageof a grant opportunity with the National Television andVideo Preservation Foundation, Ms. Abramson was part-nered with a vendor who provided reformatting for ten ofher most at-risk 2 inch quad tapes into BetaSp for analogpreservation, DigiBeta for a master digital access copy, andDVD for an access and use copy. Early in the process, copy-right appeared to be a barrier to the completion of thisprocess. However, further research indicated that given theage and nature of the materials and the fact that they wereintended for scholarly use, they were likely either to be nolonger under copyright or they would fall into the categoryof fair use. Ms. Abramson stressed that archivists shouldnot automatically assume that they are not able to proceedwith a reformatting project due to copyright restraints.Additionally, she spoke to the importance of partneringeither with legal counsel or with a seasoned grant writer toreview grant proposals and final agreements to ensure thatyour institution is covered from unforeseen liabilities. Final-ly, Ms. Abramson stressed that small incremental projectscan lead to big successes.

Exemplifying a big success was Tim Hawkins and hiswork with the Poetics Audio Archives at Naropa University.Currently, over 2,000 hours of audio tape from the Jack Ker-ouac School of Disembodied Poetics have been convertedto preservation master and digital access copies. Over thirtyyears worth of class lectures and poetry readings by the lead-ing American poets are included in this collection, with aspecial emphasis on the Beat Generation. Mr. Hawkins

detailed how smaller grants adding up over time were usedto fund this project, and he stressed the need for buildingcollaborative relationships with funders, vendors, techni-cians, and your audience. As an example of one such col-laboration, Hawkins cultivated his relationship with theInternet Archives which is hosting over 550 hours of mate-rials on its site for free, in large part because Hawkins andhis team were able to demonstrate the importance of theirmaterial. Mr. Hawkins stated that copyright issues havebeen minimal with this project due to the positive relation-ship the university still holds with many of the writers whowere willing to release their work for this project.

In summary, two points were strongly highlighted.First, copyright issues are not insurmountable. Second, col-laborations and partnerships are the archivist’s best tool fortaking on technologically daunting collections.

For further information on these projects, visit theseWeb sites:

<http://lts.brandeis.edu/research/archives-speccoll/collections/archives/ntvpfgrant.html>

<www.archive.org/details/naropa>

For some best practices guidelines, check out<www.naropa.edu/archive/resources.cfm>

Blogging for Archivists

-Cyndi Harbeson

In her presentation “Blogging for Archivists,” Karen Mel-lor, a library program specialist at the Rhode Island Office

of Library & Information Services, adeptly brought us alonginto what she termed the current “information revolution.”From the benefits of blogs for archivists to examples ofarchival blogs and from the steps of setting up a blog toguidelines and etiquette, she explained it all.

Archives and blogs may seem antithetical to one anoth-er and yet blogs are an underutilized tool for archivists.Blogs provide many benefits ranging from a content man-agement system to the democratization of the publishingprocess so that anyone, even those with limited technologi-cal skills, can develop a presence on the Web. Blogs occur

“


in real time, are available 24/7 (as a kind of virtual library),are interactive, and are an excellent marketing and publicrelations tool. They also create community betweenarchivists and their patrons, as readers can respond to post-ings. In this way, blogs promote discussion betweenarchivists and the very people they serve. Blogs are also agreat way of maintaining a Web presence in this digitalworld, especially for smaller archival institutions with fewstaff. Best of all, blogs are free!

Establishing a blog requires a blog hosting service. Someof the features of a blog hosting service include a simpleinterface, RSS feeds, the potential for multiple authors, avariety of customizable templates, and the ability to addgraphics. Blogger and Wordpress were two hosting servic-es that Ms. Mellor discussed. According to Ms. Mellor,Blogger is the simplest hosting service with basic feeds.Labels can also be added to the different entries as a sortingmeasure; however, Blogger cannot feed out (through an RSSfeed) different information categories. Alternatively, Word-press has more flexibility in feeds, enabling the content tobe broadcasted in many ways. Wordpress also offers statis-tics, anti-spam tools, spell-check, and the ability to embedvideo, audio, and photographs.

When developing a blog, first define its purpose, mis-sion and scope, focus, and intended audience. Then, estab-lish guidelines for content, writing, and comments. Ms.Mellor also suggested branding your service with a catchyname. The blog for her institution, for instance, is calledthe Rhodarian <www.olis.ri.gov/rhodarian/>. Determiningthe editorial process (especially for group blogs) and fre-quency of posts are also important considerations. Finally,all blogs should have an “about” page, a link to the institu-tional Web site where applicable, contact information, anda disclaimer.

Blogs are a low cost and easy way to publish informa-tion online and can be used as a way to expand access toresources in archival institutions. They are also an excellentway to create community while adding a dynamic elementto Web sites. As Ms. Mellor said, “If you build it and pro-mote it, they will come. If you keep it fresh, they will stay.”So, archivists, blog on!

Collection Management Software Choices

-Susanne Belovari

Who among us hasn’t struggled with collection man-agement databases – especially when dealing with

digital records and surrogates – trying to get them to dowhat you, your material, and your institution need? Thisparticular NEA panel offered insights into four proprietaryand open archival software programs to help archivists eval-uate which one might best meet individual requirements.

Margaret Jessup (Smith College) spoke about InMagicDBTextworks <www.inmagic.com> for reference, electron-ic description, and collection management. Designed bylibrarians, the database offers unlimited, customizable textfields/length and templates for donor information, acces-sions, digital images, and audiovisual material. Easy to setup and design, it exports files (EAD, MARC), runs reports,sends e-mail attachments, prints, sorts, and searches multi-ple entries within a field, and also supports prioritizing.However, DBTextworks is not a true relational database (oneway linking) and is proprietary: in 1996, it cost $2,500+ forfive user licenses.

Jennifer Gunter-King (Mount Holyoke College)described the Archivists’ Toolkit, the first open source archival database. Since its January release, it has been downloaded by over 600 institutions <www.archiviststoolkit.org/>. The free MYSQL standardsbased software supports desktop or network installations(online sandbox is available). Simple to set up, it allows foreasy import of EAD 2002, MARC XML, and tab delimiteddata. It offers different levels of user access, over thirty typesof administrative and descriptive inputs, and printscreen/report options. Finding aids can be exported inXML, EAD, MARC, MEDS, MODS, MARCXML, andDublin Core. Its Web site offers a good bug issue navigator,a user group e-mail list, and a manual. A second Andrew W.Mellon grant will fund further development until 2009.

Kat Stefko (Bates College) discussed Re:discovery<www.rediscoverysoftware.com>. Originally a museum soft-ware, Re:discovery is used by the National Park Service andsixteen archives; start up costs were $38,000 + $4,500 annu-al fees. Its descriptive module offers good item level butunsatisfactory hierarchical level descriptions. Implementa-tion has been slow partly because Re:discovery is not



intuitive. While it supports basic accessioning, description,and authority control, as well as ingest/export of MARC, itdoes not support tracking donors, use/reference statistics,description of digital objects or their export into MEDS.Running reports is difficult, print options are very limited, itdoes not support referential integrity (e.g. updating ofauthority headings), and simple tasks take multiple steps.The new version, available soon, can attach images and hope-fully export EAD files. Bates College is currently developinga template for exporting its data into the Archivists’ Toolkit.

