The Value of Archives for Students of History

                On our last day of class, we discussed our evaluation of this Archives and Manuscripts course. We unanimously agreed that records management was our least favorite thing to learn about, but as is the way with records management, it’s a dry, but necessary component of understanding archives.

                One of the questions that I had tinkered with throughout the semester was: Why aren’t all of the history graduate students required to take this course? And what about the undergraduate history majors? To me, it just seemed obvious. If historians-in-the-making aren’t aware of how records are created and placed in the archives, how can they more competently question the sources with which they’re working to construct their various arguments?

                That is not to say that no one has discussed archives in traditional history courses. My historical methods class delved into power and silences in the archive, but focused very little on these creations. The archives are one of the primary, if not the primary source, of information for historians. The provenance of documents is just as important as their contents. Historians, myself included, need to understand how records change hands and what this means for the information that they’re using to create their historical arguments.

                As I said in class, I think taking this course in a modified version for traditional-track history students would be beneficial to training historians more effectively. As evidenced in several comments in class, there is a working tension between the academy and those outside of it. But to more effectively practice history, there needs to be some sort of consensus in how public and office historians can work together. Taking a course in archival theory might be a step towards achieving that goal.  

Oral History - Immediacy

                Oral history is the process by which interviews are recorded to document the lives and stories of everyday people as they describe their experiences during important historical events. As I conducted my research for my final paper, I found that several scholars had traced the roots of oral history to the archives themselves. Several archives create oral history projects and its own archivists even conduct these interviews to expand the scope of their collections in support of their mission.

                One particular example that I found to be the most fascinating was Columbia University’s September 11, 2001, Oral History Narrative and Memory Project. In the days and weeks following 9/11, Columbia’s Oral History Research Office prepared the project to interview as many different people as possible to gain an understanding of people’s thoughts and emotions of those living in New York City in the midst of the chaos. It was an inclusive project, recording the voices and memories of hundreds of people, including Afghan-Americans, immigrants, refugees, and other marginalized groups who faced fear-based violence from other Americans in such a time of uncertainty.

                What most interested me about the project was that the project was conducted just a few weeks after 9/11. During my first week of graduate school last year, I learned that one of the four pillars of public history is immediacy. Public historians ask themselves what a particular community needs at any given moment. In the case of Columbia’s project, the immediacy of 9/11 was more than evident.

                I do think that conducting projects in the midst of important events serves to create a valuable piece of historical documentation for the future. However, it is also concerning that the oral historians in this case are also affected, at least indirectly, by the events of 9/11 as well. They lived, worked, and played in New York City and its surrounding areas just as their informants did. Archivists, of course, are never neutral in any of these scenarios, but their participation in this project is especially contentious because they also have experiences that may color the way in which they conduct interviews. Perhaps this is a positive thing because it becomes a way to connect with informants and potentially better shapes the narrative. Either way, Columbia’s foresight in creating this record will be an invaluable record of one of the most defining moments of American history. 

On Preserving Star Wars Audio Tapes

       I always receive a shocked reaction (and sometimes outright anger) when I reveal that I have never seen Star Wars. I promise it's on my list, but training to become a public historian has taken up quite a bit of my time at the moment.

     But what I did recently learn about Star Wars is that to preserve the audio recordings of the original films, Hollywood engineers are baking the tapes as a method of preservation![1] I remember we had discussed this method in class, but it was intriguing to see this process was used on such a valuable piece of popular culture.

     Baking the audio reels helps to slow the process of "sticky-shed syndrome," a condition in which the glue that holds the magnetic tape together begins to come apart. Baking the reels at a low temperature helps to reactivate the magnetic bonds for a period of time, but it can do only do so much and is only sometimes effective. This is an issue faced at other archives as well, though I wonder about the precedents of this method. The Atlantic reported on this strange preservation case, citing other precedents in which The British Museum bakes the cuneiform tablets at over 1300 degrees Fahrenheit. While the Star Wars reels are baked at very low temperatures, it is an interesting measure to slow deterioration.

     In 2002 Jim Wheeler created the Videotape Preservation Handbook. In it, Wheeler describes the symptoms of "sticky-shed syndrome." A strange gummy film develops on the tape's surface, which over time, can begin to distort the film itself. Wheeler explains that the baking process should be repeated to continually solve the problem, but it is no permanent fix. [2]

     What is certainly interesting about this particular example is that science, archival preservation techniques, and popular culture all feed into one another. The deterioration process is for the time being inevitable, but measures are being taken to convert the film to other formats so that not all is lost.