Barbara Rimkunas (Exeter Historical Society) intro-duced PastPerfect <www.museumsoftware.com>, which isparticularly suited to small museums, archives, and libraries(about $700/year). Developed by a museum curator, it iseasy (forty-five minute training!), can handle mixed collec-tions (e.g., containing museum artifacts), manages mem-bership/donor data, and runs lists, mailing labels, andreports. It offers few levels of descriptions suited to theneeds of smaller institutions. It includes a lexicon, can cap-ture several copies of digital images, and allows you toattach/display video, audio, digital images, MS-Word/Exceldocuments, and url links.

Different Spaces, Different Views: Archives,Museums, and Libraries

-Amber Cushing

Although archives, libraries, and museums are oftenlumped together as cultural institutions, archival and

library work in museums can present unique challenges forprofessionals in the archives field. While an archivist and acurator may have similar goals for collections, conflictingmethods can inhibit progress. Susan von Salis of the Har-vard University Art Museum Archives, Kristin Parker of theIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Susan Steinway ofthe Boston Children’s Museum all shared their experiencesas archivists and librarian at museums. From these experi-ences they developed insight into how archivists and librari-ans can work cooperatively with other museum profession-als to learn from each other and best achieve each other’sgoals for the institution.

According to Susan von Salis, the lack of an art back-ground can serve as a deficit when trying to comprehendthe culture of work at an art museum. By sharing her expe-

riences, von Salis was able to recommend approaches to tra-ditional museum archival work in the areas of appraisal andacquisitions, working with curators, reference, exhibits, andmuseum culture. Overall, von Salis emphasized that cura-tors can learn that the archives, not just the art work, is acollection and that archivists are information professionalsto be utilized, especially concerning reference and access.Alternately, archivists can seek the knowledge of curatorswhen deciding what to keep and how it relates to the art.

Kristin Parker seconded many of von Salis’s statementsand provided the discussion with a new angle as a registrar-turned-archivist. Additionally, Parker works with a uniquechallenge: a museum where stipulations set forth in a willdecades old create modern environmental problems. Parkerstressed the importance of working with other museum staffamidst these strict stipulations to achieve the best environ-ment for the archival collections and to assist the develop-ment office in their endeavors to court donors. Finally, Park-er urged archivists, registrars, curators, and librarians work-ing in museum environments to “keep the lines of commu-nication open” and to “recognize our shared mission asmuseum professionals.”

Susan Steinway was able to offer an alternate view asthe librarian at a museum where the audience, not the col-lection, is the primary concern. Steinway addressed thechallenge of working in an environment where museumprofessionals are hesitant to relinquish their material to thelibrary/archives. Therefore, gaining the trust of museumstaff members is essential in this situation. To encouragetrust, librarians can demonstrate their reference skills whenmuseum staff members require fast answers to informationrequests. In addition, Steinway advocated the need for anarchival collection as a way to organize past information formodern museum educators as they create exhibits to bestfulfill the changing needs of the audience.

Group Discussion: Researchers’ and Archivists’Visions of the Ideal: Commentary on “MyDream Archive”

-Rachel Wise

Historian Christopher Phelps published an article in theJanuary 5, 2007 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Edu-

cation describing his dream archive. He addressed physical


aspects such as lighting and seating, as well as hours, photo-copying policies, and wifi access. This article was used as astarting off point for a lively discussion about researchers’perceptions of archives and archivists’ perceptions ofresearchers.

The discussion was led by Kim Nusco, ManuscriptLibrarian at the John Carter Brown Library, Brown Univer-sity. Previously Nusco was the Reference Librarian at theMassachusetts Historical Society and she used her previousexperience in this busy reading room to tie together themesand direct the discussion.

The first topic of discussion was the use of digital cam-eras in the reading room. A rough show of hands indicatedthat a third of the participants allow digital cameras in theirreading rooms. Some questions were raised such as “how doyou keep track of who took photos of what in your collec-tions?” and “how do you maintain copyright and control?”

This led to a discussion of researchers’ expectations ofaccess to materials. Some participants stressed a moredemanding public that puts strain on resources and time.Other participants pointed out the positive aspects of ademanding public, such as increased use of collections andmore researchers finding their way to repositories.

Another topic of conversation was the changing natureof “primary research.” A concern was expressed aboutresearch “short cuts” and a loss of research skills. A coun-terpoint was brought up that today students are betterresearchers and that we need to act as educators and notgatekeepers to our material. We also need to keep in mindthat very soon, “digital will be the real thing.”

Even though the thrust of our discussion was on tech-nology and digital issues, the article by Christopher Phelpsdoes not specifically discuss technology. When the discus-sion wound back to the topic of the reading room, manyparticipants emphasized that reading room policies need tomake sense. Researchers need to understand the particularreasons behind the policies that are in place. Also, one cannot assume that researchers remember your policies;researchers are in many repositories throughout the yearand therefore are exposed to various reading room rules and policies.

The following are citations for the “My Dream Archive”

article, as well as another article frequently referenced dur-ing the discussion.

Katie Hafner, “History, Digitized (and Abridged),” NewYork Times. March 11, 2007, Late Edition - Final, Section3, Page 1.

Christopher Phelps, “My Dream Archive,” Chronicle ofHigher Education, Vol 53 Issue 18, Page C1.

Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Livesthrough the Cookbooks They Wrote

-Maryalice Perrin-Mohr

The first of two sessions relating to the topic of food wasa discussion of folklorist Janet Theophano’s book, Eat

My Words: Reading Women’s Lives through the Cookbooks TheyWrote. The discussion was led by Jeannette Bastian, Profes-sor of GLIS, Simmons College. Bastian offered a briefdescription of the book for the attendees who had not yethad a chance to read it. She surmised that the goal of thebook was to introduce the cookbook as an unconventionalsource for women’s history, a window into the lives ofwomen who would otherwise not be known to us. The bookconsists of a series of vignettes, each focused on a particularcookbook. The cookbook examples are of English or Amer-ican origin and date from the seventeenth century to themid-twentieth century. Some were discovered by Theo-phano in antiquarian bookstores or archives. Several of theexamples are of cookbooks that the owner used more likescrapbooks, including clippings, handwritten notes, favoritepoems, and biblical verses.

The discussion mainly centered on the idea of cook-books as primary source material. Theophano’s bookdemonstrates that a cookbook can be much more than acollection of recipes; it can, for example, be a source of col-lective memory, autobiography, household instruction, orsocial commentary. One interesting issue that was raisedwas the question of provenance, because cookbooks some-times have shared histories. Another point was brought upthat individual recipes themselves can have their own prove-nance, appearing in different cookbooks from varying loca-tions over a long period of time. Another interesting issuethat came up in discussion was the problem of providingthe best access to these cookbooks, given their multiple uses.


This was a fascinating discussion of an unconventionalresource for women’s history. This particular discussion tookon an additional layer of interest, with the attendees relat-ing their own experiences with cookbooks to the practicesof women from earlier generations.

The Great Outdoors in New England

-Molly Wheeler

This session closed out the day on Saturday, giving atten-dees an overview of three collections in Vermont and

New Hampshire that document wilderness exploration,sports, and recreation in the area. Session presenters wereJeff Leich, Executive Director and Curator of the New Eng-land Ski Museum (located at the base of Cannon Moun-tain, next to the Cannon Mountain Tram) in Franconia,

Digital Images and Art Libraries in the Twenty-First Century,Susan Wyngaard ed. Binghamton, NY : The Haworth Infor-mation Press, 2004. 183pp. Soft cover. ISBN: 0-7890-2348-2.

- Jill G. Thomas, Jesuitana Catalogue Librarian, John J. BurnsLibrary, Boston College

The latest volume in the Monographic “Separates” seriesfrom the Journal of Library Administration, Digital

Images and Art Libraries is an excellent survey for everyoneinvolved with digital imaging. The first four of the book’seleven chapters discuss types of art materials that might beripe for digital access and preservation, such as photographs,architectural archives, slide collections, and artists’ files. Thenext two chapters share insights gained by our colleaguesinvolved with large cooperative digitization ventures such asthe development of ArtSTOR and a consortial effort thatcreated the OhioLINK Digital Media Center. The next fourchapters are devoted to issues that we must resolve beforewe can build a digital global museum. And, finally, the lastchapter does a fine job of noting the changing nature of artlibrarianship.

Wyngaard has done a thorough job of assessing the prosand cons of creating digital image collections. This book isnot only for art librarians and visual resources curators but

Reviews also for the administrators, deans, and directors of institu-tions where these collections will be formed. The topics notonly contain practical “how-to” advice, but also offerthought provoking essays on the effect of digitization onour libraries, and the use of digital images in classroominstruction and research. From acquisition and storage todelivery, the book looks at current projects and problemsand sees future solutions. The strength of the book is thatit not only covers visionary and cutting-edge projects suchas ArtSTOR and the Madison Digital Image Database, butalso explores vital issues of access, Web censorship, copy-right, and free speech.

The last chapter, “Evolution of a Profession: the Chang-ing Nature of Art Librarianship” by Amy Lucker, helps thebook end on a high note. Ms. Lucker presents a briefoverview of the history of art librarianship up to the presentand then offers thoughts about where the field may be head-ed in the future as we look at what is new and what is not inthe world of art librarianship. She gives practical advice andreminds us that our future is what we want to make of it; areassuring idea in a profession of constant change.

This book would be helpful to any librarian, curator, oradministrator who wants a thought-provoking overview anda thorough investigation into the cutting-edge world of dig-ital art librarianship.❦

New Hampshire; Peter Carini, College Archivist of Dart-mouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; and ChrisBurns, Curator of Manuscripts at the Nailey-Howe Libraryat the University of Vermont in Burlington. In addition toproviding overviews of the collections, presenters sharedphotographs from their respective collections throughouttheir presentations, described the general use of their collec-tions, and answered questions from the audience. For mostpeople in the room, it was the first time they had heard ofthe New England Ski Museum and their first opportunityto learn about the extensive holdings at UVM and Dart-mouth College.

Please visit these Web sites for information on the collections: <www.skimuseum.org>, <www.dartmouth.edu/~speccoll/index.shtml>, <http://library.uvm.edu/about/specialcollections/index.html>❦


Internet Tidbits- Susan Martin

The online journal Archives & Social Studies: A Journalof Interdisciplinary Research, a recent addition to the

professional archival literature, continues the tradition ofcreative collaboration between archivists, librarians, andother information professionals. Published biannually at<http://socialstudies.cartagena.es/>, this free refereed jour-nal boasts an impressive international editorial board:Richard J. Cox, Luciana Duranti, Jonathan Furner, Francis-co Javier Garcia Marco, Anne J. Gilliland, Jose AugustoChaves Guimaraes, Eric Ketelaar, Joaquim Llanso Sanjuan,Michael Moss, Michael Piggott, Maria Manuela Gomes deAzevedo Pinto, Joan M. Schwartz, Ciaran B. Trace, FrankUpward, and Marjo Rita Valtonen.

Archives & Social Studies is an interdisciplinary journalthat aims to integrate the study of archival science with otherdisciplines in two ways: by applying archival theories andpractices to other disciplines and by exploring how otherdisciplines can inform archival science. These other disci-plines may include fields as diverse as law, sociology, anthro-pology, philosophy, the arts, and mathematics. As editorAlejandro Delgado Gomez explains in his Editor’s Note,“Societies are generating information objects in a variety ofways—some of them new, some of them quite old, but sub-ject to new perspectives; and societies are being influencedin diverse ways by these objects. Information, document,record, archive, archives: these are not solid concepts anylonger.…No single discipline can properly address this per-manent vortex, and no single tradition can account for it.”He promises that Archives & Social Studies will act as a“bridge,” bringing together not only different disciplinesbut also different archival traditions.

The scope of the journal is broad and fluid. In additionto case studies and book reviews, the journal will publisharticles on archival theory and practice, methodology, cur-

riculum, cultural issues, non-standard records, the impactof technology and the Internet on recordkeeping, the phi-losophy and history of archives, and many other subjects.Articles are published in pdf format and arranged into sec-tions entitled: “Classics,” consisting so far of articles byFrank Upward, Terry Cook, and Luciana Duranti; “Inter-sections” for cross-disciplinary analyses; “Notes” for shorterpieces; “Book Reviews;” and “Archives on the Internet,” list-ing Web sites of interest. Among the many intriguing con-tributions to the first issue are: “Human Behavior and theMaking of Records and Archives” by Michael Piggott,“Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction” by Nick Mont-fort, and “‘Having New Eyes:’ Spaces of Archives, Land-scapes of Power” by Joan M. Schwartz. Not to be outdoneby print journals, Archives & Social Studies even includescover art.

The Web site is attractive and easy to navigate and con-tains several helpful features, including “last updated” infor-mation, hit counters, and breadcrumbs at the top of everypage. The basic text layout could use some polishing, andsome brief exposition introducing each of the sections wouldbe helpful, but it’s hard to quibble with the quality of thecontributions. The site’s greatest strengths are its interna-tional scope and its potential for a broad readership, whichgive the journal enormous potential, especially for the dis-cussion of cross-cultural issues. ❦

Join NEAdiscuss: An open forum for NEA Membersto communicate about items of common professionalinterest. Open to all NEA members and moderatedby the email coordinator. Send subscription requeststo: <[email protected]>.


CONNECTICUT

News from the State Archives

The State Archives has recently completed processing ofthree noteworthy collections: New London County

Court Files, Preston Town Records, and Montville-Mohe-gan Records.

The New London County Court Files, 1691-1855,consisting of records of more than 100,000 court cases(housed in 435 boxes), contains documentation on a myri-ad of subjects, although most involve lawsuits over unpaiddebts. Civil cases cover such subjects as covenants broken,trade and maritime affairs, and trespassing. Criminal casescover arson, assault, election fraud, forgery, fornication,malicious mischief, prostitution, and theft. Cases alsoinclude lawsuits concerning the poor and mentally incom-petent, defamation and slander, disputes over fishing rightsand land ownership, fraudulent contracts, illegal sale of alco-holic beverages, lotteries, probate and inheritance, regula-tion of merchant seamen and violence on the high seas, riot,and tumultuous carriage. Researchers interested in theFrench and Indian Wars, the American Revolution, and reli-gious minorities can also find scattered but valuable infor-mation not previously seen by scholars.

The collection contains a great deal of material document-ing transients, women before the bar, and minorities. Over1,400 cases involve people of color. Due to the great researchinterest in the history of African Americans and Native Amer-icans, materials have all been photocopied and two separateartificial collections created to house these papers.

Parts of the collection are currently being utilized bypersons studying the bench and bar in New London Coun-ty, Native American communities, people of color, and thetrade of colonial Connecticut. This project was supportedwith funding from the Connecticut Historic DocumentsPreservation Fund and grants from the National HistoricalPublications and Records Commission.

The Preston Town Records, 1750-1938, is comprisedof twenty-three boxes and fifty-five volumes divided intoten series. The largest quantity of material consists of admin-

istrative records, primarily records of the town treasurer,particularly useful for those interested in town expenses onadministration, care of the poor, education, and roads andhighways. Treasurer bills and poor relief correspondence areespecially valuable for those interested in documenting theelderly, orphans, and people of color. The collection alsocontains a substantial body of court, land, poor relief, school,and tax records.

The Montville-Mohegan Records, 1976-1994, a recentdonation from the Town of Montville, holds copies of doc-uments submitted by the Mohegan Tribe of Indians to theBureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, in thetribe’s successful effort to gain federal acknowledgment. Thebulk of the material consists of copies of primary and sec-ondary source documents gathered by the Mohegan Tribeand its major opponent, the State of Connecticut, designedto demonstrate whether the tribe met federal guidelines foracknowledgment.

MAINE

Maine Historical Society Library UndergoingCentennial Renovation

Maine Historical Society is currently in a major reno-vation and expansion of its Research Library. The

library, located behind the Longfellow House at 485 Con-gress Street, was built in 1907 and is on the National Regis-ter of Historic Places.

MHS announced the renovation and expansion earlierthis year. The eight million dollar project will transform thelibrary building into a state-of-the-art facility, addressingcollections care and storage issues, correcting structuralproblems, upgrading technology, and improving patronservices and amenities. Nichols Hall, a collections storagewing built in the 1950s, will be replaced by a larger, envi-ronmentally controlled addition.

The library closed to the public between May 12 andJune 8, 2007, and then reopened at a temporary location at510 Congress Street. Construction is expected to begin inAugust and take up to sixteen months. The renovated libraryis expected to re-open in early 2009. During renovation,MHS library staff will provide full services and access to col-lections at 510 Congress Street.

News and Notes



The popular Longfellow Garden, adjacent to the MHSResearch Library, will be closed throughout the renovation.The garden will re-open in Spring 2009 along with the ren-ovated and expanded library. MHS has worked closely withthe Longfellow Garden Club, landscape and preservationarchitects, and the City of Portland’s Historic Review Com-mittee to create a restoration plan for the garden that willpreserve the character of the existing garden, restore impor-tant historical features, and accommodate new construction.

The library renovation will not affect visitation to theLongfellow House, home of nineteenth century poet HenryWadsworth Longfellow, which will remain open to the pub-lic according to its regular schedule. The MHS Museum,Shop, and administrative offices will also remain unaffectedby the library project.

Architects for the project are Schwartz/Silver Architectsof Boston, noted for their renovations of the Abbe Museumin Bar Harbor, the Lewiston Public Library, and the BostonAthenaeum. Consigli Construction Company of Portlandand Massachusetts will provide construction management.Their recent work includes the Walker Art Museum at Bowdoin College and projects at Portland’s City Hall andthe Victoria Mansion.

Old Orchard Beach Historical SocietyReceives Grant

Old Orchard Beach Historical Society has received $540to preserve and provide better access to its aviation

collection. The Maine Historical Records Advisory Boardprovided the grant with funds from the National HistoricalPublications and Records Commission.

Old Orchard Beach, a resort community, relies on itscreative economy to bring in tourism and support its localresidents. Grants for cultural resources like the Old OrchardBeach Historical Society, the Harmon Museum, and OldOrchard Beach Public Library sustain the basic infrastruc-ture of this key sector of our economy.

Anastasia S. Weigle (project archivist), together withEvelyn Cooper (historian) and Joyce Rorabaugh (collectioncoordinator), will survey, process, preserve, and provideaccess to the collection. The collection, which consists ofartifacts, photographs, postcards, and scrapbooks, includes

the Harry M. Jones Collection. Harry M. Jones, one ofMaine’s great pioneers in aviation history, began his careeras an operator of an airplane hangar at Old Orchard Beachin 1919.

For more information about the Harmon Museum orthe aviation collection, contact Anastasia Weigle at(207)423-0443 or <[email protected]>.

Bowdoin College Receives Grant

The George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collec-tions & Archives at the Bowdoin College Library has

received a grant to help preserve and provide better accessto its historical collections. The Historical Collections GrantProgram, administered by the Maine Historical RecordsAdvisory Board with funds from the National HistoricalPublications and Records Commission and Maine’s NewCentury Community Program, has awarded the library$1,913.48 to support the microfilming of vital collegerecords, including early minutes of the governing boardsand faculty and nineteenth century student transcripts, inorder to preserve the documents and make them more widely available for research.

MASSACHUSETTS

Baseball at Harvard

The Harvard University Archives has completed theorganization of the early records of baseball at Har-

vard. The earliest records date from 1858. The three majorcollections that relate to baseball are: Records of theLawrence Base Ball Club (<nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.ARCH:hua06007>), the records of a club formedat the Lawrence Scientific School and the earliest baseballrecords in the Harvard University Archives; the Records ofOrganized Baseball at Harvard (<nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.ARCH:hua02006>), the early college baseballrecords; and The Baseball Collection (<nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.ARCH:hua01006>), which includes clothing andequipment, and consists chiefly of ephemera (tickets, pro-grams, scorecards) and articles about baseball.


Children’s Hospital Boston Archives ReceivesGrant from the National Film PreservationFoundation

The Children’s Hospital Boston Archives has been award-ed a Basic Preservation grant of $6,330.00 by the

NFPF. The grant will cover the cost of restoring three blackand white orphan films documenting the development ofthe field of pediatrics in the context of the story of Chil-dren’s Hospital.

The first film, Children’s Hospital Follies, is a threeminute silent production, circa 1933, that shows the origi-nal campus of Children’s, including the old pavilion wards,affectionately known as “chicken coops.” The wards wereconnected to the main hospital building via covered walkways. They were designed according to Florence Nightingale’s hygiene philosophy to maximize air and lightin order to minimize the spread of infectious diseases.

The second film, That Your Children May Live, is a 14minute sound production, created in 1949 for a majorfundraising campaign at Children’s . The film features hos-pital scenes of the facility pre major developments. It contains rare footage of three infamous people in the fieldof medical science – Louis Diamond, Sidney Farber, andRobert Gross.

The third film, The Children’s Hospital, is a 15 minutesilent film produced in 1945 by the Children’s Hospital Wel-fare Committee. It has captions and features more scenes ofthe campus not pictured in That Your Child Might Live.

Children’s Archives will contract with the film labCineric, Inc. for the preservation work.

Recently Opened Collections at the Center forthe History of Medicine

The Center for the History of Medicine at the Count-way Library at Harvard Medical School is pleased to

announce the opening of several manuscript and institu-tional records collections. As part of a series of processingprojects focusing on reproductive health, recently complet-ed projects include the papers of John Rock, one of thedevelopers of the birth control pill, and two of Rock’s con-temporaries, Abraham Stone, and Alan Guttmacher. The

Loretta McLaughlin Papers, a corollary collection contain-ing McLaughlin’s interviews conducted for her biographyof Rock, is also open for research. Newly processed collec-tions from the Archives for Women in Medicine consist ofseveral women from the Harvard Medical School commu-nity including Anne Pappenheimer Forbes, Lydia Dawes,Ethel Dunham, and Myrtelle Canavan. The papers of der-matologist Irvin Blank and allergist Theron Randolph wererecently processed with support from Johnson and John-son, Consumer & Personal Products Worldwide, and theRandolph Archival Fund, organized by the Human EcologyStudy Group, respectively. Recently processed institutionalcollections include the records of Brigham and Women’sHospital and Boston Lying-In Hospital. Please contact Ref-erence Librarian Jack Eckert, <[email protected]>for usage of these collections. Finding aids are availableonline on OASIS, Harvard’s online finding aid database at<oasis.harvard.edu>.

Schlesinger Library Collections

The papers of Jane Barton (1918-2005), a journalist,public relations agent, and officer in the Navy WAVES

(Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), arenewly processed and open for research at the SchlesingerLibrary. Barton’s papers document her years as a WAVESofficer during World War II, her role in organizing laterreunions of the WAVES, and her service in the U.S. NavalReserve from 1948 to 1968. Over 2.29 linear feet of pressreleases, photographs, clippings, correspondence, and scrap-books show women’s active involvement in the U.S. Navyand the kinds of press and publicity sought by Navy publicrelations officers. Other material relates to her civilian lifeas a publicity agent for radio performers in the 1940s and asa program director for the New York State Radio-Televi-sion-Motion Picture Bureau. The collection was processedby Jenny Gotwals with funds provided by the Radcliffe Col-lege Class of 1950 and the Radcliffe College Class of 1956.The finding aid can be found at <nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00371>.

The records of the Women’s Economic Round Table,Inc., a New York City-based educational and networkingforum founded in 1978, are also newly processed and openfor research. These records document over twenty-five yearsof public programs featuring speakers prominent in the busi-ness, financial, economic, and journalism professions.


Although both men and women served as panelists, onlywomen were featured as moderators and questioners. Pro-gram topics included business journalism, fashion market-ing and trends, micro-finance, investment strategies, nation-al and international economic news and forecasts, and theeffects of national and global economic policies. Materialfound in the 5.84 linear feet of the records includes corre-spondence, audiotapes, videotapes, transcripts, photo-graphs, minutes, and background material on program par-ticipants and topics. The collection was processed by JennyGotwals with funds provided by the Women’s EconomicRound Table, the Radcliffe College Class of 1950, and theRadcliffe College Class of 1956. The finding aid can befound at <nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00375>.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Exhibition Compares New Hampshire Past& Present

Nineteenth-century stagecoaches and twenty-first cen-tury Segways come together in the New Hampshire

Historical Society’s exhibition New Hampshire Then & Now,on view at the Historical Society of Cheshire County fromApril 23 through September 8, 2007.

The exhibition features forty pairs of photographs ofunique places, people, and events that depict the characterand culture of New Hampshire, past and present. Based onthe book of the same title by photographer, author, and pub-lisher Peter E. Randall, the exhibition provides visitors witha diverse visual overview of New Hampshire, comparingsites and people across the state, between the late nineteenthcentury and today.

Randall started this project by searching through thephotograph collections of the New Hampshire HistoricalSociety and those of other organizations, choosing imagesthat were most interesting to him. He then set out to findthe modern sites.

The exhibition, like the book, uses the medium of pho-tography to help visitors explore changes that have occurredin New Hampshire over the past century. For example, ahuge boulder was lodged between the narrow walls of theFlume in Franconia Notch until 1883, when it was washedaway by flood waters in a heavy storm. A circa 1880 view of

the Flume with the boulder is paired with a photo of theFlume today.

Other “then and now” images include the town com-mon in Hampton Falls circa 1905 and in 2003; Cornishtown meetings in 1947 and 2004; New Castle’s Hotel Went-worth in 1880 and the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel in 2005;Haverhill Corner in the 1890s and in 2004; Post OfficeSquare in North Sutton around 1900 and in 2003; the viewfrom Mill No. 2 in Keene in 1927 and in 2005; and touristslooking at the Old Man of the Mountain in 1978 contrast-ed with today’s faceless Cannon Mountain.

The exhibition will travel to museums and galleriesaround New Hampshire, including the Mt. WashingtonHotel and Resort, Bretton Woods (October 2007 – May2008) and the New Hampshire Technical College Library,Berlin (February 2009 – July 2009). This satellite exhibi-tion is made possible by grants from Lincoln Financial Foun-dation and Northeast Delta Dental. For additional infor-mation see <www.nhhistory.org/satelliteexhibits/thenand-now/nhthenandnowsat.htm>.

RHODE ISLAND

Naval Historical Collection, Newport, Rhode Island

The Naval Historical Collection recently received two col-lections of correspondence of naval officers. The Ralph

M. Griswold collection contains letters to his wife Ethel from1923 to 1928. Griswold served on the USS Bridge, USS Dal-las, and USS Seattle during the 1920s and early 1930s. Hedied in 1933 after falling off the USS Seattle. His letters revealthe separations, hardships, and frustrations of navy life. TheRussell Von Oesen collection consists of correspondencebetween Von Oesen and his wife Katherine from 1944 to1945. Von Oesen was a pharmacist’s mate aboard the hospi-tal ship USS Consolation. He later became a medical doctor.His letters describe life aboard ship and the repatriation ofAmerican POWs in Japan at the war’s end.

The Douglas Country Historical Research Center inCastle Rock, Colorado donated ship’s newspapers from theUSS Ramapo (AO-12), dating from February to June 1932,when the oiler was on the Asiatic Station. The Ramapo wasat Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack and, four days


later, filed an after action report which is included with thisdeposit. A large collection of photographs of nineteenth andtwentieth century U.S. Navy ships, including battleships,destroyers, frigates, cruisers, gunboats, and sloops, wasdonated by Harry Anderson of Newport, Rhode Island.

Salve Regina University Archives ReceivesGrant for Photo Collection

The Salve Regina University Archives, Newport, RI, wasone of seventeen organizations to receive a grant in

2007 from the Rhode Island Historical Records AdvisoryBoard. The grant will support an intern to help with theprocessing of approximately 1300 photographs that docu-ment historic structures and land owned by the university.

This group of property images will also serve as a testcase for the creation of a management manual for photo-graphic material and collections in the archives. The manu-al will address procedures for accessioning, storage of vari-ous formats, patron access, reproduction, removal and trans-fer of photographs in manuscript files, and indexing.

The Rhode Island Historical Records Advisory Board isa statewide body whose mission is to serve the people of thestate by advocating, developing, and supporting programsthat defend and provide access to Rhode Island's documen-tary heritage. The awards announced by RIHRAB in Marchform the second disbursement of funds under a grant fromthe National Historical Publications and Records Commis-sion, the grant funding arm of the National Archives.

VERMONT

News from Vermont

The Vermont General Assembly appropriated $1.7 mil-lion to begin site preparation for a new archives and

research facility. This is in addition to the $650,000 forfacility design appropriated by the 2006 legislature. Thesite is just off the Montpelier exit of Inter-state 89. Whilethe projected building will physically separate the archivesfrom the Secretary of State’s Office, the archives will remainunder the Secretary’s office. The new facility will addressthe current overcrowded vault and researcher space.

The Vermont Senate Government Operations Com-mittee voted out a committee bill for the consolidation ofarchival and records management under the State Archiveswithin the Office of Secretary of State. Records manage-ment is currently within the Department of Buildings andGeneral Services. Voted too late in the session for action bythe full senate, the bill will be taken up in January and, ifapproved, move to the House for testimony and vote. Theproposal is supported by both records management and thearchives and builds on the improved coordination betweenthe programs following a 2003 law requiring better com-munication between the programs.

Representatives of the Department of Information andInnovation (DII), the archives, and the Department ofBuildings and General Services (BGS) have formed an enter-prise content management group to develop record andinformation management guidelines for state agencies par-ticipating in DII’s enterprise initiatives. To help developrecord and information management tools, Assistant StateArchivist Tanya Marshall has been working with severalagencies, as well as the Office of Professional Regulationwithin the Secretary of State’s Office. In addition, Ms. Marshall has been developing an online resource for recordsand information management that can be found at<www.vermont-archives.org/records/>. The ultimate goal isto provide online, interactive tools to assist agencies ininventorying and scheduling their records.

The Vermont State Archives has funded a series of dis-aster preparedness and response workshops being conduct-ed by the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance. Theworkshops are directed to Vermont’s municipal offices,which are the repositories of records affecting the marketability of title and other essential documentation.For more on the workshops go to <www.vmga.org/aboutVMGA/disaster_flyer.pdf>.

The Vermont State Archives continues to expand itsonline database to archival record series. The database pro-vides, for the first time, ready access to information on thestate’s archival records. Assistant State Archivist ChristieCarter is the project leader in populating the database andhas been employing streamlined processing practices in order to provide core information on all archival series. The database can be found at <http://vermont-archives.org/research/database/series.asp>.❦


The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at YaleUniversity is pleased to announce the addition of sixarchivists to its Manuscript Unit. These new positions werecreated as part of an ongoing commitment to process theLibrary’s backlog and provide fuller description to newlyacquired collections, and they coincide with the opening ofa new, off-site archival processing workspace.

Susan Brady, Processing Archivist, returns to Beinecke afterworking as Project Archivist in the Yale Arts Library andHead of the Reference Library and Photograph Archive atthe Yale Center for British Art. Susan held previous posi-tions at Beinecke as Assistant Head of Public Services andCatalog Librarian in the Manuscript Unit. She received anMA in Theatre History and an MLIS from the Universityof Texas at Austin.

Lisa Conathan, Processing Archivist for Slavic Collections,earned a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Califor-nia, Berkeley, and an MLS with a concentration in archivesfrom the University of Maryland at College Park. Beforecoming to Beinecke, she held a joint postdoctoral appoint-ment at the Smithsonian Institution and U.C. Berkeley. Herresearch focuses on the ecology and documentation of endan-gered languages of Native North America. She is also inter-ested in the intersection of cultural and intellectual propertyand relationships between archives and records creators.

Heather Dean, Processing Archivist, is a recent graduate ofthe Joint Master in Archival Studies and Master in Library

People and Information Studies program at the University of BritishColumbia. She also holds an MA in English Literature fromthe University of Victoria. Before working at Beinecke,Heather worked for Rare Books and Special Collections atthe University of British Columbia and for the Internation-al Research on Permanent Authentic Records in ElectronicSystems (InterPARES) Project.

Processing Archivist Sandra Markham was most recentlyProject Archivist at the Library Company of Philadelphia.She has also held the positions of Collections Manager andProject Archivist at the New-York Historical Society, ChiefLibrarian at the Albany Institute of History and Art, andProject Archivist at Beinecke. Sandra received an MS witha concentration in archives, rare books, and manuscriptsfrom Columbia University.

Jennifer Meehan, Accessioning Archivist, has previouslyheld positions at the Archives of American Art, the Smith-sonian Institution, and the University Libraries at VirginiaTech. She received her Master’s in Archival Studies fromthe University of British Columbia, and her B.A. in Filmand English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Molly Wheeler, Processing Archivist, was Archivist at TheJosef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticutfrom 2003-2007. Prior to 2003, she worked at the HarryRansom Center in Austin. Molly received an MSIS with afocus on archives from the University of Texas at Austin.She is especially interested in advocacy, outreach, and audio-visual preservation. Last summer, Molly organized Con-necticut’s first Home Movie Day. ❦

NEA Presents Hale Award

At the spring meeting, NEA presented the 2007 Richard W. Hale Jr. Professional Development Award to SusanneBelovari. Currently, Belovari is Archivist for Reference and Collections for Tufts University’s Digital Collectionsand Archives. She previously held the position of Archivist and Historian for the Holocaust Victims’ Informationand Support Center at the Jewish Community of Vienna, Austria. Belovari will use the Hale award to help finance archival research at the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. Her findingswill be incorporated into an article she is working on for the journal Libraries and the Cultural Record. The subjectof this article is the history of the Jewish Community of Vienna Archives and its archival practices since 1816. Belovari plans to share the results of her research at a future NEA meeting session, as well as in an article forthe NEA Newsletter.


Around and AboutOral History Projects: The Moakley Archive Involves Students, Faculty and the Community

Beth Bower, University Archivist and Moakley Institute Director and Laura Muller, Moakley Institute Assistant and Oral History Coordinator, Suffolk University, Boston, MA

In 2001 Congressman John JosephMoakley donated his papers to his

alma mater, Suffolk University LawSchool, which established the JohnJoseph Moakley Archive & Institute.The following excerpt from an oral his-tory interview with CongressmanMoakley sheds some light on a tumul-tuous period in Boston’s history leadingup to Judge Arthur Garrity’s 1974 rul-ing (Morgan v. Hennigan) that de factosegregation existed in the Boston PublicSchools. The proposed solution, whichwas to bus some students to schools inother neighborhoods in order to createracial balance within the school system,was met with intense opposition inSouth Boston, Moakley’s hometownand district, as well as some other neigh-borhoods in Boston.

Q: Would you say that busing real-ly was—if not the issue, was reallythe driving force underneath thatelection?

MOAKLEY: Well, yeah. Bus-ing—but, yeah, I was against bus-ing too, but I just couldn’t marchin the streets and scream and hollerlike some of the people were doingit, and that cost me, but hey.

Q: Did it gain you anything withother people in the district?

MOAKLEY: I don’t think so. Ona Monday, I was picketed by sixhundred whites. On a Tuesday, Iwas picketed by six hundredblacks, you know, I’m saying,

“Where am I going here?” Whathappened was I lost— not thatyear— I lost South Boston oneyear, after I was in the Congressduring busing, because a fellowrunning against me was, “You gotto absolutely stop busing.”

Q: What would you say about thatwhole era? What did that do toSouth Boston?

MOAKLEY: Oh, it split peopleup and many well-intentionedpeople, some of them are really notable to articulate properly, youknow, were labeled as bigots, andthen there were other people whowanted to do the right thing, andthey were almost thrown out oftheir homes. It was the worstpolitical time that I have ever gonethrough in my life. Some days, Ijust didn’t want to get up in themorning and put my shoes on. Itwas terrible, getting calls all dur-ing the night. I had one younglady I went to the prom with—there were four of us. She just spatas I walked by one day. You know,those things are hard to take forme. You know? Most people inthis business want to be liked, andjust to have people that you had agreat friendship with and becauseof this—they’re so involved andthey can’t see anything but theirpoint, it’s tough.

- Congressman John Joseph Moakley,April 2, 2001

Immediately upon receiving theMoakley Collection, Archivist BethBower and two professors, HistoryProfessor Robert Allison and Law Pro-fessor Joseph McEttrick, were interest-ed in collecting additional oral histo-ries. With the help of two grants, theMoakley Oral History Project (OHP)was initiated in April of 2003. TheOHP seeks to document and preservevaluable information and observationsthat may not be a part of the paper,photographic, and audio/video por-tions of the Moakley Papers; and toidentify or solicit observations andopinions regarding key events andissues in Congressman Moakley’s lifeand career. To date, the MoakleyArchive has recorded seventy-one oralhistory interviews with CongressmanMoakley’s family, friends, staff, col-leagues, and constituents, as well asparticipants in two key historicalevents: the 1974 Garrity decision andthe 1989 Jesuit murders in El Salvador.

The majority of the MoakleyPapers date to his congressional careerfrom 1972-2001. Interviews with JoeMoakley’s family and friends, such ashis brothers and his law school class-mates, offer information and insightinto Moakley’s formative years and hisearly political career that are missingfrom the papers. Nineteen interviewsare of Mr. Moakley’s staff starting fromhis days as a state senator. They givethe reader a sense of Moakley’s person-ality, mentoring, political acumen, andleadership. The staff oral histories alsogive context and historical informationthat fill in years or topics where the

written record did not survive. Moak-ley’s local, state, and congressional col-leagues have so far contributed nineoral histories about his legislativecareer and his legacy. Many of thesewere videotaped and used to create alegislative training DVD, Joe Moakley:A Legacy of Public Service. Constituentnarrators tell of the impact Joe Moak-ley’s representation had on individualsand groups.

The collection’s largest series is thelegislative files about Moakley’s workrelated to the civil war in El Salvadorfrom 1980-1992. As the Archives pre-pared for a 2003 symposium and exhi-bition, El Congresista: Joe Moakley enEl Salvador, we decided to interviewthe constituents who brought theplight of the Salvadoran refugees toMoakley’s attention. Many weremembers of the Jamaica Plain Com-mittee on Central America (JPCO-CA) and their stories document theAmerican political process at the grassroots level. It was our first collabora-tion with oral historian Susan Gogan-ian and her college oral history class,which recorded six interviews on ElSalvador. Since 2003 we have addedseveral interviews with Salvadorans.

Among the smaller subject files inMoakley’s congressional districtpapers series are those about busing.In 2003 as the City of Boston Archiveslaunched the “The Boston SchoolsDesegregation Archives Project” toprocess the Boston School Depart-ment Papers, Deputy Archivist JohnMcColgan reached out to other areaarchives with similar collections andorganized a panel discussion, “BusingRecollections and Archival Collec-tions: Historical Perspectives andDocumentary Sources of the Desegre-gation Era,” on the thirtieth anniver-

sary of the Garrity Decision in 2004.The combination of these factorsidentified a pool of potential narratorswho could speak to the events sur-rounding the decision and its impacton their lives. We continued our col-laboration with Professor Goganianand students from Suffolk’s Oral History class. They have recorded twenty-four oral histories with Bostonteachers, administrators, communityactivists, parents and students, repre-senting a broad spectrum of stancesand experiences regarding the Garritydecision.

Moakley Institute Assistant LauraMuller’s involvement with the OHPbegan as an undergraduate history stu-dent enrolled in Suffolk’s oral historyclass in the spring of 2005. The nextyear she used materials at the MoakleyArchive to write her senior honors the-sis on Congressman Moakley’s contri-butions to historic preservation inBoston. Laura supplemented herarchival research by conducting inter-views with narrators who experiencedMoakley’s efforts firsthand, includinghis district director and two membersof Boston’s historic preservation com-

munity. Laura is the second Suffolkgraduate to coordinate the oral historyprogram. The coordinators workedwith the archivists to create the processand procedures required to maintainan on-going oral history program.That appears, in theory, very simple:contact a narrator, schedule an inter-view, and conduct the interview.There are, however, archival, legal andethical issues that must be addressedto assure that the interviews are col-lected appropriately. We adhere to theprinciples and standards of the OralHistory Association. Suffolk Universi-ty and its archives are committed tohaving a staff person responsible formanaging the collection, transcrip-tion, editing, and description of theoral histories.

Guided by the program’s missionstatement, which serves as a collectiondevelopment policy, selecting and con-tacting potential narrators is the firststep in the process. Once a narratorhas been confirmed, the coordinatorand/or interviewer does backgroundresearch on the person and the issuesand prepares a list of interview ques-tions. These are sent to the narrator,


Moakley Oral History Project participants: Tom Moakley (l) and Bob Moakley (r) pictured witharchive interns Zenelky Ortiz and Steve Kalarites (center). Courtesy of the Moakley Archive andInstitute at Suffolk University.


along with a biographical informationform and our standard release, whichallows the narrator to prepare for theinterview. Some narrators bring mate-rials (photos, newspaper clippings,etc.) to supplement the interview. Onenarrator provided nearly twenty news-paper articles and other documentsrelated to Salvadoran civil rights issuesthat the archive did not have in its collections.

While the most important part ofan oral history project is documentinga narrator’s memories and experiences,there are also nitty-gritty details thatare essential to an efficient project.Both narrator and interviewer mustsign a release form that gives owner-ship of the interview recording andtranscript to the institution. (SampleOHP release forms are available online at <www.joemoakley.org>.)The majority of interviews are audiorecorded; although through grantfunding we were able to videotapetwelve interviews. The Archive hastransitioned from audio cassetterecording equipment to a Marantz dig-ital recorder that records on Compact-Flash memory cards. All of the OHP’sinterviews, no matter what their origi-nal format, are copied to audio CDs.Every interview has a master copy andtwo CD access copies that are used on-site for research purposes. All of thevideo interviews have accompanyingaudio-only files on CD, as well as VHSand/or DVD access copies.

Transcripts are an essential part ofthe OHP because they provide alter-nate access and a more stable paperrecord of the interview. The archive hasat least a draft transcription of all butthe most recent interviews collected.The transcribing process can be time-consuming and difficult, dependingon the quality of the recording and thenumber of people speaking. Whenfunding is available we use a profes-sional transcription service; but morerecently archive staff, a talented workstudy student, or oral history class stu-dents have transcribed interviews.Using Baylor University Institute forOral History’s “Style Guide: A Quick Guide for Editing Oral Memoirs” as a basis, our staff devel-oped style standards to make the transcription process consistent.(<www.baylor.edu/oral%5Fhistory>.)Once a transcript is completed, itbecomes part of the Moakley ArchivesOral History Collection (OH-XXX),a MARC record is created, and it isavailable to the public. One way thatwe are increasing availability is by post-ing selected transcripts in PDF formto our Web site, as well as a list of allinterviews. We hope that doing thiswill encourage researchers to visit theArchive to listen to the interviews andto use the Moakley papers.

The success of the Moakley OralHistory Project has led us to expandour oral history collection activities toinclude the Suffolk University

Archives. The Suffolk University OralHistory project encompasses threeareas: conserving and digitizing inter-views about Suffolk’s history collectedfrom the 1960s-1980s; recording oralhistories with emeritus and senior fac-ulty and staff; and collecting oral his-tories of faculty and staff whose paperswe collect. We have found that inter-viewing donors about the content oftheir collection, how it related to theiracademic research and teaching, andits context within their discipline is avaluable tool as we arrange anddescribe the collection. The interviewis then available to future researchersas they use the collection.

The oral history project has addeda rich and fascinating dimension to theMoakley Archive and now the SuffolkUniversity Archives. For more infor-mation about our oral history projectscontact Laura Muller, Moakley Insti-tute Assistant and Oral History Coor-dinator at 617-305-6295 or email to<[email protected]>.

The John Joseph Moakley Archiveand Suffolk University Archive are located at Suffolk University LawSchool, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA02108 in the Moakley Law Library.Research hours are Mondays andWednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00p.m. Contact Assistant Archivist NicoleDeAngelo at 617-305-6277 or email<[email protected]> to schedule anappointment. ❦

Promote your photograph collections by sharing an image of an historic event, place, or person with the NEA community.

The NEA Newsletter is seeking submissions from repositories in New England for back cover pictorial features in This Season in

New England History. Send submissions in JPG or TIFF format, along with a caption detailing the subject of the photograph, to:

<[email protected]>. Photographs must be scanned at 600 dpi or better.


July 11 – 15, 2007. Society for the History of Authorship,Reading and Publishing (SHARP) Annual Conference,“Open the Book, Open the Mind.” Minneapolis, MN. Co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota. For details see<www.cce.umn.edu/conferences/sharp/>.

Aug 6 – 10, 2007. Electronic Records Summer Camp. LaJolla, CA. Sponsored by the Society of American Archivists,the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the Nation-al Archives and Records Administration (NARA) ElectronicRecords Archives (ERA) Program, and the University ofMaryland. For details and registration information see<www.archivists.org/prof-education/summercamp.asp>.

Aug 27 - Sep 2, 2007. Society of Amercian ArchivistsAnnual Meeting. Chicago, IL. For details and registrationinformation see <www.archivists.org/conference/index.asp>.

Calendar Sep 15, 2007. Submissions due for the Brenda McCallumPrize, presented by the American Folklore Society’s Archivesand Libraries Section for an exceptional work dealing withfolklife archives or the collection, organization, and man-agement of ethnographic materials. Contact: Marcia K.Segal, American Folklife Center, The Library of Congress,<[email protected]>, (202) 707-2076 (fax). For a list of pastrecipients and their research topics, go to<www.afsnet.org/sections/archives/prize.cfm>.

Sep 26 – 29, 2007. Association of Moving ImageArchivists (AMIA) annual conference. Rochester, NY. For details and registration information see <www.amiaconference.com/2007/>.

Sep 27 – 29, 2007. I-CHORA 3. The Third InternationalConference on the History of Records and Archives. Boston,MA. Hosted by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Fordetails and registration information see <www3.fis.utoron-to.ca/research/i-chora/home.html>.

Oct 1, 2007. National Historical Publications and RecordsCommission (NHPRC) deadline (for May 2008 meeting). Guidelines and application forms may be downloaded fromthe guidelines page or may be requested from the NHPRC,National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 111, Washington, DC20408-0001, phone: 202-501-5610, fax: 202-501-5601.For further information see <www.archives.gov/nhprc/announcement/>.❦

Press releases and other announcements of upcoming activities to be published in the Newsletter should be sent toNEA, c/o WPI Archives and Special Collections, GordonLibrary, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609, or sentvia e-mail to <[email protected]>. Please providethe date, time, place and a brief description of the eventand the name, address and telephone number of the personto be contacted for information.

NEA is always looking for ideas for sessions at the fall and spring meetings. Your suggestions are invited!

Please complete and send this form to: Nora MurphyReference Archivist, Institute ArchivesMassachusetts Institute of Technology77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Proposed by: ______________________________________________________________________________

Institution: _______________________________________________________________________________

Mailing address ____________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Phone: ______________________________________ Fax: ______________________________________

E-mail: ___________________________________________________________________________________

Please provide a brief description of the session you’d like to see offered at an NEA meeting. If possible, include the overall purposeand a general description of the session, and its intended audience (including skill level and topic category). If you have ideas forpotential speakers for this session, please include their names and institutional affiliations.

NEW ENGLAND ARCHIVISTSWPI Archives and Special CollectionsGordon Library100 Institute RoadWorcester, MA 01609

Non-profit OrganizationU.S. PostagePAIDBoston, Massachusetts 02205Permit Number 56006

Fourth of July Parade, circa 1910.

In the early days of Children’s Hospital Boston a sanitarium was established in the country to care forconvalescents. “It was thought that much advantage would result to patients giving them change ofscene and air, and that diseases which had failed to respond to medical treatment and good regimealone, would be hastened to a cure by these agencies.” Children’s Hospital Annual Report, 1874. As thehospital grew, the need for non-acute long-term care for the patients increased. Responding to thisneed, the hospital’s Ladies’ Aid Association rented a small house in Weston, Massachusetts and openedit as a convalescent home for children in 1874. The children in this image were patients at the home,participating in Independence Day festivities. Image courtesy of Children’s Hospital Boston Archives.

This Season in New England History